Doodle #40 : Smothered

I'm beginning to question the resolve that I had. The resolve that blazed me through the holidays with nothing but the determination to succeed. The picture perfect image of serenity is beginning to fade, leaving behind a mist of doubt in its wake.

I'm in no position to judge, having spent less than 24 hours in the shoes of a student. I'd spent much too long settling into the carefree life.

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to cope with the workload. The amount of work and dedication expected of me is nothing short of nervewrecking.

On the contrary, history has shown that I've a tendency to over exaggerate and hype up even the most trivial issues.

I'm just the lazy guy who's relied on pure luck to get this far. Now I'm hoping that very same luck will propel me further.

That aside, assignment topics have already been released. With a max of 10 students working per topic, I'd assume there's a leeway for some of us to be slotted into the same topic. In addition, oral presentation topics can be selected tomorrow morning at 8. I feel chaotically disorganized already.

I hope last year's intensive speaking and presentation regim pays off in the face of such adversity. I really hope I'm no longer the same bullet train that I was when I first started. Note to self, less memorization and more theoretical understanding.

*fingers crossed*

Doodle #39

I've gone for too long living like I'm not alive, so I'm gonna start over tonight.

Tomorrow marks the beginning, of a new journey as well as another month of an ongoing recovery.

I wonder where do I get lunch tomorrow.

Cause They're Amazing Just The Way They Are

Break it down now.

I've probably mentioned this several times over the past week. I'll just do it again, to emphasise my point. Transition Camp 2011 for students of the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences. A trip comprised of all the students from Medicine, Pharmacy and Psychology from Monash.

All in all, a total of approximately 200 students (not including student guides and lecturers) ; 130 from Medicine, 50 from Pharmacy and 20 from Psychology were a part of this camp.

Note : REJOICE! For now I am bringing in PICTURES into my ever so mundane and dull repetitive posts.

Day 1

The day began in the wee hours of the morning (I can't help but sense a sentence phrasing fail), and we (Pharmacists to be) were asked to gather at 7:30AM SHARP for registration. My car had broken down the day earlier but I managed to hitch a ride from Jon and made it there, ON TIME. I must've looked rather dazed at the time not being able to locate a single familiar face in the crowd of 100 or so people before I realized..

"Hey, these are all MBBS people" Nuts, I'm in the wrong place.

The exact moment I thought that, I ran into 2 people I recognised from the day before. Yes! I found some fellow coursemates. Then I learnt that the Pharmacy students were meant to gather at the cafeteria instead of the main foyer so I scurried along to join the rest of my cohorts.

*A few hours later*

We all were told that our actual registration session only began around 8:30AM onwards. I felt like I've just been robbed of an hour of precious sleeping time. Then again, nothing much could be done about it as we were delayed again and again. We only started moving around 9:00AM when we were sent to LT2 for our briefing.

That's when I got these.

My Transition Camp 2011 manual along with my nametag for the trip.

Then, we were sorted out into our respective groups. As displayed in the bottom right corner of my nametag, I was part of Group 3, which would later be renamed (will be written later) and with Yoke Yee and Mei Yi.

We were together with Jason, Amanda, Mai, John, Tracy, Fiona, Ping Yee, Priscila.

Thankfully, we were all herded onto the bus not long after that. After all the waiting, we were finally leaving!

It was a rather uneventful bus ride. I remember staring at the KESAS highway. In the blink of an eye, it was changed to this sight.

Ever so closer to our destination. Genting View Resort.

We chucked our luggage at the lobby and made our way to lunch. Om nom nom buffet style. Woot!

Check out the pool! (one we never got to use).

:D

The lobby of the resort.

We didn't have much of a break before we were hurdled into our first activity in our short stay at Genting View.

It's called "Pick and Choose". Somehow, I find the title extremely REDUNDANT. I'll now attempt to go through what I recall of the rules from that game.

