thisisme.

2007-04-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

moved!
to http://reveriedouche.livejournal.com
because its tiring to sign into both blogger and lj when i can sign into just lj!
laziness i know (:
its not "memories to last a lifetime" afterall.
goodbye, you have been good while you lasted.

2007-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

was talking to jasmin online, and she reminded me about the soccer lj that we used to have, so i logged in and took a look at the entries we wrote, and i found one of mine! and there was this funny conversation that i remembered.

christl: hey alex you played well!
alex: really ah? but that srjc girl was sooo irritating! she kept man-mugging me!!
christl: man-mugging? you think its studying ah?
alex: huh its not man-mug meh?
christl: NOOO its not man-MUG its man-MARK!!

haha when i read that i just laughed out loud.

and what salome wrote before the finals.

My beloved team mates,
Read these words slowly and let them go through your mind,heart and soul. Let the meaning of the words sink deep into your heart.
Don't lose your way
With each passing day
WE've come soo far
Don't throw it away
Keep believing in yourself and the team
Dreams are for living
Wonders are READY to start
Live OUR story FAITH,HOPE AND GLORY
Hold to the truth(that we are capable of the champion title) in your heart

If WE hold on together
I know OUR dreams will NEVER die
Dreams see US through till forever.

This is it girls.
THE FIRST TIME VJC GIRLS' SOCCER GETS INTO THE FINALS.
We've fought so much to get here. The tears, the physical battles, the emotional struggles, the mental fears -OVERCOMED. And we will fight on.
I believe that WE have the will to win as a team,and we will.
LEt us unite in turning our dreams into reality.
for eternity.

Yours truly, Salome

awww :'( makes me feel like crying!
i can never forget, and you guys have no idea how much i miss you, and yearn to be back in the team again!

the juniors' first match is on 18th april against srjc at farrer park. im definitely going down! go for it, we all have faith and trust in you (:

steph i wish you were back hereeeeeeee :'(

love charmaine

2007-04-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

im contemplating moving to livejournal.
more privacy, you know?
but this one holds a lot of memories!
hmmmmm.

2007-04-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

hello (:
today's april fool's, but im glad i wasn't the victim of any pranks. i remember last year's april fool's though it was quite amusing, especially the "hair-raising experience" by jolyn, alex and claudia the pranksters.
read the 1st april entry:
http://reveriedouche.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

class gathering at clar's house last night with half of rgs405 2004 (:
it was good seeing everyone again, haven't seen them i such a long while simply since i was in vj and the main bulk was in rj, with some in hc. well yawen and shiling were my fellow victorians at class gathering too (: it was great that there we no awkward silences or anything, and we had a good dinner(thanks clar!) with beehoon, chicken wings, squid and fish. all of the meat were supposed to be barbeque food, but haha they were just dumped in the oven, and tasted no less delicious (:
group photo of us when i receive it!

and before class gathering was lunch at ramen ten with the usual minus clar who had a tennis match. yay jac and i had our fill of spicy lala, angie had her Hokkaido oysters. after that we just shopped a lot (: it was good finding nice things, nowadays everything in the shops are mass produced they all look alike. and we all bought a pair of shoes each (((: bels, white patent wedge, angie's fuschia snakeskin peeptoe-d killer heels, jac's white patent killer heels, shannie's fuschia snakeskin pointies, and my electric blue flats (:

okay im off to watch walk the line!

love charmaine

2007-03-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

i watched crash on star movies yesterday, and its VERY GOOD (: so those of you who haven't watched it, please do. its amazing how everything fell into place towards the end of the movie, no wonder it has won 3 oscars (: very often we don't realise how our lives are all interlinked, and that your actions can affect people around you, even strangers.

also, angie got these for me and herself (((((:

wow im a creative director/designer! the diamonds on the namecard make me feel like singing "diamonds are foreverrrrrr" you know the james bond song. they have arrived in angie's mail so she going to pass them to me on saturday, i really can't wait.

love charmaine

2007-03-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

look steph, now i can't even tag my own tagboard!!
what is this.
so now im replying you in an entry (:
yeah i know, for me, even swimming in sentosa is a bit scary!
when are you coming back next?
and i've just smsed you about the juniors' black jersey!
lots of opportunity for you to spam ((((:

and

haha yes angie you're totally coherent!

2007-03-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

today's cheryl's birthday!

so we went to jack's place for dinner to celebrate before most of them went to watch phantom of the opera (:some of us (: olivia cheryl me irvin shawny.

dearest cheryl,
you've been a good friend, and may you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of God, and be an example to the younger girls in church (: i remember not too long ago, when i first knew you, you were sec 1 or 2, and now you're j1! i really thank God for someone like you, and i look forward to many more years of friendship!

the lamb chop gave me a tummy upset though :(
and right now i feel like eating kenny rogers!

2007-03-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

hello (: for now i shall talk about the happy things.
the kelong trip was fun and very relaxing, im glad i went for it even though there were so few girls, just geraldine and i. lots of pictures coming up (:

we had to sit a ferry to batam, then took a van to this rural area to take a boat to the kelong itself. i kinda felt like an illegal immigrant, because this is what we see in movies/shows when illegal immigrants are smuggled heh.

our kelong!

the long long boardwalk from the kelong towards a small island.

REALLY good food (: for seafood lovers like me. everyday we had crabs(freshly caught because they have this huge net where they keep live craps), fish(freshly caught too) and squid(duh freshly caught). and to shellfish(called gong gongs, that's what the rest told me) that looked really gross, but i thought it tasted quite nice, but decided otherwise after that.
geraldine and i decided to ask the lady how she cooked her calamari and now we know! just that the lady only spoke teochew, so geraldine was my translator (:

the extremely cute puppy who was really terrified of us when we first arrived(he was trying to hide behind the flowerpot but we cornered him whit out handphone cameras haha).

on the 2nd day we took the boat to a beach on another island. the water was VERY clear and the sand was VERY fine. pretty scenery too (:

geraldine and i picking shells and pieces of dead coral(which make very nice decorations for fish tanks, a pity i don't have one) but as you can see, the scenery's great.

after lunch on the 2nd day we fished! at the kelong. okay at least the guys did. daniel ong is having a lot of fun indeed.

haha geraldine and i mainly harassed the small craps that were on the kelong stilts :D
you see the long long long pole we were holding actually has a net attached to it which can't me seen in the photo. it was very heavy okay, and we maneuvered it with such clumsiness while the locals could use it to catch squid!

more crab harassing. we caught a total of 3 in the end (((:

oh and during fishing somehow someone said that the locals were killing a duck(fir dinner) so irvin and i went to watch. it was quite gross actually, they cut all around the duck's neck and let the blood drip out slowly. and when a lot of blood had already dripped out, the poor duck still could lift its head :( then they cut even deeper (right to the throat i think) and the duck struggled so there was blood on both of us. and you could even see the blood coagulating and becoming thicker and thicker so in the end it looked like red paint.
i didn't eat the duck dish at dinner.

group photo on the last day!

another one (:

and the amazing scenery in the mornings and afternoons. i like glittering seas (:

i would like to go back again! time away from singapore(i've been itching to get away from here) with no distractions, and it definitely made me feel closer to God since we were so much closer to his creation. no hustle and bustle and running from here to there like in youth and church camps (: a true blue retreat. waking up in the mornings a breeze with the sea view just outside your window, sitting on the boardwalk reading the bible or the book that i brought along(secretly i was terrified that someone would accidentally push me and i'd fall off into the sea haha), having lots of free time, playing taboo or citadels(mwhahahaha), just looking out into the sea.

the reasons why i was terrified of falling into the sea are:
1. you'll never know what's below you
2. everything we did(everything from the toilet bowls, toilet paper and you-know-whats, soap and shampoo from bathing) went into the sea (:

love charmaine

2007-03-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

hello (:
i finally finished my university applications! it was a great chore, but i hope that i get to do something that i really like and am interested in.
and azrul kindly agreed to write me a testimonial (: thanks a lot! and i also listed him down as a referee for NUS to call.

Yup, i wish you the best in your application really hope you will get thru. Either ways, I have confidence that you will excel in whatever you choose to do. Come back soon k?

Regards,

i will probably be going down to the girls' matches when season starts. i bet its gonna be really exciting.

oh oh haha i listed down angie as my referee too (: because i mentioned getPLUSH! angie please help me and say some coherent things if they call you, haha thank you very much.

online application is done, but there's still testimonials and photocopies of results, cip hours etc etc to be sorted out. i just hope i don't send the wrong things to the wrong universities.

yesterday when i was at arab street, i received a call from philippines, yes tuao. i answered and a familiar voice said "hello this is elgin, charmaine i miss you a lot". and i felt so guilty for not writing and sending things over when i promised i would! if i can't go in may i will definitely send things there, no more "later"s.

getPLUSH! has been uploaded with this:
and a few other things (:
okay time to run along to the post office and get angie's bag and do some shopping for the trip tomorrow!
love charmaine

2007-03-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

so yesterday kelvin and hwee yee got married (: yay!

the pretty bride and her dad (:

i didn't manage to get any pictures of the bride and groom though, i will get my hands on some!
olivia and i had a lot of fun throwing the rose petals haha.

me, andrea, olivia
in the sweltering heat so we sat outside.

the groom singing to the bride! at the dinner at mariott.
it was REALLY sweet and romantic (:
later on he played forever love on the piano and sang along, which is really challenging for someone who doesn't play piano or speak chinese properly haha.

it was the most special wedding i(and im sure most of the youths) have ever attended, partially because we all are quite close to kelvin, and also because of the way he expressed his love, not only for hwee yee, but for his parents, and most importantly God. and hearing people cry while talk makes me want to cry too.

the girls (:
andrea me olivia cheryl.

andrea and i (:
after most people had left because there was church the next day.

now i feel like getting married. really! during the dinner cheryl, olivia and i were talking about our (future, hopefully) weddings. cheryl would rather get married on grass than on sand(she wants an open-air sort of ceremony, no buildings for her). but i can't imagine myself married(my mom is paranoid that i won't), just like i couldn't imagine myself going to university when i was in primary school, but here i am, having to apply to universities right now. we're all growing up.

uncle edward has told me that there's going to be another trip to tuao in may! i REALLY want to go, you have no idea how much. there's going to be another one in december, the youth one like dec last year, but i probably can't go for that because university has weird holidays. its been really good to get away from here, where things are much simpler and more refreshing, and the people are so different, and just focus on God and His plan for me.

AND speaking of going away, im going away to a kelong in riau islands for the young people's retreat ((((: from the 21st to 23rd march, and i think its gonna be really fun yay.

anyway angie, im over my initial sadness, i just want you to know that im genuinely happy for you. i will treasure the times we go out before you officially leave (: love you!

love charmaine

2007-03-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

hello (:

today was walk-around-a-lot day! i had to go to bras basah to get stuff for getPLUSH! and then met cheryl to hunt for a wedding present. it wasn't that successful, but at least we bought something nice (: but my back was breaking, my shoulder was aching, and my soles felt like they were being sandpaper-ed at the end of it all.

then it was off to ps to meet christie and raisa! we've known each other since primary 2. that's like 11 long years (: which is more than half our lifetime. we ate at thai express, im sticking to green curry next time!! i had curried softshell crab with rice and it wasn't that nice, i becasme sick of it halfway through the dish. but their prawn toast was really good (: i know it sounds weird, but please do go and try it the next time you go there, you won't regret it.

despite my lousy choice of food, it was good sitting and talking about the old times, and about primary schoolmates (: yay i think we all need more get togethers.

me christie raisa at thai express.

why do i look so skinny in this photo?! ewww.

us again, at newyork newyork last year shortly after the As.

love charmaine

2007-03-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

hello (:
local university open houses on saturday was fine, i went with angie, jac, king, and angie's friend sam who's quite nice. i've kinda decided which courses im going to apply to, but i still need time for it to sink in and lots of prayers. so i'll probably apply only at the end of this week or start of next week.
after that i did some shopping with jac(i didn't buy anything, she did haha) and we went to the lime flee market at cine cos jac wanted to look for a stall.

anyway the sleepover just ended today and i feel like my biological clock's all messed up. we had a walk around joseph's house area, ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing over the designer houses, and getting to know one another better. had a pizza dinner that auntie rosie kindly ordered for us, while watching charlotte's web. then we ran out of things to watch, and cheryl and i decided to walk out to videoezy to rent dvds. had a good talk along the way. watched mean girls, and part of my super ex-girlfriend(which is a horrid terrible senseless sleazy kind of show, which explains why we stopped watching) and then played taboo and some other game late into the ight(should i say morning). then i declared that i had to go to sleep(haha) at about 4 am, and cheryl and i went into joanna's room where we talked in the dark until about 5:30 am, and finally went to sleep.

and i had to wake up at 8am! that's waaaayyyy too little sleep for me, so i came home and slept from 11am to 3pm, woke up to eat lunch, then slept from 4pm to 8pm (:

okay i got to go and think of stuff to make for getPLUSH! i know i haven't updated in a while and it feels weird!

2007-03-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

this is what my mom said to me today:

"i still think you're a smart girl you know, i don't know why."

she didn't say it in a malicious or angry way, i don't think that she even meant that im stupid, i just got very angry. and not to mention hurt.

i just wish that she'd stop going on about results, or even stuff that somehow related to results, because i always get im-disappointed-with-you vibes, even though she doesn't say anything that implies that.
you know what, i don't think i did badly, i really don't. i did average, not amazing, not lousy, just average.

stop stop stop just STOP.

i love you, and i wish i didn't disappoint you, but i did, and there's nothing more i can do, i just wish we'd all move on. but i can't move on if you keep holding on to what cannot be changed!

