fb status: in rehab

fb status: in rehab

Yeah that's how my account looks like to me - I can't even view my own profile.

My name is Meng, I am 21 this year and I have a problem - I am a Facebook addict. No, I'm serious. The amount of time I spend on Facebook is unhealthy. Of the 18hours I'm awake everyday, I probably spend 16hours on Facebook, unless I don't have connection. Even when I've replied every notification and laughed over every funny comment twice, I am still on Facebook, surfing aimlessly.

As you can probably predict, it is not very congruent with my goal to conquer the ever-growing pile of notes on my desk. So friends, I've made the painful but noble decision of locking my FB account. I gave Glenn my password and told him to change it and keep it safe from me.

That boy did it without warning while I was still happily surfing Facebook like I would on a normal rainy afternoon, and then suddenly the message "Please log in to continue" popped up! Oh Internet, let me tell you - it felt like the beeping of your oxygen tank while you realize you won't surface in time. I desperately clicked "Comment" multiple times, hoping that last comment of mine will get posted. I was just short of breaking out into spasm and gasping for breath.

It's been 6 hours. And I've been feeling like a social recluse every single minute. Now thank God I didn't decide to have him lock my blog for me.

le rendezvous

le rendezvous

Glenn and I have a problem in our relationship - we cannot find time for proper dates. We try and make up for it by meeting for lunch in school, going for tuitions together every Wednesday (we have tuition in the same house at the same time, but different kids) but it's never really the same as a real date.

The last time we went on a proper date was on the 11th of the last month. That's our special day of the month. And I can't even remember what we did. Oh yes, now I do. We went around the island trying to buy me a camera but ended up at Dempsey's B&J where I stained my lovely white skirt with Fishfood icecream, which is BROWN if you must know and gloat about it.

This time, we didn't wanna travel much, and decided on having a cosy little dinner date somewhere nearby. After hearing his several ravings about La Petite Cuisine at Serene Centre, we had a French dinner date. Sounds mega atas, no? To be truthful, I was secretly rather excited about it! La cuisine française? Biensur!

I kept spouting random little French sentences from the whatever remnants of French knowledge that's left in my brain from 3 sems of French and annoyed the hell out of Glenn throughout the evening. I mean, I even wanted to correct the French grammar on the menu just so that I can be a pesky little bimbo of a patron. In return, he tried to be as ah peh as possible, pronouncing the French words in the most awful ways and emphasizing every un-atas bit of the restaurant.

But when the owner of the restaurant came to do her "Bonsoir-bon-appetite" rounds, I'd managed to snatch Glenn's unglam bottle of chrysanthemum tea away and I replied a chirpy "Oui, merci beaucoup!" Score!

Hahaha seriously, I don't know why we do these things to each other either.

And verdict on La Petite Cuisine? So-so French cuisine that's a tad below the average Parisien cafes but set in a rather cosy corner of Bukit Timah. The alfresco corner was cute, but really, the evening was still too warm for comfortable outdoor dining. Final say? Expect no atas French fine dining and you'll have fun at a relatively authentic French dinner! (Hint: you might want to begin by annoying the boyfriend and then spending the whole evening engaging in a meaningless tiff. Hahaha.)

Since we were at Serene Centre, of course we had to skip over to Island Creamery for some dessert! My new favourite flavour is Pear Sake. I've always loved sorbets but this is super yum It simply tastes like frozen pear, which is how all fruit-flavour icecream should taste like. We also spent a good 10 minutes debating if Island Creamery takes down the photos on the walls once in awhile. Anyone knows??

Just because I said I'll put together a photo so it looks like he's gazing at me in awe. HAHA.

DIY: liese hair colour

DIY: liese hair colour

I got bored of my hair, and decided to give it some colour! But having depleted all my savings running all over the world, I bought a bottle of off-the-shelf hair dye to try. After hearing several friends pay compliments to the new Liese Bubble hair dye, I gave it a try!

Now, I was pretty worried about what the stuff would do to the quality of my hair at first. The last time I dyed my hair the DIY way was when I got caught for my highlights as a wayward JC girl. Oh my poor hair. It just withered into black hay. Dry and fizzy. No, dry and fizzy plus waves.

But none of that this time round! My hair felt normal, and the colour turned out very natural! I was worried that the roots were lighter than the ends at first, but then I realized it was cos of the light. Hahaha.

Would I try it again? Well, it's 120bucks vs. 20bucks. So yes, I would!

how to impress your atas date

how to impress your atas date

I've been studying the entire afternoon, and I actually came across something I'd like to remember for most part of my life. So do consider yourself having received the geek alert yeah? Here goes!

Ever sat in a classical musical recital or a ballet recital or a Shakespeare play and wondered what the hell is going on, or where the hell is the attraction/entertainment you've been looking for? Ever sat in one of those with a date who's just drowning in the atasness and chimness of the performance? Ever left one of those with torpedos of questions rained on you by your date?

Most importantly, ever wondered what to say to appear the more intelligent one?

Here's what you can do - decipher the atasness and chimness of the above mentioned. Shoot a question back - do you know why you enjoy what you enjoy? (And to promote the possibility of a second date, proceed to ask, and do you know why your enjoyment makes you so classy? *Winks*)

It's because high art is such due to these reasons:

1.) It's inaccessible. Therefore exclusive. Therefore the price you/I paid for our ticket.

2.) There's emotional distance. You didn't have a big O right there, did you? Yeah well, you weren't supposed to anyway. But if you're looking for one...

3.) Someone with a memorable name was behind the production. Of course we didn't pay the premium price to watch Shakespeare wannabe. It's gotta be Shakespeare the man himself.