Firstly, you are given 5 baskets to be placed at 4 different locations; each getting farther and farther from the previous. Then, you divide your team members into Throwers and Retrievers. Throwers, as you would have guessed from their names, are in charge of throwing the balls into the baskets. Should they miss, that's where the Retrievers come in. They are supposed to run about, gathering bouncing balls to be thrown back to the Throwers for another attempt. Trick here is that the Thrower can't step beyond a line. And with the amount of members each team had and the limited time to set up a strategy, things were bound to get messy.

At the end of it all, the "points earned" would be converted into cash counterparts to be donated for charity. That's what I heard, and vaguely recall.

Almost immediately after that session, we were hustled into our next planned activity. Ice breaking, composed of "Game of Evolution" and "Flag Drawing and Cheer". In the former, we were drilled on the rules. It was a rather simple game. Everybody starts out as an 'Egg' and walked around to other people. Once you find someone, introduce yourself and play Scissors, Paper, Stone. If you win, you move up a rank, if you lose you lost a rank.

The ranks were :

Egg --> Chicken --> Gorilla --> Superhuman.

After the alloted time slot, I found myself amongst the losers (Anyone who hasn't reached Superhuman rank were considered to have lost the game). We were split into 2 groups, winners and losers. The guide then told us to "Enojy the show" We had to spell Mississippi.. With our butts, yeah that game. Awesome, no? Being on the side that's lost, naturally I started to go "Ohh noooo.."

Until...

Those who WON had to do it! Finally, a game where losing is more fun. :D

Heh. :D

In the latter event, we were given 25 minutes to figure out a group name, draw a flag, and come up with a group cheer. Took us a great heap of time before we finally settled on a name. Short, simple, yet entirely meaningful, Pharmily. (Yes, this is the part where YOU, the reader, go AWWWW now)

Go AWW you people!

Then we were to describe the inspiration behind our flags and their meanings as well as a performance of our group cheer.

Group "Warferin" :D

Oh, we were evaluated too during our flag design and cheer. More will be elaborated later on.

Once all that was said and done, we headed back to the lobby to gather. The keys to our apartments were handed out, 3 rooms per unit, 2 people per room. I was sorted out into the Meranti apartments together with most of the Pharmacy students. My housemates for the next few days were Jason, who was also my group leader, Sam, Ivan, Weng Kong and also.. I'm so sorry, I can't remember his name. :O


My room.

I would say that the schedule seemed rather rushed as we almost always ended our activites behind schedule. We barely had enough time to pack and settle into our place when it was time for the next activity.

Not knowing where exactly was the field situated, the 6 of us ventured into a random path. We crossed bushes, paths that seemed to have not been used in years, a small creek (they called it a river), the Riverview apartments, the GVR clubhouse and found ourselves, at the field. Better still, we were all on time. Perfect punctuality.

Then we noticed. The whole crowd was MBBS students. We felt rather lost and disorientated as no other Pharmacy students were anywhere in sight. The lecturers assured us it was the right place. Turns out every single other Pharmacy student except the 6 of us would turn up at least 30 minutes late. Wow. LOL! Including some of the student guides. (Hey, I'm just stating what I remember)

MBBS students!

The telematch was rather enjoyable. It felt rather awkward for us as there were only the 6 of us when the first game began. After reeling in several student guides to join our group we had just nice for a single line, by then some of our missing Group 3 members had shown up. However, there were around 17 MBBS groups competing as well. We felt SEVERELY outnumbered.

Didn't stop us taking the first game. :P Hula hoops ftw!

Now, the rest of the Pharmacy students had shown up, in time for the second game. Brace for epic coolio name..

Flying Water Bomb!

Wow. Can't they just name it Water Balloons?

We had to line up, single file with around 2m gap between each group member and toss the balloons from start to finish. My group lost all balloons by the 3rd pass. Well, we gave it a shot. The game was taken by another Pharmacy team. (Go Pharmacy!)