2007-03-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

reply to tags:
jolyn: to tell you the truth, that day(saturday)when we went back, i just felt unwanted, and it was awkward because none of the juniors looked happy to see us(except farah) and no one really came to talk to us. but i suppose that was just a bad day, because you guys were alright on results day (:
stella: yes i totally agree. nothing really feels worse than not living up to others' expectations, especially when they make it clear that they expect something if you're a blah blah blah school's student.
passerby: thank you!
joanna: thanks for the well wishes (: im really grateful to God for my results and you! love you too.
shawn: yup i agree with you, something good will some out of this (:
steph: haha well now you can tag all you want! i've emailed you alreadyyyy!
angie: (:

okay there's going to be an overload of photos! i know i haven't put up much photos the past few entries - my camera's main job nowadays is to take photos for getPLUSH!.

we had dinner at desire at the scarlet the night of angie's birthday(tuesday).

yummy dessert (:
good cake which had peanut butter in it, apple pilo, and vanilla icecream with some decoration made of sugar/honey. angie's plate was special, it had "happy birthday angelina" in chocolate written on it and she was so happy.

us! on the seat: jac, angie and i, behind: clar, shannie, bel.
with the lovely plush seat, and part of angie's cake. and the 4 eeyores which never fail to traumatise everyone except clar and jac.

cutting the cake. i don't know why i look so happy. okay i was happy for angie because she turned nineteen! the last year when your age has a "teen" behind.

after dinner at the rooftop alfresco dining place. its called breeze i think (:

in the lobby on yet another comfortable sofa haha!
may your wish come true angie (:

boutique hotels are really lovely, even the toilets are unique (: but of course, the rates should be high as well. it was a lovely night spent with angie, and her family.

the black and whites! haha this was the wednesday before results were released.

across the table
shannie, clar(being her usual self) and jac.

this sunday to monday there's gonna be a girls' sleepover for the younger girls in church at auntie rosie's house, and i think cheryl and i are gonna be the only older ones who are staying over, so i'd better recharge for the weekend.
the younger girls are filled with endless amounts of energy, unlike me, im getting old haha. i can just imagine, late at night, they're talking and laughing and jumping on beds and i'll be falling asleep.
maybe we'll watch a horror movie. hah. that should be enough to keep me up ALL NIGHT.
love charmaine

2007-03-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

happy 19th angie!

thank you for being such a great friend, the person i see at least once a week(for you-know-what), my confidante, my fellow icedmilktea-and-ebiriceburger-lover not to forget ramen ten as well, and to top it all off, my business partner (:
you're the only person who makes me feel like a tour guide when we're out, and sometimes i'll follow you and we'll be like 'where are we?!', but i still love you!
if you really do go to uk, i will miss you:'( but its your dream yeah, so go for it.

yesterday i went out with angie(AGAIN) and we watched the pursuit of happyness. its a nice show, very inspirational, so if you're feeling down in the dumps, do watch it (: will smith's son(in the show and in real life) is very very very adorable.

on sunday night i went to the airport to send steph off to australia. and after she went into the boarding area, i couldn't help but cry :'( i was just hit by the sudden realisation that she's really going away. thank you christl for giving me that great big hug. which reminded me of:

really you know.

all of us there (: jas, viv, waiyan, sara, grace, me, christl, steph, salome

i miss you very much. sometimes you read me better than others can.

love charmaine

2007-03-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

i've tried to be positive about my results, and really, im content with my grades despite the fact that i didn't get 3 or 4 As. and i've already planned what courses i can study in university,but my mom is totally not supportive right now, and one look and you can tell that she's disappointed in me.
i told her that maybe i can study sociology or english language which im really interested in, and she went like "i don't know."

and she wants me to do some science/biology related course(even though she didn't say that outright), which i don't want because i've come to realise that im not interested in science.

she's always telling me that she knows me, that i can do better, just that im a very last minute person etc etc etc. i admit that i do think i could have done better, but that's not the issue here. the issue is that i have already gotten my results, and nothing can be changed, the only thing to do is to make the best of them.

i didn't cry in school, but my mom's disappointment made me cry at home.

i wish i didn't do so well in my psle, because then i'd have to live up to my "potential", which i haven't done so since.

its amazing how a single slip of paper can hold so much hope and hurt.

all that said, im really grateful to God for my results, and i will make the best of it.

2007-02-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

this morning when my mom woke me up to go to church i had a panic attack because i thought that today's friday and it was time to COLLECT RESULTS. then i asked her "today is sunday?" and she said yes. and i heaved a sigh of relief. then today we sang tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and after that i really felt at peace and my worries were gone. whaterever my lot, i will accept it!

and i don't like it when i tell people that i seriously don't think i will do well(not in the kind of whiny way, but in a i-really-mean-it way), some will go "CAN LAH!" how do they know if i "can" or not? or it will be the usual "aiyah, you are from rgs and vj, sure can one!". that is a gross assumption that should not be made! sometimes it makes me feel worse, like im not living up to expectations or something.

i feel like an old fogey next to the 13, 14 and 15 year olds in church. its true! and right now i feel even more like an old fogey because my whole right arm+shoulder are aching, and i don't even know why because i lead a VERY sedentary lifestyle nowadays. only old fogies get mysterious aches.
yesterday dinner with melodie, angelin, hannah, joanne, cheryl and olivia was good (: we had dessert at haagen daz after eating yummy kolo mee. melodie and angelin have loads of youthful energy(i sound like an old fogey) that comes from nowhere(really!) and they just kept laughing laughing at nothing in particular. anyway after dessert they wanted to go to the arcade to play the air hockley thing, but im not an arcade person, so i didn't really want to go. then they went "okay lah old people don't want to go, then we don't go!" haha that made me change my mind. and we played 3 games(i played in all 3 hah! who's the old fogey) and there was much screaming and laughing. cheryl and olivia couldn't stop laughing and so angelin and i managed to beat themmmmm :D and then there will be this thing called 3-puck play(i've never ever heard of it last time it was always just 1 puck) and we'd get really frantic. but it was all good fun (:

after that olivia and i couldn't help but wander into the animal safari and we stood there ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the cute furballs called hamsters and they just slept so peacefully, not knowing that people are watching them.
now we know that joanne and cheryl can't stand animals. and cheryl wants a lion for her birthday.

today's youth 1 and 2 fellowship was quite fun, though i did feel like an old fogey(again).

2007-02-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

hello (:
in the past few days i've
- gone out with angie to you-know-where(s)
- welcomed my brother home from the hospital yayyyy
-gone out with jac and shannie and angie for lunch at the asian kitchen
-celebrated my brother's birthday at home with the MEGAcareteam (:
- given my brother 2 very nice presents that i really like! not that i would use them im not a guy.

today i finally went back to vj to see the soccer juniors with christl steph alex and waiyen. it wasn't what i expected, but oh well. things have changed, dynamics have changed, and really it isn't surprising. but it was nice to see something that is(or was? i don't know.) a treasured part of me.

other than that it was nice meeting christl and steph for breakfast and talking just like the good old days.

and sitting in the sun for a while at the grandstand has given me sunburn. now i have a red nose, red cheeks, and obvious tanlines on my shoulders. i kinda miss being tanned and fitter and healthier, and the feeling of having just exercised.

sometimes i really wonder if the whole thing's just part of my imagination, if i really ever did belong to the team, but then the memories and photos and videos tell me otherwise.

you know we tend to filter out all the bad parts of our memories, such that over time, we develop untainted, pristine ones that seem perfect and happy and nice. its funny how we can change our memories into things we want them to be.

sorry im just feeling kinda pensive.

2007-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

i don't think i try so hard to come up with designs just to let others copy them.

its not that i think im very creative, or that my designs are the best, but its simply not ethical or professional when you do the same thing(albeit in different colours).

if i see something that i really like,
1. i would buy from the person
2. use the same materials but at least make it look completely different.

thank you and i hope it will not happen again.

that said, no hard feelings!

2007-02-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

hello getPLUSH! has been updated! with:

and angie's mom is so cute! haha she used angie's lj account to comment on cupid's arrow:

Hello Charmaine, this is really lovely. Chic and funcky. I like it very much! Can I order one please? Aunty Khar Nai

haha (((((:

today my uncle, aunt, zhiwei and mae visited my brother in hospital. and after a while zhiwei started blowing saliva bubbles at me ewwww gross. mae was reading the archie comics that i use to entertain myself in the hospital just like how we did when we were younger.

other than that, tomorrow the shops will be opened! and then i can go out and buy things! yay (: i hope i don't sound materialistic, haha i mean buy stuff to make pretty things with.

okay that's all for today!

love charmaine

2007-02-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

[edit]haha okay i REALLY am blogging too much but this is important! click on the link to watch the video for shine, by take that. its really nice (: really. franz ferdinandish and i like the kaleidoscopish part. watch it! it makes me feel hopeful haha.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_BuX0eTjJRk [/edit]

the view from the window at the hospital

yay my brother's right lung is up to more than 95% already (: the last time it was about 60%. my dad, mom and i have been trying to encourage to do his breathing exercises despite the pain, and its a very hard thing to do. you don't want to push him too much and break him down, yet you don't want to let him stop doing the exercises just because of a little pain. a very fine balance indeed.
well now we're just praying that his condition will improve day by day, if it worses, he's back to square 1 yet again, and he'll be very beaten.

getPLUSH! is doing very well and im very happy! hahahahaha. its doing much better than i expected (: thank you to everyone who has helped publicise, and i hope you will continue to do so ((((:

like for example,
if your friend says "i want to get accessories, but the ones they sell in the shops are sooooo common!!" you can direct her to getPLUSH!

or if you have a guy friend who says "i want to give my girlfriend a nice surprise for her birthday/our anniversary/no occasion at all(surprises don't have to be on occasions!), and i want to get something special, but i don't know where to get it..."
you can direct him to getPLUSH!

or if you know guys who are looking for presents for their platonic girlfriend, why not direct him to getPLUSH!

and needless to say, to those of you who know the site, feel free to drop by and buy something!
we do customisations for anyone and everyone (:

okay, haha that's the end of my sales pitch.

love charmaine

2007-02-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

yay my brother is feeling much better now ((((:

2007-02-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

today my mom and i cried at the hospital. its just too frustrating, and this nurse was like "don't blame me! don't blame me! don't blame me!" when she increased the suction force and my brother felt this huge jolt of pain and he was crying. well my brother crying led to me crying which led to my mom crying. its hard to see someone you love in such great pain, you know.

anyhow, no, we must not cry, it just makes the whole atmosphere too depressing, especially since the 4-bed ward only has my brother and another indian guy(who is always depressed and has to have the whole place quiet like a ghost town so we have to watch television with practically no sound, and he stares blankly out of the window as well).

the nice indonesian old man with cancer was moved to another bed yesterday so that he can be monitored more closely. my brother says that he can hear the old man's moans even though they're not in the same room anymore.

in church there was too much stating of the obvious like "your brother has to spend chinese new year in the hospital..."(we all know that fact) and many many other things that i can't say here because i know some of the adults will read this.

and i pray that God will give my brother determination, i think he has almost lost whatever determination he had before.

it felt weird yesterday when everyone was having reunion dinner and i was eating burger king with my mom. haha burger king because everywhere else that we could eat eat was closed! but i don't really mind a quiet new year, usually its filled with noisy little cousins who run around, aunties who ask lots and lots(and im sure this year they'll be reminding me that results are coming out), awkward exchanges with distant cousins/relatives whom i've never seen before in my whole life(my grandfather had 3 wives). but i do miss my grandmother's(dad's side) good cooking!

and i need someone to talk to :'(

chinese new year does not feel like chinese new year.

2007-02-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

hello (:
i think i've been blogging too much!
today(okay technically its yesterday, friday) i went out with angie. yeah okay, no prizes for guessing where we want haha. but today i we spent a bomb. especially on a particular strand of semiprecious stones that we thought was $20, so we wanted to share and pay $10 each, but it turned out it was $40(??!!!?!!) so we had to pay $20 each in the end.

we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.
we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.
we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.
we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.
we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.
we will learn to look at price tags more carefully.

BUT that said, the stones are VERY PRETTY, they remind me of chocolate (: really. so look out for them on getPLUSH! and be prepared to pay more hahahaha.

had an early reunion dinner with my mom's side today, but i feel that we are all growing more and more distant with one another, and that made me quite sad. there was only my mom and i(my dad was in the hospital with my brother), mae's family minus zhiern who's in cornell, my grandmother and my 3rd uncle(my 3rd aunt and my 2 cousins are in australia attending a wedding). my 1st and 2nd uncles and their families were not there. then my 1st uncle came back(dinner was at his house) but he left without eating! then mae had to leave for an interview, and zhiwei drove her there.

tomorrow mae's family and my 3rd uncle are going to malaysia. mae and zhiwei kept urging me to go, and you all know how much i want to go, but with my brother in hospital and my family in singapore how can i enjoy myself properly even if i went! yeah so i said no i can't in the end and i nearly cried because i just felt so torn :S

on a brighter note, i managed to pass mae the many many things that she bought from me and collected money (((((: a hundred over bucks. haha i know i know i sound like a loanshark.

today at the hospital my brother was in pain! but after they gave him the painkiller he could do the respiratory exercise that's very important (: and he managed to do to 1000ml up from 500ml. yay (: chinese new year will probably be spent in the hospital, but its alright (: maybe we can lao yusheng in the hospital yeah right. but i think my brother's lucky, at least his is not a life-or-death thing you know? the nice indonesian old man opposite his bed has cancer of the oesophagus and it has spread to his stomach.

love charmaine

2007-02-16T22:15:00.000-08:00

and one of the parts that got to me the most:

It was a known area of Japanese sniper fire. Perhaps Franklin forgot that. Perhaps he figured the Japanese had stopped shooting. Perhaps he was daydreaming about marion.
The shot got him from behind. As the boys around him dove to the ground, Franklin swatted absently at his back, as though brushing away a blue-tailed fly. Then he fell.
Someone shouted to him: "How ya doin?" and Franklin answered back, "Not bad. I don't feel anything."
And then he died.

to all the people out there who feel so 'gungho' and want to go and fight a was and be hearoic or something, you don't know what you're getting into. the horrors during the war itself, and the haunting memories after that. its not as easy as you imagine.

now i just want to watch flags of our fathers and letters from iwo jima.
and i want my brother to get better.

