By God's grace, I finished my examination (without any stress or panic attacks).
By God's grace, I went through that mind-numbing, make-me-feel-very-stupid business module, MB363 Management Decision Tools. (I warn my NTU social science and humanities fellow course mates not to take it, unless you like calculations, Excel spreadsheets and Linear Programming.)
By God's grace, I am not sick now because I usually fall sick after exams.
By God's grace, I am enjoying my freedom and appreciating everything around me.
By God's grace, I know I am much prepared for a good and fruitful 3 months holiday!
And by God's grace, when my exam results are going to get released, I will not panick and will understand that my exam results will turn out fine for His glory.

God, please let me get an 'S' grade for MB363!

I just had dinner, but not with my usual companions. Surprisingly, it was fun and very entertaining!

My cousin, Jireh transited at Singapore from Paris, so he's staying in Singapore for a few days before heading back to Auckland. Since Jireh likes Japanese food, Mom and Godma sponsored the 4 of us cousins for the buffet dinner at Kuishin-Bo.

Jireh had a serious case of jet lag because he landed earlier this morning in SG at 6.45am from Paris, but after consuming 2 packets of sugar dissolved in Coca Cola, he went a bit hyperactive. Haha...

Though it wasn't my usual dinner company (with the exception of Angie, obviously), I enjoyed myself tremendously.

I made my money's worth (or maybe Mom and Godma's money's worth) by having salmon sashimi and alaskan crabs. I used to find raw fish puke-inducing, but my second attempt (the first one was at Ikoi Japanese Restaurant) at consuming them proved quite successful. Yay!

Had a great time catching up and interrogating the boys about *ahem* their love lives.



What's a dinner without a candid picture??

Okay, now back to mugging for exams. THREE more papers to go for next week!
I can do it!

Twilight - channelling our inner murderous vampires with my vampire-teeth candies when we got a bit bored with our readings. Or maybe you can say that it's a dentist visit gone wrong.


I doubt Yue and I will get too fat though. We only had some chocolates, some marshmallows and some gummies.

It's the examination period and strangely, I'm loving it.

Because Lee Kuan Yew said we must learn Chinese, we will learn Chinese!
Right after he voiced his concerns about Singaporeans not speaking and learning Chinese well, Singapore went on a campaign craze (what's new?).

I thought the campaign was pretty impressive and convincing.

Check this out:
"Be Heard in Chinese"


Look at the white and black children. Their enunciation and articulation are so clear, it puts Singaporean Chinese to shame. I was so motivated to get my Chinese right after I saw this ad.

Then, I started wondering what makes this campaign so persuasive...

The use of white-skinned children was definitely pervasive in this ad.
Imagine if they used Indonesian or Bangladeshi children to speak in this ad, will Singaporeans still be as convinced and motivated to learn Chinese?

I ask myself, will I be persuaded to learn Chinese because the seeminigly "upper-class" white-skinned children are doing it, so I want to be just like them?
Or will I just be equally persuaded to brush up my Chinese if they used Indonesian or Bangladeshi children to front the ad?

Hmm. Actually, I will still be convinced, but I can't guarantee that for the rest of the other Singaporeans.

For me, there's just a competitive streak in me.
When I see other people from other ethnicities (be it 'angmohs', Malays, Indians..) speaking a language that ought to be my first language (since I am Chinese, though not Chinese-Chinese, you get me), I feel that as an ethnic Chinese, I need to be better and not lose out.

But for other Singaporeans, I am not sure if they'll be persuaded to learn Chinese if they saw this Speak Chinese campaign fronted by say, Bangladeshi children.

What say you?

Beware of photos: They may cause mild shock


Sentosa outings used to be exclusively for girls...


We tried to take off our clothes.. :X


Another Sentosa outing...


Wahhh this is classic. I think this was in 2002/03? Qing Huai came in to lead us when Shuhui couldn't make it for cell group.

The four of us sat at Admiralty MRT Mac (pre-renovation) after youth service, took loads of silly pictures and just talked.


We were in red tees because we had our Youth Sunday in 2005. We stayed out till late at night, hanging out at the waterfront of Esplanade

Here's another picture taken in 2005, during Hui Lin's baptism. I remember it was the Singapore Idol craze, so we made placards for her during her baptism!


This was taken when we (Sihui, Sarah, Angie and me) got baptised in 2003.

***

When we were young, we had our fair share of fashion faux pas (I remember the episode where the whole bunch of us came in to church with badly-drawn eyeliners and gave KK a shock).

Yet we were happy and we didn't care what others said about us. We served the Lord together, laughed, lamented about school and cried together during cell group sharings.

Now that we are all grown up, we move into various serving areas - cell group leading, missions, usher, music/worship leading...etc, move into different cell groups and dream different dreams. We just grew up.

We may no longer sit down, talk about anything under the sun, gossip about boys, play silly games and hang out till the middle of the night, like how we used to in secondary school.

But one thing I'm thankful was that we had these times.

Growing pains? No.
I had growing joys, because you all made adolescence more bearable.

And I promise I will make more effort to keep our friendships together.
(This line applies to all my dear friends from school as well)

When I've come to this stage of my life, I realise life is nothing interesting if you don't have good friends; life is sucky if you don't have friends whom you can confide in during your down times; life is lonely if you don't have friends to share your joy.
I don't make friends for networking. I don't care about networking seriously.

So yes, one more resolution for this year: Make efforts to keep friendships, be it meeting up for tea/lunch, sending smses/emails or organising a day-out at Sentosa... One word: PROACTIVE!

Today, I got a shock when I checked my school's assignment portal (we call it Edventure) and the only emoticon I can give to the announcement I saw from Patrick Williams?
(-_-") (-_-")
Ching's April Fools' joke turned into reality!
Life imitating Art?

Urgh. So now, I have a journal for Social Psychology due next Thursday.

I wonder to laugh or cry. Hahaha.

This is not an April Fools' joke!

Happy April Fools' Day!

It has been such a long time since I punk'd (in Aston Kutcher's terms) someone or having someone punk me.
The last April Fools' joke was in JC or secondary school? I can't remember...

Hearing how Sze Min is going to play one on their teacher (a really harmless one, trust me) by collaborating with another class, I suddenly miss such silly good times.

But today, once again, thanks to my dear Ching, I was punk'd! I really got a shock. But I really like it :)

She smsed me and told me that Patrick Williams wants us to write another journal for my Social Psychology module.
I was like WHHHAAAATT?
After giving us that 2000-word essay which is due tomorrow, he still wants us to write another journal? This is bad news!

I was in another project meeting when I received her sms. No way am I going to have another piece of work piled on me when I have other unfinished works in my hands!

After replying her in absolute shock and giving her a (-_-") emoticon, she wished me Happy April Fools' Day!

AHHHH.. lovely. What a relief and what a good joke!

I wonder if any of you were punk'd today in work or in school? Heehee... It's sooo fun!