The last game of the day was.. I don't know what you call it. It involved walking on a plank, or rather, wearing the plank as your 'shoe', 3 members at a time. Caterpillar feet...? Or something. It did not go well. My hands got rather aquainted with the ground during those short minutes.

A+ for effort! :D

Short break for dinner before we had a workshop to prep us for the coming year.

Short talk.

Mei Yi and Yoke Yee promoting the role of a pharmacist.

During one of the talks, we (group 3) discussed about why we chose Pharmacy. Yoke Yee, Mei Yi and I were all going on about how Accountancy was our back up plan. Can't remember much from that conversation but it was rather funny. (:

Went back to our apartments after that. I felt drained.

Lights out...

Day 2

First and foremost as I write this section, I apologize for the lack of pictures to.. picture the day's activities. Of course, I'll try to scour for the pictures from the Pharmacy dept. to be uploaded onto Facebook. So look there for photos on day 2 sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I implore you to use your imagination to visualise how the day went as I write them down into little sentences.

The night before, we were informed of the importance of PUNCTUALITY in the line of us pharmacists. Hence, we were instructed (and expected) to gather at the field, 7.00AM SHARP to start the day's planned activities.

7:00AM? Yes, JOGGING. Jogging, I get, but jogging at the steep hillsides of GVR, I was out of breath only 50% of the way. If not for the extensive jogging routine I've been forcing myself to do the past month, I'm pretty sure I'd have collapsed only 10% of the way. Frankly, I was never known for my stamina. It was horrid, I mean it.

A short hour break for breakfast before we had another lecture scheduled.

It was a short talk regarding the Pharmacy programme and we were also told about a certain activity later that evening. A talent show, where it was MANDATORY for each and every group to come up with a routine and perform it. My heart sank, somewhat, I was never one for stage performances. I've always battled a nagging stage fright and inability to come up with interesting sketches. So I did what I could, and kept to being a follower.

I tried. Turns out I wouldn't be able to relax. We managed to settle on a routine in the end though. That much, I am relieved.

We were given a short break for morning tea before being pitted in our next event, The Amazing Photo Race. Or something like that. Each team were given a list of 25 things to photograph in the most creative manner possible.

I do not have any pictures at the moment so I shall skip this part.

Course, it was one of the most fun activities during our short 3 day stay at GVR. (:

I shall briefly write on this activity. Among the tasks asked of us were to take a group jump shot. It took us almost 20 minutes just to settle this one shot, technical issues and stuff. Among other shots were a Beauty Pageant shot, a Wondergirls shot, Thousand Arms Buddha, and many more.

Thankfully Sadly, the scheduled Nature Walk at 4:00PM was cancelled due to the persistent rain. That gave us some time to practice our routine again.

Moving on, it was the night of the second day of Transition Camp 2011.

An event I'd like to refer to as the Talent Show, as we were instructed to come up with a performance to showcase our various and overflowing talents.

We had practiced our routine over half the day and just barely ironed out some kinks.

The stage.

A performance by a MBBS group.

I think this is the Psychology's routine.

Us, anxiously awaiting our turn.

The performances were evaluated on 4 factors :
- Quality of performace
- Teamwork
- Creativity
- Audience Response

Personally, I feel that the criterias are lopsided and rather favoured the MBBS students. Firstly, the MBBS had over 130 students while the Pharmacy had only 50ish, and the Psy had 20+. Jeez, I wonder. Haha.

Prizes were given up to the 6th runner up, that is the 7th place. Out of those 7 places, Pharmacy took 4 prizes. Not bad at all if I say so myself, of course some might say that I've a biased opinion, being a Pharmacy student.

Sadly, the most coveted first place was taken by the MBBS. >:( (Note the earlier criteria)

First runner up was Pharmacy, P2. Video on Facebook. (:

The girls from P3, Pharmily. Us. (:

All of us.

Us again, but blur.

Clearer shot with an almost complete heart.

Went back to our respective apartsments around 12:00AM.