2007-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

i've just finished reading flags of our fathers yesterday, and it made me cry many many times. you all should go and read it, it really exposes you to the horrors of war, regardless of who is 'right' or 'wrong'.

Danny Thomas and Chick Harris were called the "Buttermilk Boys" because they were too young to buy drinks on liberty.
"I was charging ahead and saw Chick on the beach, facing out to sea, his back to the battle." Thomas recalled.
His buddy was in a strange posture: His head and torso were erect, as though he'd let himself be buried in the sand waist down in some bizarre prank. As Thomas rushed past him, he yelled a greeting, and saw Chick's hand and eyes move, acknowledging him.
Then Thomas glimpsed something else that made him fall to his knees in the sand, vomitting. The "something else" was blood and entrails.
"I vomitted my toenails out," Thomas remembered, "I realised that Chick had been cut in two. The lower half of his body was gone." He added, "He was the first person i ever saw dead."
"Buttermilk Chick" was fifteen. He had lied about his age to get into the Marines.

"Where's Hauskins?" (Harlon)
"Over there," Stanton replied, and then, "You'd better get down, Harlon."
"Then Harlon just exploded," Melvin Duncan remembered. He was blown into the air; there was dust and debris all around him."
Stanton could see that Harlon had been sliced from his groin to his neck. The All-state pass-catcher, the boy who'd ridden along the banks of Rio Grande on his white horse, stood there a moment, his hands filled with a heavy redness. He gave a strangulated scream:"They killed me!" He struggled with his intestines for a moment longer, then rolled to the ground and died facedown.

2007-02-15T23:02:00.000-08:00

just now i was watching a take that interview on mtv, and they played a song shine from their new album (: its really really nice i like it! patience is nice, but its getting a bit overplayed nowadays, the lyrics are very meaningful though.
anyway about shine, it sounds very franz ferdinand-ish(in my opinion), and the music video is franz ferdinand-ish and broadway-like and cute. haha i really like it! so please go and watch it and don't switch the channel if it ever comes on.
robbie williams looked weird when he was young and in take that haha. really! when i saw him i couldn't help but laugh.
hmmm i think i should add take that to my list of albums that i want to buy (((((:
on another note,
i really love the team and all the memories, but i just can't bring myself to go back :'(
but we can't turn back time, can we?
and we'll never realise till its too late.

2007-02-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

hello (:

my valentine's day was spent with angie, clar and jac eating good food at imperial treasure and good desserts at haagen daz. haha i think we couldn't stop ordering food at imperial treasure.

and we also called bel to disturb her for a while (:

anyway it was a good night out, and i saw shu as well!

next week i'll probably go back to vj to see the much-missed juniors, i really can't wait.

and pray for my brother, may he be able to get out of hospital really really soon (:

our present to jac, clar, bel and shannie, cleopetra with a best friend's tag:

love charmaine

2007-02-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

suddenly im filled with the urge to run out to a music store and buy the

norah jones
james morrison
gwen stefani
john legend
james blunt

albums.

2007-02-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

hello (:
steamboat/barbeque with the girls was good (: apart from the fact that we were quite traumatised with the grill. haha but it was quite fun. shannie was trying to cook a piece of meat successfully(i.e. not burnt) but she kept getting distracted and forgetting the food cooking on the grill.

us after the food. sorry bel was helping us to take the photo! we missed you in the photo (:

other than that i've been going to the hospital, and trying to think of new things to make for getPLUSH!. and earning a fair bit of money (: not a lot, but a fair bit.

and today i finally went for bible class the first time in 2 weeks (: yay. it was nice going back, although everyone kept asking me how is my brother, and i had to repeat myself again and again and again and again and again, until i almost couldn't take it. i mean most people don't even say hi, they just ask me how's my brother, and they expect answers like a specific date he's gonna be discharged, which even the doctors are not sure about, much less us. but he will probably be discharged by the middle of this week if all goes well (:

initially we were planning to go to malaysia over the chinese new year with mae's family and px's family, but now we're not because my aunt booked a place in some mountainous area(bukit tinggi) so we decided not to take the risk.

you know, altitude = change in pressure(a bit) = thinner air = lungs work harder(a bit)

yeah. even though its not like we're going to mount everest, but better safe than never (:

well, i was very disappointed that we were not going because i have been looking forward to this trip since before my A levels last year(imagine that!), and i really felt like crying. mae and px and their families would be up in malaysia and i would be left here to spend a not-as-fun chinese new year because they're the relatives that we're the closest to. but kicking up a fuss would only make my parents feel worse :( and since i couldn't do anything, i've come to accept that we're not going and that's that. so yeah.

getPLUSH! has been updated! http://getplush.livejournal.com

love charmaine

2007-02-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

hello i just need to complain right now.
there's this girl who wanted to buy a necklace from me, and then she said she could meet up with me at taka any day of the week.
i suggested 1pm on friday(last friday), but she didn't check her email and still hadn't replied me that friday. so i emailed her:

hey my last email i suggested 1pm today(friday) haha but since you didn't check your email in time to reply, maybe we could arrange another meetup?

then on saturday she said sorry, could she get it from me sunday at taka. but i said no, cos i had church, and my brother's in hospital and its not convenient. so i suggested monday at taka, and she said no problem, but could i make it today, she's going to vivocity at about 11plus. anyway i emailed and told her i couldn't make it, but she didn't reply.

the whole thing dragged on until monday, and she still hadn't replied me about the meetup to confirm what time etc. and i was ~~quite~~very irritated so i emailed her and said:

hey can you please make it a point to check your email more regularly if you're thinking of purchasing anything online? and do tell me if you're not interested in the item anymore, i'd appreciate it very much

and she replied:

okay im really sorry. im working full shift lik almost everyday and i dont get to check so i'd appreciate if you cld understd. dont have to be so hostile. so do you stil wanna sell it? if not its alright.

i don't think i was hostile. i was irritated, yes, but not hostile. and it was just an email with no "haha"s and ":)"s. yes i suppose its my duty as a seller to be friendly and nice and all welcoming and warm to prospective buyers, and i was very very nice and friendly to her. but her lack of reply for so many times was just too much for me to bear. but okay, at least she was sorry.

okay i just needed to get that off my chest (:

on another note, i really love this jewellery making (: it makes me happy! i told my mom that if i had a choice and could earn a stable income from doing this, i'll do it all my life with no complains.

love charmaine

2007-02-05T22:36:00.000-08:00

i know this is a day late but yayyyyy singapore won the asean championship (:
had a very interesting conversation with irvin last night.

and jac spouts words of wisdom (:

jacintha says:my lifelong dream is to b happy

i will read ashes for you, if you ask me. says:haha so cute!

i will read ashes for you, if you ask me. says:everyone wants to be happy of course (:

jacintha says:heh yup! but most people wish for things they think will make them happy n not just to b happy

other than that business has been picking up (: yay angie.

love charmaine

2007-02-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

had lunch with angie today, and she was my customer too! yay (: and we had yummy red bean pancake double yay ((((:
and job hunting today with shannie was tiring! we went to recruit express and saw king there. then shannie wanted to work for 2 weeks only, because she had a internship waiting for her after chinese new year, and i had nothing, but i only wanted to work for 2 weeks as well. i mean, having to go back to work straight after cny is just such a bummer. so the lady was really shocked(at my laziness probably) so i explained to her that after university i'll be entering the workforce and i won't have this kind of do-nothing holiday anymore, so i don't want to work too much.
but she totally missed my point/explanation, and she went "but university starts later this year right? which means you have many months more." which was not what i was trying to tell her! so in the end she changed my available dates to 1 MONTH LONG! if she calls me with jobs that require committment of at least 1 month, im going to reject them all.
of course right now extra income would be good, but im not desperate for money or anything, and i'd rather enjoy my holidays if i can't get the kind of job i want.
after that shannie and i decided that there probably wouldn't be fantastic job prospects looking at the amountof time we were willing to work, so we went to borders, and far east in search of fun jobs like salesgirls. but all everyone wants are permanent full/parttimers.
oh well.
went to the hospital after that till night.
love charmaine

2007-01-31T23:02:00.000-08:00

just now i was watching the singapore thailand match in the hospital with my brother and mom. going on a strike just because you're not happy with the referee's decision simply reflects badly on your country in general, and it really speaks volumes about your definition of problem solving.
you would think that a bunch of national team players would have played enough matches to know that the referee's decision is final, and the only graceful and dignified thing to do would be to carry on playing and not complain and complain and complain, and worse still walk off the field. even after the match was over they were still complaining.
oh my.
on a better note, lionel lewis made quite a few good saves (:

love charmaine

2007-01-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

hello (:

norah jones has a new song, thinking about you! i really wonder how anyone's voice can sound so smooth.
on another note, i've been sick :( had a fever on monday night, and i haven't really been feeling good ever since. like on the verge of burning up or having another dratted sorethroat.
and i've also been making stuff! to make up for my lack of inspiration the last time round (:
http://getplush.livejournal.com

love charmaine

2007-01-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

yay (: singapore's in the finals! the penalty shootout was so exciting! haha okay la not really. but when lionel lewis saved the last shot, i was like woweeeeee.

it really reminds me of the numerous goalie drills that azrul made farah and i do. there was one where we had to stand on the goal line facing the net, and when he said, "TURN!!" we had to quickly turn around and save a shot that he would kick.

haha and nowadays when i while away my day in the hospital, i will rack my brain trying to think of new things to make! recently i seem to have a lack of creative juices. i need something/someone to inspire me. from morning to night i've been trying to think of what to make, and i always seem to have too little of this or too little of that. it take more than just the lackadaisical throwing together of beads and charms to make the whole earring/bracelet/necklace work. okay hopefully things will get better (:

love charmaine

2007-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

today jing my dearest mentee messaged me out of the blue telling me that she missed me!
haha its nice to be missed (:

i've received the charms that angie and i ordered from the US of A! so keep checking back to getPLUSH! for new updates when our creative juices start flowing haha.

love charmaine

2007-01-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

today i nearly cried at the hospital, and then i realised how dear my brother is to me (:

get well soon!

love charmaine

2007-01-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

hello right now im feeling very useless and unproductive because my fellow bum jac has got a job. yeah so now im just spending money and not earning any(technically, because i don't earn much from getPLUSH!) and even the simplest things like transport cost so much. but i don't want to work for the sake of working and earning money, i don't mind doing something interesting even though it doesn't pay that well.

kjfoaohaehoandaodhoasjdasldkasdkywqoeqwmdal.

on a side note, i really like this photo of clar and i ! lisa took it (:

okay im going off to blind myself looking at the teeny fonts of the classifieds byebye.

love charmaine

2007-01-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

oh my oh my. i was just watching the singapore vs malaysia semifinal for the asean championship, and now its half time, but the score is still 0-0 :(

anyway in my (unprofessional) opinion, during the first half, the singapore players:

1. did not communicate enough. i mean, sometimes 2 players will be running for the ball at the same time! wastes time and energy. haha now i know how azrul felt last time when we didn't really open our mouths to shout for the ball.

2. was too crowded up most of the time

3. did not see where they were kicking to, most of the time they passed the ball to a malaysian player!

and of course, the fact that aide iskandar kept grabbing people does not help at all. and the fitness issue, but its not like im very fit anyway.
oh and there was one moment, the 42nd 43rd minute i think, when the singapore side nearly scored a goal, but the ball rebounded off the malaysian keeper. i thought a stiker's first instinct would be to run for the ball and try to score again or at least gain possession again, instead the 2 of them just pulled their hair in frustration and kind of stopped running for the ball.
whaaaaat was that.

okay anyway GO SINGAPORE! haha i hope the 2nd half will be better (:

watching soccer matches ALWAYS makes me nostalgic.

love charmaine

2007-01-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

[edit] i finally got down to watching the video that was made for teamnight and it made me cry. i suppose words can't express how i really feel, its a mixture of yearning, happiness, sadness, regret, plus a whole flood of bittersweet memories, but i really miss you guys :'( we've got to meet up soon. maybe i should go back to vj. i pray that God will fill up this void in me :'( [/edit]

melly my sec 1 to 4 classmate ((((((: look at how dark she is and how white i am.

on saturday it was out with the girls again (: at mindcafe(yes nathaniel i went) and it was okay. i don't really enjoy boardgames but the 2 that we played were alright (: in I'm the Boss tsk clar and melly were so scheming! haha they were plotting and strategising and bargaining and threatening. then we played taboo, which was really heartstopping. we need a bigger hourglass with more sand. but i what i really want to say is that the floats and the food were good! and of course the company (: haha which really beats the point of going to mindcafe because the main attraction should rightfully be the boardgames right?
after that we decided to leave, and it was raining so heavily, but we had to walk from mindcafe back to ps. so shannie and i shared an umbrella and had our scream fest. we kept slipping on the ground, and the rain was just so heavy and our flats we soaked through and the wind was so strong our umbrella flipped up like what you see in comedies.
then at night i had dinner at crystal jade with my relatives because my cousin zhiern was going back to cornell for his new term. haha and i managed to do my sales pitch to my aunties and zhiern's girlfriend(who was also from vj, and who vividly remembers the vj ac guys soccer final 2001 when vj scored after a few seconds with a shot from the halfway mark).

oh on monday i went out with clara and nathaniel to vivocity and we ate at bakerzin (: clara gave me my lovely lovely shoes. it was really nice cathcing up, we should do it again sometime soon (((:

then thursday it was out with jac, and we tried the SPICY LALA RAMEN from ramen ten at fareast which was VERY GOOD, even thought we were tearing and sniffling we couldn't stop eating. haha so everyone should go and try (: jac and i have been thinking about it ever since and tomorrow we're gonna have it again! then i met clar for a while before going home.

careteam on friday was alright, i suppose everyone back in school now is starting to feel weary, so i have a verse for you all! haha okay if you're working and feel weary the verse is for you too (: and keep praying.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.

