} a long entry that was meant to be short =(

just random things that happened & thoughts, too lazy to string proper sentences today. haha.

monday

went to see mr sim. random thought here, but i realised he talks like some of the guys on project runway, if you get what i mean. anyway. he recommended another uni. possible full-tuition grant! cool.

started on a huge 16x20inch drawing for my portfolio.. decided to draw part of the school landscape. bad idea, cos now i have to keep going back to school until i finish it. but since i still have to see mr sim a few more times, i think it will be ok.

tuesday

went to china embassy to settle visa. waited for a long time. did several stupid things in succession: 1. went to tanglin post office, waited again for a very long time, only to realise i didnt have to cos i had to go to the post office again another day anyway. 2. walked a very long & roundabout way to orchard (cos had no coins & ezlink had no money left). lesson learnt: READ & TRUST ROAD SIGNS, NOT YOUR OWN (POSSIBLY FAULTY) MEMORY OF 'SHORTCUTS' THAT ARE NOT REALLY SHORT AT ALL.

went home. applied for some scholarships via Brightsparks. wrote quite crappy stuff for the essays, doubt i will get offers. but oh well. at least i tried. anyway it was the day of the deadline itself, so it was an OK attempt considering the time constraint...

wednesday

class outing. brought fried nuggets. guys came very late... when i had to leave only shawn & alvin were there. so i missed the 'surprise'. oh well. still had quite a nice time playing some mahjong (before the security guard stopped us...wth =/) & watching half of 200 Pounds Beauty. very funny..hope to watch the whole show online or something.

went to NUS for briefing for First Lego League, since denise novita & i were volunteering to be referees. thought i would be late, but the briefing started even later... helped novita construct a satellite (a lego one, of course..) before a short briefing on the missions, rules, etc. saw julienne, velda, a lot of volunteers from nan hua, quite a lot from acjc too.

stayed behind a little at NUS cos denise wanted to take some passport photos. the machine there is evil, it wont return your coins. avoid all phototaking machines at NUS at all costs. found some interesting-looking drinks... eg., Milkis (looks like milk and soda..? exotic o.o). but i just bought a cup of coffee in the end, felt like a long time since the last time i bought from that kind of vending machine. spilt some coffee on the bus, got disapproving looks from the bus driver... oops.

thursday

went to school to find ms khoo for another teacher evaluation. she wasnt in school yet, but she called me and everything worked out. =) went to find mr sim, but he wasnt in school! rahh. certified some documents for the scholarship applications. continued on my drawing (pathetic progress..sigh).

went to bukit timah post office. waited for a very long time. encountered another Woman From Hell*. she barged into the post office demanding service, attempting to cut in front of the whole queue. the good people at the post office refused to serve her of course, and she whined and complained the whole time, first to the people behind the counter and then (when the post office pple started ignoring her) to others in the queue saying they have poor service etc etc, until the supervisor (whom she was looking for) came back from his lunch break. cue another round of complaints, this time to the supervisor, who calmly kept quiet until she left. i admire his patience. but all in all i think the people at the post office did the right thing, cos the WFH is probably just a spoiled tai tai who thinks she owns the world...

went home for lunch. rested for a while, then rushed to toa payoh cos i realised i wouldnt make it to NUS in time for the extra briefing session if i didnt. went back to IJ to get some documents certified. and finally sent the documents for scholarship apps.

rushed to NUS. the extra briefing session was over, but i asked some extra questions for myself & novita who couldnt come. denise came down later on after her own frustrating day of trying to buy her new phone..

stayed behind for a while for a drink and talked a bit. plus exploring denise's phone... found a VERY COOL feature that will say the caller's name. very creepy but also very amusing. vowed to buy the Milkis drink the next day before/after the FLL competition, or at least trick novita into buying it...

*the previous time i went to the bt timah post office, i met a Woman From Hell. she was being very rude towards the woman behind the counter, criticising her work, telling her to work faster and do her job properly. wth?? her service was just fine, and even if it was bad, theres no need to talk like that. anyway, now im wondering if the 2 women are in fact the same WFH... so if you ever go to bt timah post office next time, beware of meeting the WFH.....

friday

the day of FLL! quite nervous cos i wasnt exactly familiar with the rules. had stomachache, and was very late... arrived 30 minutes later than the stipulated meeting time of 8am. got a shirt (XL..sigh), met novita and denise. at 9+ we were grouped into our tables. i was in the same group with 3 acjc people, 2 girls and 1 guy. at first i thought i would be quite miserable since they might 'gang up' on me, haha, but they turned out to be super nice people, la. got to know them a bit: xue hui who talks a lot to anyone and about anyone, kai xiang her 'brother' (they are really very close, they even wear friendship bands) and gek kiat who is always calm and reliable when the rest of us are blur..haha.

gek kiat and i were assigned to be the 2 main referees/scorers at the table (since 1 full table consisted of 2 playing fields) so i felt even more nervous. but it turned out ok. kai xiang was the timer while xue hui dubbed herself 'Fatimah' cos she wiped the table after each match...haha (although her real job was actually to help the main referees, smth like those referees at the side at football matches, yo.) we all kept changing roles though, so it was quite fun and flexible.