Then again, THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG! :P

Day 3

So began the final day of our 3 day expedition to GVR. After being drained completely both physically and mentally, it was a refreshing change to have the morning jog cancelled.

Still, it didn't offer any relief that I had to be awake by 7:00AM to start preparing for breakfast at 7:30AM. It was time to gather our luggage and be at the lobby for checkout. I remember running after the van, looking rather comical, only to be told that it was already full and I should take the bus. Mehhh.

Regardless, Jason and I made it there just in time.

Some miscommunication occured and we were robbed of our tables and chairs. :(

Traffic Jam. It was another fun game where a lot of thinking skills was required. It was somewhat like a puzzle game. Figured it out soon enough, I like puzzles. (:

Went back into the hall for photoshooting and one last bout of mingling before we all departed.

Student guides. My seniors who had guided us throughout the duration of the 3 day Transition Camp at GVR. (:

Uhh...

The final activtity before lunch and departure? The student guides did a performance for us. It was the winning performance by them 2 years back. (:

Well..

All good things have to come to an end, and this was no exception.

Note how I seem to get lazier as the post went towards the end. Don't blame me, it's 1:30AM now. Cut me some slack people. I'm trying my best. I can't even dish out average level words at the moment.

All in all, Transition Camp 2011? Best possible way to kick start the next 4 years. (:

Perhaps I'll volunteer to be a Student Guide for next year's camp. That way I'd get to torment my juniors. (:

Orientation : Whole Lotta Mehhh

Thought of the day : I'd say I used to know them.

I shall heed my inner desire to update about the first day of my orientation at Monash University before my ever so fickle mind decides to not update at all.

It's a different atmosphere when you realize it's going to be your first day at a new institution of learning. For me, I would say that reality hasn't quite sunk in yet. I woke up at 7, as I did almost every other day in my oh so lackluster holidays. Do not question why I had spent my holidays being awake by 7:30, I'm still struggling to find words to answer that question.

I was at Monash sometime around 10:00AM, my scheduled orientation begins at 10:45AM so that left me with almost an hour worth of time to kill. I managed to find Marcus and met another ex-Sunwayian, Joshua, also from Ipoh. Shortly after that, familiar faces just kept popping up like mushrooms after a rainy day. (Literal translation fail?) Mehh.

I'll now try to make a list of people I saw today who I knew and/or recognised. Uhh.. know what? I'll skip that list, figured it'd be rather long and tedious to figure out everyone. This much is certain, approximately a quarter of AusMatians from Sunway, 2010, were at Monash for their degree. So much for immersing myself in a whole new enviroment with less than 5 faces I knew and recognised. Mehh.

Located the line for registration at the cafeteria and settled everything while waiting for the rest to show up. When I found Jo he said "You know.. I was queueing up at the Engineering line and it was all GUYS! Then I looked over at your Pharmacy lines and it was all GIRLS" Well, that's plus one to Pharmacy. (Y)

Once all the registration and signing up for Transition Camp 2011 (More on this at the end of the week) was done, we tried to locate our next stop for Day 1 at Monash. General Introductions and Welcome Speeches and whatnot. Stopped by Audi 1 first but took a detour to Audi 2 as it was jam packed. Mega stuffed. D: Audi 2 was not bad. An image of the speaker from Audi 1 was broadcasted on screen, so he/she was simultaneously speaking to two auditoriums. Not bad.. had it not been the fact that construction work was going on barely 100m away. Couldn't hear much over the loud drilling. Mehh.

Time seemed to pass by really slowly then, nothing interesting was said till someone from the Security Dept mentioned reporting "near misses" and/or accidents. That snapped me to attention, my mind flashed back a few months to that time the 4 of us were inches away from being ploughed through and turned into mush by an errant driver. Nothing much besides that.