In this world you may have trouble.

But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

getPLUSH! has been updated (:

http://getplush.livejournal.com

2007-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

haha i know this is kind of late, but i've been too lazy to touch the computer! she turned 19 on 11th jan, thursday (: haha bel, shannie and i decided to start barbequeing first, and we've decided that we're very hazardous cooks. haha no details will be given, basically we predicted that if we were chefs, i'd get my pay docked and bel would get fired.
me shannie lisa and belle! i haven't seen lisa since we left rgs(that's 2 long years lisa!) and belle i haven't seen her since last august i think. haha lookee shannie and her corn (:

clar and ahzang the original (: which i gave to her on her 16th birthday! now jac and clar have so many clones tsk.

and of course a getPLUSH! photo moment (:

and i really really like this photo! haha ((((:

clockwise from me: angie bel melly belle shannie jac lisa

clar's present that i made (: she's wearing it in the 1st photo.

just wanted to say that i love you all to bits!

friday was recording (: which was alright, hopefully we will all take care of our voices and do better for God's glory!

yesterday i went to malaysia with my parents and my grandmother and i found out that i'd had a fever! in addition to flu and a weird throat. it feels terrible to be sick! and so i've been sick up till now. so i didn't manage to meet the soccer juniors for dinner last night :( seems like everytime i want to, something crops up.

love charmaine

2007-01-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

hello (: haha angie is right, so now im updating! i think i've been going out too much and spending too much money, especially since we have to use the adult fares :( its like we have to top up our cards once every 3 times we go out!

sunday i was supposed to meet the rest and their respective better halves, but haha there was some miscommunication, so i didn't in the end. headed to town with andrea, olivia and cheryl after church + singing and ran into then at taka. such a nice coincidence (: jac, clar, bel and shannie went "CHARMAINEEEE!!" from quite a distance all the way until they reached me, and suddenly i was swamped by them (((: i think this old lady was staring and she looked really irritated.

monday i went to meet my vj classmates for dinner, and we ate at this dubious sounding place called nest delights. the food was alright though, and it was quite amusing seeing chan try to eat prawns!but i left before mass dance, heh because im really not a mass-dance-y person, and no amount of infectious enthusiasm can change that.

and yesterday, it was out with angie again! to our favourite haunts (: it was raining all throughout morning and afternoon, and we were getting sad that we aren't getting as much business as we would like too :( and its not like we can rely on our friends to support us and buy our things all the time, because its not very nice, and they shouldn't feel obliged to buy just to show their support righhhht? haha that said, to all who know us, if you see something that you really like, do email us or leave a comment ((((: if you don't fancy anything, please do us a huge favour, and tell every single person you know about getPLUSH!, lj user or not (: thanks loads!

angie my dear, we shall not lose heart (: i believe that things will be better as we go along!

love charmaine

2007-01-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

everybody you've got to go to

get PLUSH!

at
http://community.livejournal.com/getplush
its angie's and my site (:

thanks muchos!

love charmaine

2007-01-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

on wednesday i went to arab street with shannie! haha and she kept on saying that everything was so MINDBOGGLING that she didn't know what to buy. anyway later on in the afternoon she's coming and im gonna give her tutorials (: haha.

and yesterday after celebrating my mommy's birthday at crystal jade(yum!) it was back to arab street with angie ((((((: i think the shopkeepers there can recognise me or something. and we took jumping photos, after which we got quite tired. for the full story of our day, go to angie's blog, where she writes in primary-school-style, so you are guaranteed of some entertainment.

okay right now both of us are trying to think of names for our site, but so far we've come up with

wecan'tthinkofaname.livejournal.com
buyyourthingslah.livejournal.com

oh noooo.

love charmaine

2007-01-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

new year's eve afternoon after church was spent with my lovelies at garden cafe (: i really miss you all. angie and i have decided to do something productive! yay (: at least i have decided to do something productive since angie has got a part time job at trixilini(i think).

dearest clar and i (: who finally organised an outing! haha the respinsibility shall fall onto jac the next time.

yay (: clar jac melly me shannie bel angie. haha shannie in her heels made me feel short!

church planning day today was alright (: i think im going to fall sick! hope i don't.

love charmaine

2006-12-31T23:40:00.000-08:00

this year has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me, with many many low points. but im really thankful that God has always been beside me, even though i may not have known it at that particular point in time. its been the year that i've cried the most, worried the most, and -things-are-not-going-well the most. bad english there but nevermind. i've really learnt a lot, i suppose the more trials there are, the more you learn. i don't want the year to end, but at the same time i can't wait to see what God has in store for me in the coming year (:

my one and only new year's resolution is that i will put God first in my life, that His imprtance surpasses all things. so that in whatever things i do, whatever situations/circumstances/problems i face i will always ask "what would Jesus do?" and be a jar of clay (:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; stuck down, but not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9

my favourite on-the-jeepney photos (:

haha sorry about the unladylike way of sitting!

we were triggerhappy :D

before going on the mountain hike. angelica me eljin andrea!

me shawn and my brother being gross and chenyi being normal haha

and my favourite group pictures (:

i am TALL (:

i don't know why valmond and irvin had to look like that in this photo! cheryl and i are disappointed because it would have been a very very nice all-girls photo :(

at the waterfall on the mountain! it was really really tiring climbing up there.

haha this takes the cake! we all look weird.

have yourself a fabulous new year!

love charmaine

2006-12-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

haha i just had to put this photo up (: doesn't my cat look nice!

lastnight before i slept i put a lot a lot of salt on my many ulcers and it was excruciating! don't put salt on your ulcers at night when everybody's asleep and you can't scream/shout out loud in pain. but my ulcer still isn't getting better :( i shall go and put more salt later on.

more on the mission trip!

us outside SM mall, where we just had lunch after alighting from the plane.

at the montessori school in ramon on the way to tuao. haha i like this picture! we all look goofy.

haha close up (:

amazing race style! haha we finally reached cassily(the abandoned resort we were staying in) in tuao and we had to travel to taribubu. and the main road was closed to we had to go by a long, gravelly road, and the vans couldn't travel on that kind of road, so we got tricycles! haha its basically a motorbike with a cover and a small passenger cubicle at the side. andrea, irvin, kelvin and i were on the tricycle 2nd from the left. it was really exciting to ride in! even though we we constantly lurching from side to side because of the muddy road. at time we even had to get out and walk for a short distance when it became too muddy. haha because we were too heavy and they tricycle would get stuck.

2006-12-25T00:14:00.000-08:00

on the bus today from suntec back to church for 6pm service i was thinking a lot.
maybe too much.

you know it gets harder to maintain friendships as we grow older, at least for me. this year alone i've 2 friendships that could have been good, but now they aren't exactly going along well like how i would have wanted them to.

one friend was always there for me, but i can't exactly say that i was always there for the person. and i suppose its unfair for me to wish that things would go back to how they were before, i was the one who didn't see the value of the friendship back then. but now i really regret it, and looking back, i've been really selfish. but right now im trying really hard, but maybe its too late to realise how much the friendship means to me.

its eating me inside out, it really is.

as for the other friendship, i feel that it could have been so much better, and we could have been really good friends, but the other person doesn't seem to think anything's wrong, so nevermind.

so i came home after worship and dinner and had a good talk with my mommy. and i cried :'( so my eyes are swollen and about to explode, and my mouth is sore because of my many ulcers. not exactly a very nice feeling. but anyway, my mom told me that since i chose my commitments over the friendship at that point in time, i have to learn to let go, and let God work at His own timing.

maybe our friendship will be the same again, but maybe it won't ever be the same again.

on a happier note, i gave out the presents that i made today! hopefully everyone likes them (:

love charmaine

2006-12-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

i've decided to start blogging about tuao, even though its hard to fully comprehend the whole barrage of emotions that we've felt unless you were actually there yourself. so here goes (: haha it may take up a few entries though, ever since i got back, i don't really fancy using the computer.

andrea and i

5.30am at the budget terminal before flying off (: haha a few hours before i was at prom!

us again, we were tired! hence we sat on the trolley. do we look alike? many people have said we do, but i don't think so.

the only females on the trip! we were in the same van. andrea cheryl olivia me marissa (: at a petrol kiosk were we stopped to refuel.

outside the quaint provision shop in a village. uncle efren's van had some trouble so we drove into the village to get some repair. we were stranded there for quite a while together with uncle edward as well so we went exploring. and the family there was really nice, they invited us into the house when the wait become really long and we couldn't entertain ourselves anymore.

and there was a herbie-like car haha

and we got bottled soft drinks! i felt like i was living in the old days.

anyway finally the van got fixed, and we were quite a long way behind the guys. it was nightfall(it becomes dark at about 6pm) by the time we had to cross the 2 mountains, and it really was very scary driving along the winding roads because it was pitch dark(apart from the van's headlights) and you wouldn't know what was coming around the bend. but anyway uncle efren was a superb driver, we were going at around 100km/h on the winding road! haha was rather exciting for us, andrea and i pretended that we were playing daytona in the arcade. a few near accidents where we all screamed in horror but other than that it was okay (: after about 12 hours on the road we finally reached ramon, where the ramon church of christ people we waiting for us. and we stayed over in a farm resort nearby.

okay that's all for now, i took so long to blog about just the first day in the philippines!

yesterday after church i went to ikea with shawn and andrea to get christmas presents (: i feel quite guilty spending money right after i've seen the poverty in tuao, but i used my own money that i've saved up! andrea olivia cheryl and i are going to mail out a parcel of things to tuao by the end of this year (: i really can't wait to go back again.

love charmaine

2006-12-16T23:50:00.000-08:00

at the budget terminal before leaving(:

hello (: im back!

the tuao missiontrip was really a life-changing experience, i will never look at things the same way ever again. we have so much, yet we complain and complain, and are never contented. i think all singaporeans should visit such places, and that will keep us quiet.
there's definitely much more to life than looking for money to spend and living the good life, there are so many people out there who have so little, but take whatever comes in their stride.

so who are we to wallow in our own "misery" and "problems"? our problems seem so much more insignificant.

more when i have more time to blog! but leaving the place was hard, so many of us cried. i really miss eljin and the way of life there.

love charmaine

2006-12-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

i just got home from prom, and in a few hours time i have to leave for the airport and its byebye singapore! anyway i left prom early, so i don't know who's the prom king and queen. some photos before i leave (:

my favourite photo of the night! haha me steph christl being gross. but steph wins hands down, as you can see.

stella and i after doing out makeup and hair (: i like this photo too. okay okay, i like every photo that im going to post.

the class girls: me stella christl vibha

steph christl me tanxuan! (: being normal

haha what is steph doing! being silly again. i mean, its boring to take nice and normal photos all the time.

some of the soccer girls (: whom i love a lot a lot! steph alex christl sara sihui me waiyen

i like this one too (: we went to the toilet where it was nice and peaceful away from noisy bands, and there were nice couches!

steph forced me to be shorter than her! but i still love you.

us again (:

xinyi and i - rgs girls haha of course steph is one too

haha the class girls at my table me christl gerry vibha stella

2006-12-07T00:50:00.000-08:00

tx and i! i love you too (: and you look so pretty.

okay we were getting bored (:

in the lift before i rushed off. even though it s blurred picture, i still like it (:

prom wasn't half as bad as i thought it would be, the company was good, although the emcee told a lot of bad jokes that we not funny. and i really like my dress im going to wear it many many times!

until dec16th (:

love charmaine

2006-12-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

in a few hours time its going to be sdd! i hope that it'll be fun, as in the event itself, not post prom plans, because i'll have to leave right after that because the next morning i have to be at the airport at 5.30am! our flight to phillipines is at 7am, and i want to have a good night's rest. and i hope the entertainment will be good, and so will the prizes, because we paid 15bucks each for them! hopefully everyone will look nice (:
oh oh yes i haven't gotten my earrings, i think i'll just leave earlier before hair and makeup to go and find them. haha i feel really last minute.
and last night i stayed up till about 2am to pack for the missiontrip, and my luggage weighs a tonne! oh nooooo. but there are really too many things to bring.

the stayover was good, like andrea said :) and monday night was emotional(i refuse to use the word emo) for all of us girls. its okay and i love you guys a lot! you know, i think it takes a lot of courage to share your flaws and your sins and your problems with everyone, and im glad we did, and now i feel more unburdened.

love charmaine

2006-12-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

on saturday night chenting chenyi shawn and i went for andrea's dance arts recital! she was dancing with her grade 8 ballet class (: and the first section was the kids performances, and there was this item with "bikini babes" who were just really small girls in bikinis and tutus and they kept shaking their behinds, it really reminded me of the little miss sunshine pageant. but they were all very cute. chenting and i were amazed by the 2 small boys who could tap dance very well. anyway the point is andrea danced well! yay (: there were so many people in her item and we were like "oh no how do we find andrea" but eventually we managed to spot her admist all the red and black leotards and tutus.

andrea(in her tutu-ed glory haha) me chenting (:

and seeing all the small kids dance reminded me of my days in ballet when i was young (: i wish my mom never took me out.the reason she did was because my grandmother strongly believed that if i continued ballet, i would grow too tall and i would have problems finding someone to marry. now look where that has gotten me! haha stopping ballet certainly didn't make me grow less.

me in my ballet class ((((: i still keep my ballet stuff though, and they're so small, i can't believe i was ever that size.

im sorry angie/clar/shannie/bel/jac/melly/isabelle/lisa! i can't go on monday night because i have intensive missiontrip preparations. and i will miss you guys! have fun at your prom :)

later this afternoon is down to glenn's house for the missiontrip stayover we have so many things to do! ahhhhh. but i think its enjoyable all the smae, hopefully we get many many things done.

oh and last night i went shopping with my mom! we went to so many places in such a short while, and i felt i was going to die of exhaustion cos i didn't sleep properly the night before due to my silly flu. anyway it was good, we managed to get many things that my brother and i needed for the missiontrip, and i got a huge adidas bag from queensway to dump everything in, and clinique stuff as well (:

prom is on wednesday!! haha and i have gotten any earrings. my mom has asked me to make them myself, but i have no inspiration! other than that im pretty happy with my dress, clutch and heels(which are not 3.5inches unlike the ones i wore in sec 4).