anyway. some of the teams were very cute primary school kids... some are just very annoying cos they were being too competitive, not sporting at all and even trying to argue with the referees (no red cards though, sigh..). my favourite was a team from catholic gifted programme... while they were setting up their robot i told them they were not allowed to 'stick'/clump the lego trees together. one boy whispered 'its ok, la..' but the other boy whacked his hand and said, 'no! cannot la!' sigh. so cute. the little kids were the most fun to referee cos it was obvious that they really joined in the name of fun and they were really enjoying themselves.

another team that was very cute was another 2 boys, not sure what primary school. they had designed very realistic and detailed lego wave turbines as required by the missions, and even included a 'coastal defence'! amazing. but they didnt realise that they were supposed to place the turbine using their robot, not just place it there by hand before the match.. and when we told them, they looked so wide-eyed and disappointed, it was really very heartwrenching. lol. MET and Roland (the chief referees) had to comfort them and tell them that its ok, they can just try their best to do it if they had time, etc etc... lol it was just really very cute.

after the playing rounds, had to help with collating scores for the presentation rounds. but had to leave early at 5 cos we had agreed to help denise's friend with some pre-event job in town. but overall it was very fun, not to mention got to see people that i havent seen for a very long time, like the juniors, mr kang, MET, mr alex, NAT.. haha. =)

oh and we showed the cool feature on denise's phone to practically everyone we met, lol, and everyone was WOWED/amused except for MET who was in denial and pretended that he wasnt impressed. =P

anyway, rushed out of NUS for the job cos we had to be there at 5.30. we felt so happy when we saw a cab, but it was hired. but i ran towards it cos the driver waved at us, but it turned out he was asking for directions. here is the amazing thing. i think karma really exists, cos for helping the woman in the cab find her way, she let us into the cab and afterwards the driver was more than happy to take us by the fastest way to orchard. he even told us that we didnt have to pay full fare if we didnt have enough money. very nice uncle, talked to us a bit and told us that the woman had actually been dropped off by another cab driver in changi from the airport. probably cos the (other) driver thought he wouldnt be able to get passengers if he went to NUS. but the good uncle took her, and he got new passengers (us!). so all in all it was a series of good karma for everyone. (on the other hand, the other cab driver probably got into an accident or something. nothing too serious, maybe just drove into the curb and deflated a tyre...muhahaha.)

met denise's friend kenneth at park hotel, where we were told to blow balloons for decoration at the dinner&dance event, together with another friend of kenneth's. halfway through we were told that we were doing it too slowly so we were told to abandon the job and do something else.

brought to an area in front of the ballroom. since i was dressed quite crappily (i never felt so insulted for wearing tshirt and jeans..) i was assigned to be in charge of the dartboard, while denise & kenneth's friend took charge of some gambling games like blackjack and novita at the kacang puteh 'stall'. haha.

at first i was quite nervous cos i was left to 'find some way' to attach the dartboard to a whiteboard, which looked quite impossible and i thought i would already fail at my first task. then i was left to take care of the dart game barely knowing anything about it.. sigh. stupid disorganised event planning people. but in the end it worked out, & it was a good experience. i put my crapping skills to good use and improvised a scoring system for the darts (cos i was only told to follow the numbers and that some strips were worth double points, but no other info) and a prizes system too. luckily the people were very sporting (most of them were probably clueless about the game as well, thank goodness). plus the top prize was actually of the same worth as the 2nd best prize.. both were just those balloons that you blow and can be used to make sounds, like those they give out during NDP. just that the top prize was blue, the rest were red and green. but somehow making the blue ones so hard to get increases their worth, somewhat? haha.

so it turned out to be a very quick and easy way to get money. (20 bucks earned in just 1hour+!) went for quite a pricey dinner at coffee club though, so about half of that went to the dinner. but still. good experience and lesson: that life is all about 'making it work' (as in the words of the amazing Tim Gunn). then novita went home while denise & i went to holland v to catch EIC at wala wala. but when we reached there, there was a long queue to get seats to watch them play... so we went to starbucks instead for a drink, and vowed to go earlier next time.

saturday

dental appointment. 30 minutes of pain... haha just kidding. not that bad actually, cos it was just scaling and polishing. didnt get to ask about my wisdom teeth though, cos he had another patient right after me. oh well. hopefully its not such a big problem, or maybe i'll ask dr chua.. (although im scared to see her cos i havent been wearing my retainers and now my bottom teeth are kind of screwed up haha).

watched little miss sunshine for a second time. still as funny as ever, and nice to see steve carrell play a much more serious/dramatic role than his usual The Office/Evan Almighty type.

tried to watch bolton vs man city while continuing my drawing, but either the drawing or the match was too boring, and i fell asleep. =/

so thats all for the week. darn even when i try to be short i still end up being long-winded. anyway, quite disappointed that sunderland didnt get the 3 points. out of bottom 3 spots for now, but just barely hanging on. hope they will kick ass (or ball, in this context) for the next match. hoping for a draw between man utd & liverpool, and arsenal win against chelsea today. *crosses fingers*

oh and decided to have a christmas list this year (although i have only ever gotten anything from my list on one occasion) cos i can already think of 2 things that i want to have. =)

christmas list 2007:
a bicycle
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (book)

aha. =)

2007-12-16, 3:25 p.m..
before } after