Another point worth noting. Almost every speaker (from the MUSA and other organisations) promoted the various orientation week programmes that had been laid in place for us freshies. And in every one of em, they mentioned "Free food" Mm.. Two of the best words in the English languaged fused into one divine concoction. (Y)

So I had sat through all the talks, that left me around an hour to kill before the lab coat fitting for Pharmacy and MBBS students. Our little group dispersed and being rather lost, I found a place to hunker down, and eat the free food I had gotten. Nasi lemak. Mm.. Yum yum (Y).

Yoke Yee found me later on and we just sat around with Siew Choon (Another fellow AusMatian I hadn't gotten acquainted with till today, lol) and Nick Siew.

Had my lab coat fitting session later. The place was rather easy to find, look for the crowd and randomly join them. Admittedly though, I kinda felt like a fish out of water then. Didn't really felt at ease with the environment, or myself. Silently willed the whole thing to pass by faster.

Whee, my labcoat's going to have some neck cover thingy. No idea how it's going to look like but it sounded cool, which works for me.

I should start packing for camp.

Once again, the day was a whole lotta mehhhh.

Turnovers

Today marks the very final day of my 2010/2011 holidays. It's always the very final few hours of the day that really jolts you into reality. I had spent the entire day living it out like basically every other day in my life. Not truly bothered by the fact that as of tomorrow, I'll officially be studying at Monash. It's now, exactly 11:39PM as I write this post that reality is finally dawning on me.

I wouldn't say that I had just been sent into a spiralling wave of panic. Quite the contrary, I feel rather.. indifferent. My lack of enthusiasm really isn't justified. Maybe some parts of me aren't too keen on letting freedom slip from their grasp just like that despite my very constant rants of having too much freedom and time. Perhaps there will come a day where I'll eat my words, being completely wrong and unaware of the struggles that awaited me in university life.

That being said, it's time to get into the day's event.

As aforementioned, it was the very final day of my holidays. So how exactly did I spend this ever so momentous day? Movie at Pyramid with a couple of college mates. :)

The pick of the day : No Strings Attached.

I can safely say that this is one of the most anticipated movies - for me - ever since I laid eyes on the trailer. A guy and girl who hook up ever so often and a purely sexual relationship. Things are bound to go wrong. :)

I'll try to write a little about the movie and not just the very short efforts I tried on previous movies, without spoiling.. too much of it of course. :)

Plotwise, I'd say it was rather predictable. (it's a romantic comedy, there is NO other possible ending than a HAPPY one where both guy and girl miraculously gets together). However, that took none of the excitement out of watching the actual movie. It was pure laughter from start to finish. There was never a dull moment throughout the (approximately) 2 hours of screenplay. :)

I'll say this though, watch out for the compilation disc scene. :)

Oh right, watched it with Kelly and Su Qi. :) and also 2 of Su Qi's cousins and another 2 of their friends. (I'm sorry, my memory never ever registers names properly *sadface*)

Lunch at Kim Gary's.

That's the gist of it. I'd say that the day was spent well.

I only regret one thing, not being able to hold a full scale gathering with all the people I love from my surreal college life.

Dudes, and dudetts, we've still a badminton outing, a Genting trip (save those I'm going over with later this week), a Lagoon trip, and a trip to a random shopping mall we'd never go to on a normal basis, as well as driving around eating awesome food, and SNOWFLAKES! :)

Maybe tomorrow I'll try to get some writing down for blondie (she's not actually blond) who's residing in Australia at the moment. Feeling inspired from her essay efforts. :)

Time I Never Had

In the midst of my inactivity, I realized something. It may not be a matter of importance but it got me thinking quite a bit.

I've been blogging for almost 4 years now. From the time I was a mere naive child who ranted for hours on end about insignificant and trivial issues to my current self. 4 years of life experience. 4 years worth of change, instilled into my very soul. How much exactly have I changed? I can't judge cause I for one, still aren't really aware of who I am from time to time. I seem to change based on who I'm around and usually align towards whatever mood the latest events in my life encourage me to act.