2006-12-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

oh my this is really funny. thanks ngiap im currently highly entertained.

today i went cycling at ecp with my mom and my brother. and i declare once again that im no big fan of cycling! but of course if you force me too i will. so now at least i've got some exercise, and some sun (:

i can't wait for sdd (: haha which is senior dinner and dance, or in other words prom. but i think sdd sounds better.

love charmaine

2006-12-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

i got this off lisa's journal, its rather meaningful and true don't you think?

------------------Girls----------------
-----------are like apples------
-------on trees.The best ones-----
-----are at the top of the tree.-----
---The boys dont want to reach---
--for the good ones because they--
-r afraid of falling and getting hurt.-
-Instead,they get the rotten apples-
from the ground that arent as good,
but easy.So the apples up top think
something wrong with them when in
-reality they're amazing. They just--
---have to wait for the right boy to
----come along, the one who's-
-----------brave enough to-----
---------------climb all---------
---------------the way--------
--------------to the top--------
-------------of the tree---------

and happy birthday shona (:

love charmaine

2006-11-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

hello (:

i just got back from my very first facial! gosh shannie i know exactly what you mean now. especially the part when the lady was trying to get rid of all the impurities on your face, and it just felt like your whole nose was going to come off. for me, i felt that she was trying to create many holes in my face. and after a while i didn't dare to open my eyes, because everytime i did, she'd be wielding some sinister looking instrument. but other than that it was quite okay(: and i feel much cleaner now (: plus she taught me the proper way to clean my face etc etc.

after that i went to get nice christmas cards from marks and spencer with my mom.

and i just received an irritatingly cute ecard from shona! haha a million thanks to you too if you're reading this, and i'll see you in a week's time (:

anyway i really like edward monkton! nobody seems to have heard of him over here. when ever i see his cards in borders, i can't help but laugh out loud heh.

i mean no one will ever think of drawing cartoons on such stuff right?

and the ninja biscuits are one of my favourites! haha okay that's all for today (:

oh oh flags of our fathers opens TODAYYYY! i have promised myself that i WILL NOT miss another war movie. no, i won't.

love charmaine

2006-11-29T14:56:00.000-08:00

yesterday i went out with clar(above) to do her prom shopping! haha because she bought this pair of really nice heels at vivo. anyway i think she tried on about 20 dresses before we found the perfect one (: and clar you don't look like a bazhang! even the salesladies said you looked very nice(haha of course they will say that). but there was this other lady customer who walked past clar when she was wearing the dress and said, "wah, so pretty!" in chinese.

we walked so much yesterday, but surprisingly, i didn't feel very tired. made many trips to wisma and taka, and clar bought everything she needed for prom. that's really efficient, buying everything in 2 days. i was thinking i should make my own earrings but i have no i dea what to do :( but it was really fun going out with clar(: haha and at daniel yam i had to help clar take off and wear the dresses because they had no zip.

oh and i saw zhixin too (: haven't talked to her, liyana or yvonne for a really really long time, since we took different combinations and went into different classes in sec 3.

after that i met up with christie and raisa (: yay my primary school classmates since primary 2 i think. both of them are in rj, and it really is a small world. cos joanna relief taught raisa's class the day after the world cup finals where many many people were sleeping. went to newyork newyork(and clar was going there with her tennis friends!) to eat. the fried mars bars were not nice at all! i can't remember who told me they were nice. the batter was really hard(i believe that you can grind your teeth away just eating it) and it wasn't hot at all. but the quenchers and the carbonara that i had was good (((:

then we just sat there and talked and talked, remembering mrs chu and her terrorising acts.

one thing that i will never never ever forget was how i got 70plus(which was really really lousy according to my p6 class standards, everyone had to get 90plus) for math for our 2nd prelims before the psle. and everyday right up to the psle, mrs chu would go " see la, if you don't work hard, and don't put in effort, your marks will drop from 90-something to 70-something." like i was to serve as a warning for the rest of my classmates. that made me feel like the most brainless and stupid person in the whole wide world. seriously, it was really traumatising, but im glad i managed to prove her wrong.

and christie remember that because i was the assistant head prefect(haha) at that time, she expected me to do extremely well, and so she'd call my mom to school and made she show my mom every single piece of work in my ultra-thick files(everyone had to bring all their thick files to school everyday). i don't really remember that, but then again, there are many things from primary school that i don't remember because i didn't enjoy it much.

i mean, when i talk to my classmates about their primary school, they all say that it was a really fun time and they played a lot and stuff like that. but mine certainly wasn't like that, i was terrified of not doing well, of mrs chu scolding me(or anyone else for that matter), of forgetting to bring some all important worksheet to school and being made to stand up throughout the lesson. no one really cares about your psle score now, no matter how high or low it was. its such a trivial and bad gauge of your level of intelligence.

but anyway it was really nice catching up with both of them, haha we talked about other things other than primary school days (: and thanks for the presents too! chelle i wished that you had been able to come. another time yeah?

christie raisa and i at newyork newyork (:

love charmaine

2006-11-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

hello (:

i finally got to see jac and clar after such a long while! and of course angie and bel and shannie (: we went tanning at sgcc, but unfortunately it didn't really work for most of us, we still almost look the same.

but clar drove her mom's mercedes, and we were all so excited, not because it was a mercedes, ut because clar could drive us around! haha. as you can see we were so excited jac even helped us to take a photo. so anyway she drove us to vivocity and we kinda got lost, but we got there in the end! shannie and i were a bit terrified sitting in the car cos clar would suddenly accelerate and shannie will yelp. but it was quite fun, and clar was really calm even though we were lost for a while. if it were me, oh my, i'll be panicking as to where to turn etc etc.

clar being cool calm and collected. shannie and i were like "eh eh 2 hands on the steering wheel!" cos we didn't want to die in a car accident haha.

vivocity was alright today, it wasn't crazily crowded, so we didn't have to jostle through the crowds. but its the company that mattered (: we walked and walked and shannie and bel were being gross with me in stuck the middle, but it was good entertainment and i still love you guys (: jac and clar still had their eeyores and traumatised the rest of us in the changing room of sgcc. haha and angie was just normal like she always is, but she wanted so badly to go to diva! anyway im meeing them again next monday for one last time before we all go for our separate holidays and trips overseas.

in response angie says:

angieeeee says:
im not normal!
angieeeee says:
im abnormal
angieeeee says:
in a weirdo way

there you go.

oh we ate at bakerzin and they really don't have the nice salmon linguine anymore :( so shannie and i shared a ham and bacon penne in pink sauce and curry chicken. the curry chicken was surprisingly good! so everyone should go try it.

below is my birthday present from angie (:

you're getting better and better, don't give up! if not i'll have no one to go crazy buying beads and stuff with.

shannie and bel bought me a really nice necklace from diva too, which they gave me before the As. thanks so much (((((:

love charmaine

2006-11-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

yesterday i went out with clara and we took neoprints. haha its the 2nd time this year that i've taken neoprints, as many of you know, im not exactly a big fan of them. but anyway, the machine we used made our eyes look really catty, like they were loaded with mascara and eyeliner! and i didn't really put makeup. the above picture was the most normal even though its kinda blur (:

and i spent so much money yesterday! oh noooo. tmrw its tanning with the girls, and i can finally see jac and clar (: and angie should be coming back from malaysia sometime later today.
and on tuesday its dinner with christie and raisa yay.

the missiontrip is coming really soon! and i haven't memorised the lyrics of the 10 songs we're gonna sing. okay i shall do that later today, hopefully i can memorise at least some. plus there's the preparation for one on one sharing and vbs. oh my oh my i can't wait!

last night i tried to stay up late to watch a beautiful mind but i had a headache so i went to sleep halfway into the show :( i would have liked to watch the show again! speaking of shows, yesterday when i went out with clara i saw the trailer for a new war movie! its called the flags of our fathers and its a clint eastwood film. im definitely not missing this one. and if anyone sees the vcds/dvds of sophie scholl and the tiger and the snow, please tell me! i'll be eternally grateful (:

love charmaine

2006-11-23T23:47:00.000-08:00

yay its over (: haha im really glad i don't take s papers! went out with shannie and angie and bel, but bel left half way. i really miss you guys :(

and angie's prom dress is extremely extremely nice, so all you rj people going for prom, be prepared to be wowed haha. and far east sells the same shoes, which shannie and i think are too high and will kill our feet. then angie left, and shannie and i had a good talk in park mall (: thanks for listening! and for everything else.

shannie and i (: sorry for the messy hair haha!

angie and i!

then i went to meet my vj classmates for dinner and billy bombers (:

and we got mocktails on the house cos we were celebrating vibha's birthday! yay (:

stella and i with the silver man in town when we went to see the christmas lightup! everyone wanted to take a photo with him.

yay (: it has been a very fulfilling day! i got updated on angie and shannie's lives, haha and bel's as well. i really look forward to monday now (: and seeing the lights in town was nice too, even though my feet felt like they were gonna break.

and i saw christie! haha.

i have so many many things to say but i can't put them in words! nevermind then.

love charmaine

2006-11-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

i don't understand why there are people who copy what other people say/do/blog. its completely unoriginal! i guess it probably isn't a big deal to some, but its a pet peeve of mine, even if im not the one being copied. maybe i should change huh? but it really makes be feel quite indignant. i think its alright if you share the same opinion, but don't say things word for word, exactly the way how someone else has said it.

anyway there's just the bio mcq left (:

AND i went running today (: about 2km i think, which is a lot to me, considering that i haven't exercised regularly in 5 months haha. yay so i do feel a bit fitter.
love charmaine

2006-11-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

hello (: i've just finished studying my bio option once through! yay. haha but that does not mean that i can remember everything though.

germinal epithelial cell spermatogonia spermatogonium primary spermatocyte secondary spermatocyte spermatid!

and

germinal epithelial cell oogonia primary oocyte secondary oocyte ovum!

okay that was just a bit of general info on how our gametes are derived (:

today after bible class and before 11am service i got my 2 immunization jabs! one for typhoid and one for hepA. haha well im quite scared of needles you see. but anyway the needle was really short, and it felt like 2 viscious antbites for a while. but i won't say that it wasn't painful, cos it was a little. and be got anti-malarial tablets as well as tablets to prevent food poisoning. hopefully nothing will go wrong on the missiontrip (:

i mean everyone told me that piercing their ears was painless(!!??!) and they couldn't feel a thing, but i did feel mine! it was quite painful. i think they have a lack of nerves in their earlobes or something.

2006-11-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

this morning i woke up with a bad flu, and i feel like my nose is going to drop off! okay just kidding. but i hate having the flu.

today i have to finish sexual reproduction in humans and plants, which is a lot. but its alright, the exams are going to end soon.

the bio option is one whole book and has one whole paer devoted to it, the physics option is only one chapter but has 3 essay questions devoted to it, and the chem option is 5 chapters but 2 questions devoted to it.

love charmaine

2006-11-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

hello (:

right now im waiting for the careteam to come over to my house. and its already 6.50pm! tsktsk all of you are late! haha except for alistair.

today's chem mcq was quite tough! in mine and my friends' opinion that is. somehow our papers just seem harder to answer compared to the other years'. maybe its psychological, but then when i did the past year papers, they were much more straightforward.

when i came home i had to pack my room, so i did it in a record timing of half an hour. so now my room's extremely neat (: apart from the bio notes on my table.

okay and i just flooded my own tagboard.

2 more papers, just 2 more.

love charmaine

2006-11-16T04:56:00.000-08:00

hello (: im in a much better mood now because all i have left is chem paper 1(mcq), the bio option paper 3(which im more than willing to study for) and bio paper 1(mcq)! yay (: the end is near hahahahahahaha

anyway when my mom was packing the storeroom, i found my french books (: i really really miss french, too bad i dropped it after sec 1. plus the lessons were free at moelc! what was i thinking.

these are my real french textbooks (: every single word is in french! no english at all, so right now i don't understand what's in the books.

french in 3 months and advanced french course.

and i have no idea why i bought these last time, the cost about $150! but they teach you french in english, so its much easier to learn. and the 8 tapes that are in the set are still working! yay (: i've got one more thing to do after the A levels.

and i found my french notebook! i cannot believe that i could write so much french last time, even though its a bit repetitive, but still.
i think it says something along the lines of:

every wednesday i wake up at 6am. after i go to the toilet, i eat breakfast( le petit dejuener), which is a croissont and a cup of milk(lait). at 6.30am, i leave my house( le maison) for school(college). At 7am i arrive at school. At 2 in the afternoon(deux heures l'apres-midi), i take the bus(l'autobus) to MOELC for french classes until 4.30. (i have no idea what Apres, nous rentrons chez moi means.) At 5.30 i reach home and take my dinner at 7 at night( sept hueres le soir). After that, i watch(regarde) televsion. and i have no idea what the last line means too. maybe im staying that i go to sleep or something.

haha okay at least i still remember my french. but its a really tough language to learn!

for example,

je m'appelle means i am, tu t'appelle means you are, il/elle s'appelle means he/she is

and there's still

nous nous appellous, vous vous appellez, ils/elles s'appellent

see there's just too many conjugates for french!

je connais, tu connais, il/elle connait, nous connaissons, vous conaissez, ils/elles connaisent

i made this for andrea (: im glad it turned out nice, because it was a TORTURE sewing it! haha but i still did enjoy making it. yes i hate sewing, even though this just required a bit. and i thought this present would be a demonstration of my lousy sewing skills but it turned out fine (: yay. oh its actually a pin, not some useless felt cloth (:

2006-11-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

im so tired of studying, i wish it will all end now. right NOW.

and this coming week its all physics and chem papers :( i wish i have super memory so that i can remember everything reading through my notes just once, and not having to slowly figure out the derivations of formulae and stuff like that.
now my books are my friends.
charmaine

2006-11-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

yesterday was andrea's birthday. happy 15th dear! and we celebrated with a cake at careteam. whoops i aslo forget to mention that last week they also celebrated mine and chenting's birthday with a nice cake too (: thanks guys. then andrea and i took silly photos, both at last friday's and yesterday. will put them up when i have not time on my hands (= after this week).

and shawn gave me 2 jap show vcds, and they're supposedly really sad! haha but i like sad shows.

speaking of shows, i want to watch la tigre e la neve (the tiger and the snow)!! its a roberto benigni film, and he's the one who directed and acted in la vita e bella (life is beautiful) and if you haven't watched it, i'll gladly lend you the vcd. la vita e bella is about world war 2, its funny but extremely sad at the same time. and la tigre e la neve is about the iraqi war. anyway i think he's a genius, because he brings graceful optimism and humour to his shows, and he's the lead in la tigre e la neve as well. plus, his wife in real life, nicoletta braschi, who always acts in his show, is the lead in this one too(: and both of them are very funny. i think its definitely gonna be a thought provoking show, but it'll probably be closed by the time my A levels end :(
here's a trailer of the show (: http://www.letigreetlaneige-lefilm.com/index2.htm
its in french though, haha cos its the official french site for the show, but the show's actually in italian.
in it you will see the headless statue of saddam haha. and in the film benigni gets mistaken for a suicide bomber by American millitary at a Bhagdad checkpoint.

a synopsis of the show:
Upfronted, instead, is the film's central love story. Acclaimed poet Attilio De Giovanni (Benigni) is a passionate if wacky teacher who throws himself on the floor to demonstrate poetry's impact to his students. Every night Attilio has the same funny, surreal dream that he is in his underwear getting married to a beautiful woman in front of a laughing crowd, while a traffic cop demands he move his car.

One day in Rome he attends the press conference of his Arab poet friend Fuad (Jean Reno), who is returning to his native Baghdad. It's March 2003 and war is in the air. Suddenly, the woman from Attilio's dream appears in the flesh, and it's clear he's madly in love with her. She is a literary researcher named Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi), and she's writing a book on Fuad.

The lovesick Attilio immediately starts pestering her for a date, and, however much she brushes him off, he simply refuses to give up. Nor does he waver when, some time later, Fuad calls him with the terrible news that Vittoria, who had come to Iraq to interview him, has been injured in the bombing and is hovering between life and death.

After the long Roman prelude, story switches into high gear. When Attilio's naive attempts to board a plane for wartime Baghdad to see the wounded Vittoria don't pan out, he joins the Italian Red Cross team. He palms himself off as a surgeon, with a touch of the political incorrectness that made "Life Is Beautiful" zing. Soon he's on his way to Baghdad on a hijacked camel. Several gags later he's at Vittoria's bedside.

The strangely uncrowded hospital is lacking in medicine and equipment. A large portion of the film revolves, a little lamely, around the love-fueled jester's frenzied struggle to get Vittoria oxygen, drugs, an IV feed. With touching faithfulness he stays at her bedside while armies clash and Allied missiles streak the sky. Ending is delicately handled with a neat bow to Chaplin's "City Lights."

after this week, there's no need to study chem and physics anymoreeee. and all im left with is bio! yay (:
love charmaine

2006-11-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

hello (:

everybody chant with me: no more math, no more math NO MORE MATH!!

yay (: i feel ... unburdened right now.
but there's still physics and chem to go through! other than that, i quite enjoy studying for bio, because its interesting, although i get panic attacks whenever i discover that i can't remember the name on an enzyme or something like that.

haha christl and i spent a lot of time on the phone this week. no, we were not gossiping or talking nonsense, we were discussing math! and a bit of bio. she thinks vasa vasora is an amusing word, i think adrenocorticotrophic and glucocorticoid are even worse. haha try saying "adrenocorticotrophic" 5 times really quickly! luckily they don't have bio orals or stuff like that.

and the night before our math paper 2 i tried to do the questions that christl had asked me about, and to my horror i was still making careless mistakes, and being blind and not reading the questions properly. then i called her back, and we discovered that i read the question wrongly. so i continued working on the question. and when i called her back, we both had different answers, and our answers were different from the tys ones as well. haha that was really frustrating! i mean its the nightbefore our exam, and we still couldn't press our calculators properly or differentiate correctly.

anyway its all over and done with. and im glad it is.

love charmaine

2006-11-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

STRESSED :'(

2006-11-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

happy birthday to steph and i! yayyyy.

the 3 of us (:

today's gp was alright, for my essay i did "entreprenuership is just another word for personal greed. do you agree?" i think the question was phrased like that. did anyone do that too? cos i asked around and nobody else i know did it! please tell me if you did that question, haha it'll make me feel better.

thanks so much christl for the cute sun balloon and the nice photos (:

and to steph, i like the wooden art thing you gave me! its a joy to share the same birthday as you :D

to stella, i really like the earrings you made (((:

to gerry, liling and vibha, thanks for the surprise birthday cake and really lovely tigerlilies (:

and thank you to my mommy(even thought she probably won't read this, i certainly hope not!) for the dress!

to mae, christl, steph, tx, nathaniel, amelia, jeffrey, prataman, tinyau, jac, shannie, bel, angie, clar, lijun, irvin, raisa, cheryl, shawny, nelson the smarty pants, chan, chuah, enjia, jiamin, alon, jiangxin, christie, andrea, joseph, jasmin, claudia, jing, shu, waiyen thanks for the well wishes, i love you guys! <3>

christl vibha gerry liling stella and i!

but anyway when i got home i felt terrible! so i went to sleep and i woke up with a sorethroat, flu and a fever :'(

oh oh and angie called to tell me the sats scores can be checked online! and i was really nervous, but i got 2030 over 2400! yay im quite happy with it, but im not sure if its good enough? does anyone know what the english sat score required for law in nus if gp is not used?

love charmaine

2006-11-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

hello (:

i got a pair of gloves in the mail today! the nike tiempo match, courtesy of nathaniel (: thanks so much! haha i don't know when i will use them though, but it was really thoughtful of you.

anyway jolyn, if you're reading this, could you tell mitch to return me my gloves asap? i miss them, haha i think i only used them for 1 1/2 months during the season, before you know ehat happened.

tomorrow is the start of the A levels! that's a very frightening thought.

love charmaine

2006-10-31T23:30:00.000-08:00

hello (:

to destress i've changed the layout of my blog ((((: i really like the photo, we all look so happy.

today i ate my first hairy crab, and im not gonna eat one ever ever ever again.

its absolutely cruel, the way you're supposed to steam it alive. cos my mom steamed 2, and they were so small and so tiny, and all tied up so they couldn't move, and they just turned orange and cooked while they were still alive. they couldn't even run away even if they wanted to (which i think they did want to). yeah so i went to my room and cried. yeah i know, stupid crying over a crab, but it was just so sad, and as silly as it sounds, i felt for the crabbies. so both of us decided that we aren't gonna eat them ever ever again.

so if you haven't tried hairy crabs, don't. and if you do eat them, stop. i felt really evil eating it today.

i was thinking if i don't get to do law, maybe i should join greenpeace, haha and be an environmental activist. iceland(i think) broke the ban against whaling and killed a whale recently! bad bad iceland.

love charmaine

2006-10-30T00:01:00.004-08:00

verses that really spoke to me in bible class today (:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards;

not many were influential;

not many were of noble birth.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-

and the things that are not-

to nullify the things that are,

so that no one may boast before him.

1 Corinthians 1:26-29

yesterday mae came over to my house to study because she was too bored at home. and i temporarily made her a victorian by lending her my vj pe shirt to change into(: haha so she wasn't an acsian for a day! but anyway, it was nice catching up.

love charmaine

2006-10-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

sometimes i forget that i have a great bunch of friends who care, truckloads full of lovely memories, and God.

love charmaine

2006-10-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

cookie loves milk (:

i absolutely love this photo, christl, its the one i was telling you about.

anyway, joanna i got your email! haha the first real email anyone has sent to me since a long time ago. many many things have been happening, i can't wait to tell you. but i'll probably type out the whole long thing on sat, cos my mom doesn't allow me to use the computer for too long a time on weekdays. i'd like to go to scotland someday, haha when i have money i'll go and visit you! but im not likely to have money anytime soon, and my parents are not likely to let me travel alone by myself.

today i went back to vj for the gp mass lecture and the chem paper 3 mock exam. now i feel so exhausted, doing a chem paper 3 is draining. but the 5 1/2 hour study session today was good (: even though my chem is still not very good, its better (: i hope that i'll be able to retain all information by the time the As come!

so the mock paper ended really late and it was raining and all, so i reached home at about 7.30pm, and i haven't gone home from school that late in a very long time. anyway i was feeling quite depressed while walking home, thinking about soccer and prelims and A levels and fractured wrists and lousy results and how i used to see the rest of the team many many times a week and stress and the stacks of worksheets waiting for me at home and how wet i was becoming and tears and regret and my terrible math and the gp a level paper which is next thursday(it signifies the start of the end!), plus it was dark, rainy, grey, cold and dreary.

boy i should stop feeling sorry for myself.

love charmaine

2006-10-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

last night was the church anniversary dinner (:

shawn and his fanclub glenn, who proudly declared that he was on his 3rd helping and even posed for the photo haha.

i like this photo (:

i've realised how hard it is to share God's word one on one! because there's so many many many questions to think about, i'd better start now.

love charmaine

2006-10-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

i don't like it when people tell me that they're too lazy to go out! even if going out means going out to study.

for me, "im too lazy to go out" translates into "im too lazy to go out with you", since im the person actually asking others to go out and study. and they were the one's who told me that they were free, and this morning christl said that they were too lazy to go out, so its just the 2 of us, and since i could only turn up in the afternoon, we'll study together another day. i totally agree that we should meet another day since i can only turn up in the afternoon, but i just don't get how come "im too lazy to go out" can be given as an excuse.

let me assure you that the issue isn't a case of oh-no-my-friends-don't-like-me-they're-too-lazy-to-go-out-with-me-i-don't-mean-anything-to-them, but for me i guess its about keeping promises and sticking you what you have agreed to in the first place. for those of you who know me well, one thing i that i can't bear is people breaking their promises. haha and its quite bad for me, because i will be able to remember every single word of every single promise made. and if you break it, regardless of whether its a promise to me or to someone else, that's the end of it, and i'll get very very very annoyed. so don't make any promise that you can't keep!

okay that's the end of my whole tirade, they're still my friends, and i still love them, but i just needed to get that out of my system.

caretema's later tonight, and we're recapping all the songs that we've learnt (:

love charmaine

2006-10-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

what i need now is some good pasta.