I'm aware that I'm a rather odd person. :)

Personally, I view my posts as more that a mere rant or a wayward shriek to let out my emotions. To me, every sentence embeds within itself my present emotions. My thoughts and desires, jotted down between the lines of the ever so nonsensical blog posts. To reread my previous entries reevokes the state of mind in which I was in at the time of writing it.

In short, if I were to pluck out a random post from let's say April, I'll revert back to myself in April for a brief moment. Same goes for any other entry that I've posted. It gives me a sense of how much I've progressed within these 4 years, as a person. The things that's changed me are not just the things I've lived through, but also everything that I had never got the chance to do. All the missed opportunities leaving nothing but a hollow shell and countless "what if"s.

Having said that, I miss my younger self. He was so naive, so easy to trust anyone and everyone that came into his life. Everything was much easier then. No double crossing or backstabbers to watch out for. The blissful joys of adoslescent life.

Life is short. You should grab every opportunity that comes your way. You never know when it might be that once in a lifetime shot. After all, you only live once in this world (Unless of course the whole concept of afterlife and rebirth are true, then of course you'd live several lifetimes blatantly unaware of your past self) so remember this.

If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

Okay, that was rather irrelevant to the issue at hand. However, I can't shake this feeling that I've been doing nothing but sweep my problems under the rug lately. There's an uneasy feeling that won't budge from inside me. Maybe I've already realized it, but sooner or later I'll have to face my inner demons. We're bound to cross paths again, as we both live in such a small world. Hopefully then, I'd have garnered enough strength and resilience to fend it off.

I'm guessing that it's high time for me to start preoccupying myself with anything and everything. Current agenda, No Strings Attached. Damn I wanna watch it sooooo badly. Any takers? :)

Is it wrong if I'm still silently hoping for that truck laden with vegetables to plough through my problems?

Jumpstart

Thought of the day : I'd like it it was a little less formal.

Tomorrow marks the very final weekend before I officially enroll as a student at Monash, Sunway. Am I excited? Durh. However, it may not be the reasons you'd expect it to be. To become a university student, quite. Though my very main anticipation right now revolves around the fact that I no longer have to struggle to live through each day having absolutely nothing to do.

Months back, I had sworn to fill my holidays with nothing but outings after outings after outings and gatherings. Did I fulfill that pledge? Well, in the past two months, I have had zero outings. Nil, nadaa, zilch. Wait, you say I contradict all the previous posts I had written? Let's put it this way then. I have attended a few gatherings at places but those that I really REALLY want to go to, have ALL been called off. Coincidental much? I'll never know.

In short, I'd say that this holiday ended in line with every other holiday I've spent in my life, it was rather uneventful and lackluster. There were a few moments worth remember but only just. Some might say that I may have mixed priorities in life, perhaps I do. I have the oddest way of weighing how much each individual event means to me. I should lower expectations next time.

Speaking of the last weekend, I'll try to rally the troops again. Should this not work, say goodbye till June as that's the break for Feb intakes. Stressed? This is only the tip of the iceberg.

A part of me long forgotten buzzed with life again. Perhaps I need longer to snuff it out and sever ties that are no longer relevant to my life.

I'm very well aware that I've jumbled up at least 3 seperate events into one post. That's the beauty of it, you never really know what I'm writing about unless you know me personally. I guess. Meh.

All in all, I'm happy that I did what I did. After all, nothing beats the thought of not knowing. It's the absolute worst feeling in the world. It's smth I learnt well, from the shadows of my past self. :)

Thanks.

Note : I'm sorry for the rather depressive tone but right now.. The only recreation I've had for the holidays is a steady gymming streak with the Ooi.

I'll try to improve the tone of my posts after the beginning of uni. :)

Of Fireworks and Lion Dances

Thought of the day : 7 days till the 7th month of recovery from the 7 month ordeal that ended 7 years. What is it with 7?

As mentioned before, I shall start writing my take on the Street Party at Joselyne's place yesterday.

There were quite a number of us so I'll just bring people in along the way.