2006-10-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

today chia was in church! andrea and i were at the church lobby when she came down the stairs and shouted "HI CHARMAINE!!" all of a sudden. yay im so glad you're back from vietnam! haha it really was a surprise. and since all of us were wearing green, and since chia was back, we had to take a photo (: but my brother's handphone camera does no justice, only andrea seems to be wearing green, and we all look sallow. but anyway, its still a nice picture (:

sats yesterday at starhub centre was alright, i wrote some nonsense for my essay, but hopefull they'll find it good! the topic was about deception. other than that, i stupidly forgot to bring my calculator!! but the all the math questions could be done without a calculator, so i made sure i was extra extra careful not to make any careless mistakes. and this guy beside me was pressing his calculator vigorously! which made me a bit frantic, but i managed to calm myself down.

anyway i mentioned that mr teo drew a cartoon for our class: 05S15(i can't really remember if i did. did i?) and here it is! he draws for lian he zao bao daily and he says it pays more than teaching!

the whole cartoon.

christl and i! she's trying to head the soccer ball to me, and im trying to catch it. look at my goalie gloves haha! i didn't notice till i looked really carefully.

liling who has jumped from her desk into the water to swim(she was from swimming) and stella dancing on her table, vibha playing the guitar, and gerry looking into a mirror saying that she's so pretty.

alon who is doing his work(christl and i think that the cartoon REALLY looks like him in person haha), nelson the smartypants with the word "math" on his table(his scores for math in all the exams are 94,96,97,94+88=91). jiamin who is forever witching anime on her ipod video, and poying who always asks "why why why" and it drives mr teo crazy. when she saw the cartoon, she asked mr teo "why do i always say why?!"

peien and chuah who are in choir, and they are forever playing cards in class hence the cards in their hands, and chan who's in fencing.

keefe who's always sleeping in gp, phoon who is always plaing cards, dory in a fishbowl still playing cards, xunai who's in hockey and desmond who's in softball.

enjie who's always listening to his handphone radio, prata who's in photog, tinyau who laughs really loudly in class because he's listening to his ipod, and huiping who always speaks singlish.

there, that's my whole class.

love charmaine

2006-10-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

today's farewell assembly, surprisingly, wasn't that unemotional as i expected it to be. i cried, but only because i was laughing too hard at the skits that the teachers and the house comm put up, and also at the 2 weirdly-funny emcees. haha but i think the year 1s(at least the house comm) are quite biased towards vj. the mugging competition part of their skit included "students" from
why jc(who refused to study)
new year jc(who came into the scene with some ching chong music and recited the chuang qian ming yue guang poem)
turtle jc(who did gross things that i shall not mention)
merlion jc(who spat out a mouthful of water)
act cool jc(who went off to party halfway)
richest jc(who was on a pedestal and threw money all around)
amen jc(that's actually sajc and he prayed really loudly in the middle of the competition).
actually there were other jcs, but i can't remember what they were called. and there was the re-enactment of this year's soccer finals against merlion jc, and it was hilarious.

we got a stress-reliever package, which consisted of free kitkat and cadbury chocolate, a sample pack of twisties, and the april 2006 issue of teeage magazine. at first we thought, wow, they must have spent a lot of money on the teenage magazine, then we discovered that it was the april issue, and its already october now.

mrs chan's going to leave, and although she wanted to close down girls' soccer last year, she's still nice and fun in her own way, and things are certainly gonna change around the college.

after assembly, most of the class went out to eat at marche, and we took lots of photos, but i didn't bring my camera! so hopefully the rest send the photos to me soon.

but i really don't like to go out in big groups, like i told steph the other time. and she feels the same. ultimately you sit with the same people, and talk to the same people, apart from several words and sentences, and its kinda like a forced feeling, you know what i mean? i guess im the only one in my class who thinks this way, the rest are too nice to think about such things.

and i like spontaneity. sometimes when we have to decide what to eat, where to go, or what to do, there will be a lot of "i-don't-know"s and "don't-know"s and "anything"s and"up-to-you"s. its as though giving an opinion or saying what you really think is a crime. and when you say something, there'll be "okay-anythings" and "yeah-i-think-so-too"s. so sometimes im quite surprised when i find out that my classmates share the same opinion as me, becuase they never do say it out! and im so tired of making decisions, or being the first to say things. haha well because i can't contain my opinions! its not that i think im smart or great or whatever, my classmates are nice people in their own right, but i just don't get this part. so it makes going out in large groups quite tortuous, for me at least.

plus today i was discriminated against because of my height :( it was during the part of assembly where they played i'll be there for you from friends, and the emcee told us to put our arms around each other and sway from side to side (haha) and as i was about to put my arm around x,
x said "eeee you're so tall i don't want!" and then she reached out towards stella. gosh can you even imagine how i felt? hurt, i guess thats the right word. so after that i just felt terrible throughout the whole song, and stella was in between x and me. i've never ever told anyone that i don't want to do things with them because they're so short.

i imagine if i had BO or bad breath or lots of food stuck in between all my teeth (all of which which i don't!), you wouldn't want to stand beside me. but not because of my height.
even if there was some new technology with which i could shrink myself to a more "acceptable" height, i won't, because im happy to be tall.

and i got misunderstood by x for sounding very fierce to christl when i exclaimed that im very full after she offered me her crepe in marche. oh well. why would i be angry at someone offering me food? unless the person was shoving it down my throat.

i suppose its very likely that x didn't really mean what she said, but you know, its just not very nice. and x is usually quite a nice and friendly and funny and humble person. so the above paragraphs is just me needing to get things out of my system.

anyway today was the most fun i've had dancing the mass dances, even though half the time i dind't know what the steps were. its too much fancy footwork for me! stella and i were saying the other day that we really regret dropping ballet! and that next time we'll send our daughters for ballet class, haha and in a way live vicariously through them. and christl whacked me on the head while dancing, and we could stop laughing though it was the middle of i want you.

oh and today we got our sdd tickets! christl, liling and i have yet to decide on our post prom plans, because we aren't going for the post prom party at dxo. seriously, can anyone tell me the point of clubbing? a smoky environment, sweaty bodies, and people who have had too much to drink. im sure there are much better places to hang out with your friends.

the classmates who are very important to me:

but the thing that i'll miss most in vj is the soccer girls! it struck me that im officially out of school, and we're all gonna move on to different stages in our lives. i've never gone through so much in just 2 years with the same bunch of people, it's really changed me in ways i've never thought possible. its impossible for me to make a collage of soccer, because i have so many pictures, and i'll want to put every single one in. maybe i'll make one after the As (: i received nice presents and notes from the juniors (: thanks so much, and i love you! i almost cried reading jing's and jiemin's notes, because they mentioned my broken wrist. i guess its something that i'll never ever get over. anyway, i will type everthing that i really want to say after my As are over.

i'll always have you guys in my heart <3

SATS here i come!

oh i forgot to mention: we got our new car today! yay (: im gonna ride in it in 10 minutes time cos my mom is fetching me to care team!

love charmaine

2006-10-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

hello (:
vj's open house is this saturday! i can't wait to see all the soccer juniors againnnn (: yay. so my plan is: go to starhub centre to take my sats with angie, eat lunch with her, rush home, the rush to school! i think by the time i get to school open house would be almost over. but its okay.

yesterday after school i saw the soccer guys training, and i felt really sad. i want to get on the field again, to wear the really high socks and shinpads, to wear my gloves(i haven't seen them in a while i think they're with michelle) and to put on my boots! i don't think i'll even play soccer like how i did in vj ever again :'( i'd give so much just to be back at the start of this year again.

anyhow, today stella, liling and i went to smu! for some tour that vj organised. so right now im quite keen to go to smu law (: because they are focused on corporate law. but the problem is the school fees are more expensive than the others. after that, stella and i went to eat at pepper lunch and walked around for a bit.

tomorrow's farewell assembly, but i don't think i'll cry or anything.

and my dad passed the camera memory card to uncle patrick on sunday! so having a camera is equivalent to not having one, and im quite upset because i want to take lots of photos. surely uploading photos does not take 5 days. gahhh.

love charmaine

2006-10-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

i was scouting around for nice layouts but i couldn't find any, and even if i found one, im too lazy to change my layout. but my current one is getting quite boring though.

yesterday at careteam, we learnt new songs that we're gonna sing for our mission trip (: it sounds nice when we sing all the parts together, though andrea and i are quite sad that we can't sing our usual soprano parts because there are too few girls going on the trip. so now we're learning the alto parts, which are quite challenging i must say, because its so low, we're not used to it. but its alright (: as i said, there're only 4 of us girls going on the trip, that makes 2 sopranos and 2 altos, which is not loud enough cos the guys sing so loud! so now kelvin, shawny and my brother sing the soprano parts.

and i finally bought shawny's present yesterday and gave it to him. shawny i hope you like it!before that, i went with christl for her dental appointment, and her dentist is really nice! plus the paragon medical centre is so clean and nice. after her appointment, as we were walking out of paragon, there was this fashion show at the empty space in paragon, and haha i felt inspired to be a model. anyway, andrea says she wants to design bridal gowns next time, so i can be her model then (: yay.

i want to go down and run, but its so hazy now, im afraid that i'll drop dead while running. recently i've been feeling really unfit, and unhealthly, like im going to fall sick any moment, and that's badddd. did you read the article in life! about anorexia and bulimia? i can't believe that anyone would be pro-ana and pro-mia. that's absolutely crazy. i think a lot of girls nowadays are more focused on becoming thin, instead of focusing on staying toned and healthy, whatever your weight is.

little miss sunshine is a really good show, if you have the time and money, please go and watch it (: you won't be disappointed!

sats are next saturday, and i haven't even finished half of the vocab words that im supposed to learn. angie help!

yesterday was the lantern festival, happy lantern festival everyone!!

my mommy bought me cute chinese noodle boxes to put presents in! yay (: because i wanted to buy them last time, but i didn't have enough money.

okay im off to eat my lunch and do some math and chem now.

love charmaine

2006-10-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

the neoprint that we took with chia before she left for vietnam in july! we miss you. haha okay in the picture i was halfway through a sentence.

i just printed out the 1000 vocab words that we have to learn for sats! though its a lot, i'd rather learn the words than do the math 2005 A level paper :( which i have to do later. anyway im gettinga little nervous about sat, i haven't done any prepartion up to now! maybe, learning the extra vocab will help me in gp! i hope so (: because my gp is really really bad now, i'll do anything to get the grades i once got in j1 and at the start of j2.
oh and tomorrow im gonna buy the official sat study guide (:
and its little miss sunshine tomorrow too! hopefully it'll put things in perspective. i'd better go check the timings and not get them mixed up.

and today, we took the church kids to west coast to play because it is children's day! organising them into groups was horrific, but other than that it was alright.

love charmaine

2006-09-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

with my lovelies (: at ramen ten, angie's favourite place!

angie and i! i really like this photo (:

anyway anna taught me how to use photoshop (: no, i don't erase any pimples are fats or anything, just rounded corners.

my prelim results are anyhting but fabulous, so its no more playing and lots of studying!! except maybe little miss sunshine on monday. because stella, liling, christl and i were supposed to watch it today after school, and i stupidly mixed up the timings and places so in the end we couldn't watch cos the later times were inconvenient. i felt so bad! oh no.

so in the end we sat at toast box and ate nice toast (: i had butter chocolate and it was good! yay. and we talked. and then we went down to topshop at wisma so that christl could buy her top.

careteam today was good (: partly because bernice came. yay finally someone my age, and i find that i can talk to her quite a lot haha.

math is the bane of my studying life! but for the sake of the A levels, i will try to like it within 5 weeks. angie we can do it!!

oh my its 12 midnight already. i must go off now! and wake up early to do my favourite math papers.

love charmaine

2006-09-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

since angie tagged me, here goes :

maybe i should start looking at options other than law.
i love kinder bueno (: its my favourite chocolate.
i don't understand hypocrites.
i lose sleep when something's bothering me.
people say i am the epitome of frankness.
love is selfless.
when i like someone i want to share every single thing with him.
somewhere someone's telling a funny joke.
i will always remember the times(good and bad) in vj girls' soccer (: i love you guys!
'forever' decribes eternal life.
i never want to look back on my life with regret and longing.
i think the current US president has made mistakes.
i will never have premarital sex (:
my past has made me who i am.
my greatest fear is loneliness.
i get annoyed when
my dog (if i ever have one) must get along with my cat.
kisses are the best when you know you want to spend the rest of your life with the person
tomorrow is the first day in which i have to go to school by bus for about 2 weeks plus :(
i really want a good end to the year.
i have low tolerance for people who think they are superior.

i tag jolyn, steph, shawn, chialynn, cheryl (:

yesterday was out with my lovelies (:
photos will be up soon!

love charmaine

2006-09-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

the things i've done over the past few days:

shona's bag charm (: as a going-away present that passed to her yesterday :(

an oriental bracelet with nice charms (:

and a necklace (: with the bright silver kinda chain that i always liked.

i really want to watch

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is an American family road comedy that shatters the mold. Brazenly satirical and yet deeply human, the film introduces audiences to one of the most endearingly fractured families in recent cinema history: the Hoovers, whose trip to a pre-pubescent beauty pageant results not only in comic mayhem but in death, transformation and a moving look at the surprising rewards of being losers in a winning-crazed culture. A runaway hit at the Sundance Film Festival, where it played to standing ovations, the film strikes a nerve with everyone who's ever been awestruck by how their muddled families seem to make it after all.

i think its gonna be such a great show, im defintiely catching it (:

the lead girl abigail breslin acting in m.night shyamalan's signs opposite mel gibson! remember she was his daughter in the show? and she also acted in raising helen as kate hudson's adopted daughter. haha she's so cute in the movie! anyway in little miss sunshine her whole family goes on a roadtrip just to let her participate in the little miss sunshine pageant. and even though she looks like a nerd in the show, she's actually very pretty (:

love charmaine

2006-09-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

hello (:
i was just watching the singapore idol finals!
haha and jonathan leong just looks so so so so
good (:
but i didn't like his rendition of chasing cars,
i thought the one he did at the spectaculars was nicer!
how disappointing.
anyhow, i still support him and
i really liked the way he sang should i stay (:
i hope hope hope hope he wins!

plus,
jonathan's dressing is much better,
all his clothes are nice! wow.
hady's is just plain boring black black black.

anyway here's the jonathan's nicer rendition of chasing cars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BnCeueZbXU

i miss my snow patrol album!
because i lent it to christl.
spread the snow patrol love (:

today i watched the banquet with shawn and cheryl,
shawn and i both used our free movie passes (:
and i used one for cheryl too,
so i have 2 left.
seriously, i didn't like the ending.
okay or rather, i didn't understand the ending
that's why i didn't like it.
can someone explain it to me?
its like the usual artsy chinese shows like hero where
everyone dies in the end.

i miss you guys!

love charmaine

2006-09-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

freeeee (:

okay so my exams ended on thursday (:

apart from the fact that there's still the A levels,

and the fact that i won't do amazingly well for the prelims,

God's been good (:

so after bio paper 1

(which wasn't as easy as we expected but nevermind)

we went to catch a 10.50am show

at ps.

okay so we watched the devil wears prada

which opened eons ago,

and it wasn't nice.

i kinda expected it,

the storyline's cliche

you know what they're gonna say and do next

and the fashion isn't anything fabulous.

not like any of us could afford it anyway,

haha and we'd look like goons wearing thick plush coats

in singapore.

after that we ate at taka,

i can't remember the name of the place,

but the pasta is good!

at pastamania's price range

you can get much better pasta (:

so im going there loads from now on.

besides the people were friendly,

they asked us what jc we were in,

and why are we so free.

when we told them that our exams just ended

haha they seemed equally happy for us.