I'll start off by saying that I wasn't quite aquainted to the area that Josey lived in so I went to pick up KY in advance before meeting Jon and Lil at Krystle's place first. Met Edwin and Joy there as well as we waited for Krystle to join us.

Not knowing what the setback was once we were all gathered, I asked and it turns out,

"Waiting for Naidu la"

NAIDU OH NAIDUUU. What's the big hold up?

After some deliberation, we figured it'd be more entertaining to watch her try to find the place herself so we just headed on without her. Note that she did find the place without much difficulty.

Aiya.

Shot taken before the festivites began.

Anyways, it wasn't long till the rest joined us. Hong Ye showed up then Kai Xiang came along with Ash.

Played some 21 to pass the time.

Sam showed up with his awesome brown hair. :O

Anyways, then things started kicking off. Everyone gathered outside to watch lion dances going house to house along the street and firecrackers going off. Boy, it was LOUD. Almost went deaf when Jose's one went off. Took cover behind the wall. :D

Cough.

Teh lion. :O

After all the dust (and debris) settled, everyone took to the streets. Apparently there were more performances down the road.

Right then and there, as if to rain on our parade.. It rained. Mehhhh. So there was nothing much we could do but pack up our table and head back to the shelter of Josey's porch. Let the nomnom begin.

Course, we had a round of cards with peanuts first.

Om nom nom.

More 21, and some of us had to leave early. Missing out what I'd say was the best part of the night.

Fireworks.

:D

More 21 again. Rofl.

Then it was all over. Everyone headed home. It was a good night. :)

I'm starting to get intrigued by the whole idea of networking and gathering people for events thing. Simple ones, of course.

What'd You Say?

Thought of the day : I was so enchanted to meet you.

It's official, my computer's down and out. However, I shall view this as an opportunity.. To revive my oh so dead laptop! Hoorah! That aside, it's time to get some serious blogging down...

NOT!

True, I just attended an awesome party. Street Party, at Jose's place with a lot of other people but more on that at a more appropriate time after I have completely uploaded all the photos and even a video of fireworks from earlier. All I can say for now is this, watching fireworks from afar, doesn't come close to watching them up close. I can only wish for one thing, to have someone to share that atmosphere with. :)

Which brings us to the pressing issue at hand.

There's only 42 minutes left to the 14th of February. To some of us, it's but another ordinary day to get on with our so uneventful lives. To the lucky ones, it's a day for you to specially honour your loved ones, the one you have given half your heart to. A special day indeed for them. For some other people, tomorrow they'll be sitting for a test. (Taylor's haha!)

Me?

It'll be a day I hope to change the course of my life.

The pieces are in place. I can already feel the adrenaline pump through my veins from this anticipation. Sometimes, the most ordinary events are those that turn out the most extraordinary. This time, I will see it through. Even if I crash and burn, I'd do so knowing I had tried something and not just let this flame extinguish itself. I'd much rather be extinguished by the words of another.

A rose in hand,
A message from a soul to another,
In hopes of making those two connect,
He set off into the horizon,
His heart bent on making its intentions known,
Would it suffice?

All he can do is have faith,
Faith in the impossible and that miracles do exist,
Because she's a miracle in his eyes.

Time and time again,
He fell upon his knees in anguish,
In the face of defeat,
He never lost hope.

This will be the day he changes his life,
Valentine's Day.

Would you be my valentine this year? (:

Holding You Tonight

I'll start off by saying that it's been a long day, yeah cliche'd much? Even the word cliche is cliched to me at this point.

Computer's busted again. What a great way to kick the day off, don't you think? Everything went well yesterday till a round of the usual HoN in the morning then everything just crashed and wouldn't restart. I've a sneaky suspision that it's been infected with some eadly virus. Meh. Or maybe just some malfunction within the hardware, probably the display drive since the colour and resolution of the monitor are nothing but messed up. Thank gawd I managed to sent out my referal letter requests before it went K.O. on me.

The only thing I regret not being able to save is the essay I've been working on all week. I already wrote down my intro and was midway into the 3rd paragraph. First time I attempted dialogue within my writing.

Speaking of which, I'm hoping to apply for the Pfizer Award 011 at Monash, hence the need for the referal letters. I'd like to thank my lecturers Mr Oliver and Mr Pathma for being able to write it on such short notice. Means alot to me. If I get shortlisted, I'll know on the 15th. Just after Valentine's Day. Hoping for the best.

That aside, I'm hoping for yet another miracle. This time I won't let it slide without knowing I tried. :)

Hopefully I'll settle everything by Sunday tops. Hee :3 I feel so restless. I want to do nothing but prance around or smth. This somewhat feels like those sugar rush things.

:) :) :)

Guise

I guess birds of a feather do flock together.

Applies to vultures too.

Tribute

Just a little something I spent the last month of December working on.



The beauty of pictures is that they never change, even if the people in them do. :)

A summary of my 2010 life, highs and lows, ups and downs.

Maybe I'll dig out my 2009 and 2008 ones. Just for the heck of it. :)

Break The Cycle

So much for the hiatus I had expected.

When something in life becomes a routine, it becomes hard to shake it off and change the way things have set themselves to be. The thought is there, yet the words remain at the tip of my tongue. I feel so awkward and out of place that I can't even bring myself to express what's inside. Everything is but a routine now. I mean, why change it? It's a way of life that I've carved out for myself and if I don't stick to it, what else is there to hold on to in life?

So my past few days have been rather productive. Spent 3 consecutive days in a cyber cafe. Indeed. Nothing beats sitting in an air conditioned room with a 3 other guys gunning down the walking - or sometimes running - dead. There's just a sense of excitement that nothing else comes close to. Well, screaming your guts out for rescue when entangled by a smoker, yeah that. Sounds crude, but hey. ;)

Today's little escapade was with Hong Ye, King Yang and Ash after our trip to OU was cancelled. Who needs movies when you have cc? Played a hell lotta L4d today. Starting with the classic L4d, my computer lagged like hell.

Took us almost 30 minutes to get past Death Toll, a stage, not the whole level. Thanks to the lag. D:

Tried Nazi Zombies after that but the lag persisted, just on my com so I switch.

This is where the fun began, L4D2. First time I'm playing through it. Yes yes, cue audible gasps, my FIRST time playing it. Besides the change of characters, we got to wield melee weapons. Yes, not those pocket knifes you use in CoD and stuff, but awesome shit. Take for example, the good old axe. Nothing like decapitating zombies up close and personal. Other ways of brutal mutilation included the use of a Japanese katana, a bigass chainsaw, and the ever so cool guitar. Yes, you smack em up with a guitar. There's no other game which lets you do shit like that. :D

L4D2 is definitely much more intense than the first game.

DotAed after Sam got there and HY left.

Mm.. Fun. :D

EDIT : Brain's overflowing with ideas for creative writing yet it remains an obscure cloud. Doubt I'll be getting any decent sleep tonight.

Distraught

Don't you just hate it when you try to go to sleep but you can't? Cause your brain wouldn't shut down.

Took me an hour just to fall asleep, throughout which my brain was flooded with ideas on essays to write.

An attempt at creative writing after so long? Yes, I'll try.

Problem is, all the inspiration I had from the night before, vanished.

:/

EDIT : Past 2 days haven't been productive. Wasted away. Gotta get back on track.

Lunar

I'll keep this short, sweet and to the point.

Happy Chinese Rabbit New Year to everyone! (:

Teehee :3

EDIT: I'll be taking a break from blogging till next week. Yeah, being Chinese and all you'd expect me to blog all bout my new year and all it's joy and goody goodness. But no. My new year isn't something to shout about, just something plain and simple. Things I wouldn't be able to write about given my horribly abysmal sense of writing. I'll be back next week, hopefully with what I'm expecting to write. (:

Time to play the part of the planner again.

Maybe

:)