then they found out that we still had the As,

and they wished us luck when we were leaving (:

christl stella me vibha at the place. there was also gerry liling chan and chuah, but i didn't manage to take a photo of all of us.

the pasta that i ordered! its so nice i just have to put an extra large photo of it (: japanese baby scallop with seaweed in pink fish roe cream sauce. delicious (: haha okay in case you didn't know, i always order creamy pastas cos i don't like tomato based ones, which makes me quite an unhealthy person.

after lunch
we shopped around for prom dresses
haha not me,
i already bought 2 and i have yet
to decide which one to wear.
but nevertheless
it was quite fun looking for nice dresses.
another thing
shopping with school bags is a killer.
by the time i got home
i felt like my back was going to break.

and angie since you asked:
my charms/beads trip was highly successful (:
which made me a very happy girl.
because stella and i saw lots of nice things on thursday
but we decided that they were too expensive
and that we could very well make them ourselves.
plus liling wanted to make something for her cousin
and christl was interested,
so we headed down to chinatown and arab street yesterday(:
angie you were at arab street yesterdayyy?
i didn't see you!
okay, i estimated that i spent about 60 to 70 dollars yeasterday.
but i bought many many many charms,
some of which were imported from us of a (:
yay yay yay!
i think christl and liling were quite shocked
at how much stella and i kept buying and buying.

a mother's love <3

i made this for my mom last night after coming home from careteam cos she was feeling down. it has a nice sewing machine charm! and i like the hangar. the picture's a bit dark, cos my camera's not very good!

my mom was really happy, because she has been asking me to make a gold necklace for her, since i've already made a silver one.

oh and i also made shona's going away present,but its not complete yet (:

in angie's words: i went into delirium upon picking up my pliers.

a day in the boring life of my cat. i just saw him sitting beside a lizard tail yuck.

its back to more jewellery making :D

i forgot to mention prison break is really good.

and so is wentworth miller (((:

love charmaine

2006-09-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

everytime i look at this picture, i get stuck in the moment.

tomorrow's chem paper 1, thursday's bio paper 1, and then it'll be over!!
yay (:
until the A levels come that is.

and today's bio paper 3 wasn't that bad (:

love charmaine

2006-09-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

oh my i just saw the snow patrol mtv for you are all i have (:
their songs are so nice!

click the links to watch:
run by snow patrol(may 06)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N9fdlPdJYw&mode=related&search =

chasing cars by snowpatrol(july 06)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcG4WsZKIUc&mode=related&search =

please ignore gary lightbody's weird hair in the run video.
haha he looks a million times better in the chasing cars one :D
i think he went for some makeover or something.
and their live performances are good (:
it sounds exactly like the cd.

light up, light up
as if you have a choice
even if you can not hear my voice
i'll be right beside you dear

louder, louder
and we'll run for our lives
you can hardly speak i understand
why you can't raise your voice to say

slower, slower
we don't have time for that
all I want's to find an easier way
to get out of our little heads

have heart, my dear
we're bound to be afraid
even if its just for a few days
making up for all this mess

light up, light up
as if you have a choice
even if you can not hear my voice
i'll be right beside you dear

yes angie, i really forgot SATS!!
whoops.
since its so expensive,
i'd better remember to go take the test.
and angie, my exams end only on thursday!
maybe we can go out on saturday?
unless smarty pants jac and clar can't make it
cos they take s papers
and i have no idea when their s papers end.
if not we can go out the week after.
haha angie, you must go for some
hand massage after your exams!
poor you, but it'll be over soon.
which is why i say, we should have the mouthpiece thing
and you say everything out and
it translates into words on the computer.
that way, we can save the trees
and save time too (:

i also forgot,
that i must go out with steph christl sara tx!
haven't seen them for a while already.
haha okay i see christl everyday (:
and i saw tx on friday before the math paper!
but no sign of steph and sara.
although i should be seeing sara cos she takes
triple sci too and our exams are almost always in the hall.

love charmaine

2006-09-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

i jist want to get away!
and go to the beach.
the exams have been really tough(for me at least)
except for today's math paper 2!
yay i totally love probability and statistics (:
the rest of my math is just terrible.
and bio paper 2 was supposed to be okay,
but there wasn't anytime to finish the paper, so.
like prata says, all the information is stored in our brains,
but its our hands that are lagging,
and can't write fast enough.
true.
so, i say we should come up with oral exams for essay questions.
you know that kinda software where you say everything into the mike
and it translates into words on the computer.
that's be great. they can even cut short
the bio paper 2 time to like 1 hour or 45 minutes,
i wouldn't mind.

after the prelims
im gonna paint my own canvas shoes (:
and today after math, christl, liling and i
ate lunch with the rest of the class
then we went to bk to study our bio option.
but of course we couldn't concentrate.
now that its friday, it feels like our
exams are over.

i can't wait to unleash my creativity
(if i have any left from the prelims, i use it to make up
my own answers and theories to questions
that i don't know how to answer)
and make lots of things (:
haha after the prelims its to arab street!
and chinatown.
oh oh and we're gonna have a movie marathon at christl's house.
to watch life is beautiful, and the dinner game and
some funny korean movie.
hmmm maybe we could swim in her pool too,
we look so white and pasty.

and i must go out with angie jac clar shannie bel!
and christie and raisa, they're my only 2 good friends from
primary school.

why am i planning so much when the prelims
are not even over!
this is terrible.

and i would like to thank God for getting me through this trying week (:

love charmaine

2006-09-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

hello.

im so tired i could sleep right nowwwww.
but of course i can't, there are the
very important prelims tomorrow!!
well because i went to bed at about 1am,
but i just could get to sleep(haha i think i was too worried
about my studies) so i slept only at about 1.30am.
got up at 5.30am to study some chemistry.

i realised that my chemistry's gonna be really
badly done because i haven't exactly finished reading through
(not to mention revising thoroughly) the whole syllabus
and over the next few days, there won't be time!

anyhow tomorrow's bio paper 2 and math paper 1.
and i really hope i do okay, and that i will
be calm during the paper,
cos usually when i see a question that i can't do
(which is quite often) i get a bit frantic.
haha and you would think that by now i would be
used to seeing many many questions that i don't know how to do,
so much so that i won't feel anything.

i need to have some Christian hope!!
like uncle leehock said in the sermon today.

okay im going to read through all my bio now
and hopefully i remember the tonnes of facts.

haha and i wonder what happened to my
"revise early and finish the whole syllabus properly" plan.

on a brighter note,
i got the snow patrol album, eyes open!
hahahaha its the limited edition one
and its been on replay since yesterday
i think i've listened to it more than 10 times over already.

2006-09-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

i'd just like to say that im extremely
happy that
france beat italy 3-1
in the euro qualifiers
:)

im heureux vous avez battu les Italiens, mes plus chers Français

2006-09-08T00:20:00.000-07:00

hey (: its so late now!
but im just taking a short break
later im gonna get beck to math.
my math is unbelievably bad,
the more i go through my notes
the more paranoid i become.
i don't even know how i managed to
do those questions in my tutorial!
oh no this is really bad.
and i haven't even touched stats.
and my bio is not even finished.
in fact all of my subjects are not finished.
heeeellllppp.

anyway today i didn't get the snow
patrol cd!! i shall definitely definitely
get it tomorrow! the more i listen to their songs
the nicer they sound (:

now im down with a cold
my nose is gonna drop off really soon.

and i just want to say(again)
that i can't wait to go to philippines!!
plus my aunt has booked 2 hotel rooms
in malaysia(i have no idea which part though)
over the chinese new year holidays
next year! which mean that all my relatives and my family
will have to squeeze
but who cares,
it'll be loads of fun (:

oh no im looking forward to all these post exams
activities
when my prelims are not even over!!
this is bad.

christl: haha yes please visit my blog more often! don't forget the url. yes i will tell you if the snow patrol album is good. but im very sure it WILL be (:
shannie: haha its alright, you can return my album when you next see me, so don't worry about it! i will go to your house to study after the prelims. and we'll go shopping too! i miss you loads as well.
angie: haha okay that just goes to show that we should take more photos! that's like the latest one i have of both of us. which reminds me, shannie hasn't sent me the photos of their birthday celebration! aha i think i took a photo with you angie.

2006-09-06T22:55:00.001-07:00

you know whaaat? just in the post below
i was waxing lyrical about snow patrol, and i put the
lyrics to chasing cars there,
and jonathan leong sang it for s'pore idol
judge's choice!
haha and it was nice (:
as always.
it think he's good, and i prefer him
over hady.
okay i've promised myself
that im gonna get the snowpatrol album
tomorrow!!

2006-09-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

2006-09-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

happy 18th birthday christl!!

dearest friend, you mean a lot to me, you know. thank you for being my constant support and of course, my constant source of entertainment (: the times spent with you are unforgettable.

shopping for your cny clothes at the start of this year at the coolest hangout ever-parkway,

36 with you and tx(i remember the my sassy neighbour moment!),

talking about our ideal partners,

walking out of school together(and laughing really loudly only to realise that we've inhaled loads of the dustbin air),

crying together after last year's matches,

and at trainings,

you trying to the the goalie,

laughing at mr chong's hair,

and his saliva that splatters onto the ohp,

talking about our churches,

getting lost in zurich at night and you were terrified,

laughing at you till i cried on the bus in switzerland,

watching the lakehouse and you laughing at the sad parts,

the fact that tulips are our favouritest flowers ever.

you've

been

a blessing!

and

i love you

loads.

yesterday i went out to study with angie
(thats us above! but it was taken when we celebrated angie's birthday waaay back in march.)
i was supposed to met her at 8am
at orchard mrt, but
i reached only at 8.20am.
sorry angie!
so we had yakun for breakfast
and we couldn't finish our bread.
sat at the empty long johns silver in far east.
they were playing 91.3 fm REALLY loudly
and the music wasn't very nice,
and the deejays tried too hard to be funny.
but despite the loud music,
we managed to do work! haha rather efficiently might i add.
angie did a math paper
and some of her history about the tsar and stuff.
i managed to understand chemical bonding completely for
the first time in my jc life
and revised ionic equilibria
and a few chapters of physics.
wheter or not i can apply the things that i've learnt
remains to be discovered.

i was really sad that steve irwin passed away.
you know, i was doing my work
and listening to the radio when
i heard the news!
after that i didn't feel like doing anything.
i used to watch almost all of his crocodile shows.
sigh.
life can really end unexpectedly.

last night we went to changi airport to send joanna off.
its was really sad, another one of us
leaving.
but at least i'll have many silly(and normal) pictures with jo
because we took many yesterday at the airport.
plus others that we took at careteam last time.
i look like a deranged person in them, so i shall not put those up here.
when joseph sends me the photos that we took at the airport,
i will put them up!
on the bright side, she's coming back in
december!
around the time when we'll come back from our
missiontrip in philippines.

speaking of the missiontrip!
andrea olivia cheryl and i have been
repeatedly saying that we really look forward to it
and that we're so excited haha.
and we've made plans(just lastnight)
to design a tee for the missiontrip people
and another one for the 4 of us, who
are the only girls going!
haha i kind of like joanna's one tough cookie tee,
so the girls going are: cheryl olivia andrea me
and the guys: my brother shawn irvin chenyi louis glenn joseph alistair valmond
not to mention there'll be 5 adults going, one of whom is auntie dorothy.
so it'll be 5 females and 13 males!
haha.
but nevertheless, its still exciting.
i really can't wait!
i'd like to wish my prelims and A levels all away.

i would really like to get snow patrol's album!
their songs are nice and you can get lost
in the lyrics (:
haha i don't really know how to describe it.
but its the second music cd that i really want to get.
(the first was the walk the line soundtrack!)
if you come to my house
you will see that i own less than 10 cds. and the one's that i listen to are:
my michael buble cd(actually i don't listen to it anymore, i think
shannie has kidnapped it since sec 4)
the walk the line soundtrack
the mona lisa smile sountrack(which shawn and andrea got for me
last year(or was it 2 years ago?) for my birthday!)
other than that i just listen to the radio.

if i lay here
if i just lay here
would you lie with me and just forget the world?
forget what we're told
before we get too old
show me a garden that's bursting into life
let's waste time chasing cars
around our heads
i need your grace
to remind me to find my own

okay. time to studyyyyy! i keep telling myself that
this dreadful time will be over soon,
but i don't know if i believe it.
but i know God will help me through
if i study hard.
i don't think i've ever really studied hard
since primary school.

love charmaine

2006-08-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

today is my laziest day ever! this is terrible. im going to have to stay up real late tonight to study, if not i'll regret it! because today i went out with my mom (: haha saw quite a few nice trinkets, like lockets and nice necklaces that i wished i had the materials to make for myself, but didn't buy any in the end. i did buy 3 pairs of ear studs though. ha my mom bought more than me! and we managed to get my dad's birthday present too (: its a nice wallet.

i have decided that after my prelims, im gonna but plain white canvas shoes and paint them myself! haha as a reward (: errr reward for surviving the prelims? as for surviving it well, i can't say much about that.

anyway stella, gerry, liling, christl and i celebrated christl's birthday early, on monday after gp, because we wouldn't be seeing her during the september holidays. i made her a nice pin/ brooch thing on a plain black topshop tank. i will take a photo with her when she wears it! as for gp, i wrote my essay on "is it true that the only way for one to grow is through adversity?" so far the only other person whom is know did that question is christl. the first passage othe the comprehension was about hope, which i thought was rather inspiring (:

i was looking through the photos in my computer, and was hit by a sense of nostalgia. so here are the group photos we took at the 2005 chruch camp! actually its just the same group of us, but many poses.

with better lighting (: im in the red shirt!

haha all of us pointing at candice

im gonna take my sats in october! hopefully i do alright, if not, i'll take it again in december (:

and im really excited about the mission trip to philippines!

love charmaine