So there, note to self in case I ever need to impress any future atas date. Because just like you, friends, I've been caught forcing my eyes open with tooth picks during a classical recital and then raking my brains for profound vocab to make up for the lack of content in the conversation afterward.

Needless to say, there was no second date.

But now. Ah, the pleasures of being an arts students sometimes.

korea photologue

korea photologue

Because the crazy schedule of school does not allow for time to write a huge deal, I shall do a simple photologue of the Korea trip with the Touch girls before the memories start to collect dust, like the Europe, America and Canada ones are doing at the moment. I promise I will finish those travelogues one fine day. Some day. Haha.

And for now, I've put together a couple of collages to tell a quick story of our very exciting Korea trip. Of course, with our plane caught in a typhoon then being diverted to Japan en route and then almost getting ourselves killed by trying to walk ON (not even along) the train tracks, Touch girls are always full of surprises.

We had to pose for a school photo (despite them not giving us a single cent) in that less-than-pretty orange thing, with Shena Na sending us off. I simply refused to wear it onto the plane. It will kill ANY chance of being upgraded to biz class or first class. Hey, a girl needs to keep her dreams alive yeah?

Because we flew Cathay, we had to stop over in HK. None of us complained because that only meant one thing... FOOD AND SHOPPING! Okay fine, that's two things. We were happy girls with the yummy dim sum and dessert. Never mind that it was actually Crystal Jade that we ate. We did have the kickass authentic dessert!

Oh, that's us in Osaka, Japan for an afternoon because we were caught in a freaking typhoon when we were trying to touch down. We were caught in SEVERE turbulence for a good 20 minutes, and I saw my life flash before my eyes and rewind and play again and rewind and play again. We were all pretty sure the plane was going to crash and so thank God for insurance. The only good thing that came out of it was a comfy Hilton hotel stay in Osaka and an hour to explore the area around our hotel!

We hit the food right away the moment we finally got ourselves to the correct country - KOREA. Indeed, food never disappoints. Ginseng chicken, authentic Korean BBQ... I can't even begin to remember what else we ate because we were constantly at it, but oh yum.

And of course there was the shopping! Oh my, these girls are the craziest shoppers I've ever met. They just shop and shop and shop and they never get tired! Me, I got sick and tired of the same old things and the bargaining after the first trip that I just never really dragged myself to go a second time. It was only when I saw everyone's purchases that I went like, Hmm maybe I should have shopped a wee bit more. But still, I managed to score a huge stack of face masks and some great steals.

The other thing that stopped me from venturing out for a second shopping trip was the PEOPLE! Omg, Korea is so not my country. "Excuse me" does not exist in their vocabulary and bumping their way through crowds is a way of life. When I thump on the umbrella that was threatening to blind me, the man holding actually sniggered at me. What kinda person sniggers at a poor soul whose eyeballs he almost pierced? Oh good Lord, just based on that, I was pretty happy to leave the country when it was time to.

Touch girls being sports girls, of course we went to Korea with a sport to play - an international touch competition held in Seoul every year. This year, there wasn't a women's cat, so we played in the mixed cat, and came in second. Everyone's jaws hit the ground when we won the first game - simply because we were girls. But these same people were SO rude during the finals! We kept hearing comments like "Oh yeah, of course the referee is biased, he's hoping to get lucky with one of the girls."

HELLO EXCUSE ME?? If we're good, we are GOOD. Take your men's pride home and stuff it up your sorry little arse. Sickening MCPs. I was completely taken aback at how sexist and childish they were. And mind you, these were fully grown adults. Probably with degenerative brains. How else do we explain their behaviour!

Oh, and to add to all that excitement, I just have to tell you this - we barely made it to the tournament. Shan insisted that she saw a woman walking ON THE TRAIN TRACKS towards the competition grounds. After 3 steps, common sense got the better of us and we turned back. 2 minutes later, A FREIGHT TRAIN CAME WHOOSHING BY. And that's how we almost made the Seoul headlines.

I surprised everyone by opting to go to the Palace with Karen and Zuozuo on the second last day! I even dragged our resident little monster along. :D I was actually more interested in the cultural stuff than the shopping this time round. And I was so disappointed we didn't see any girls in the traditional costumes dancing around the palace! Ah wells, maybe I'll give the other parts of Korea, like Jeju Island, another try another time. As for now, I'm pretty damn happy to be back in the land of "excuse me's".

happy place: starbucks

happy place: starbucks

Now that school has started for real, I constantly find myself trying very hard to squeeze out periods of study time. It's always school time, tuition time, training time and sleeping time. I cannot study after dinner and before bed, because I always get distracted by TV and the seductive Internet.

So when I actually find a block of hours to sit down and Starbucks (or even the school library to just study), I am a very happy girl.

best memory: august

best memory: august

PMS, in order. (:

Dinner with BOTH of my oldest best friends, a first since I came back. We've all been so busy, and attempts to meet up failed at least 3 times. I'm so glad it happened this time, and we sat chatting in the restaurant till it closed.

walking the bubblez

walking the bubblez

Bubblez, doing her favourite thing - chasing the poor little birds.

This is what I do when I get bored or stressed or unhappy. I go over to Glenn's place, and I feel loved right away. Not always from him (you know, boys being insensitive boys take awhile to figure things), but always, always from his dog.

Even before I step into his house, Bubblez already makes me feel as if she's been pining me for me forever. Everytime I press the doorbell, I'd hear her trot to the door, and try to sniff through it. Then all I have to do is whisper her name, and she'd start barking and whining and commanding Glenn to get the door. How else do you feel unhappy when you know there's a cute ball of fur begging to see you!

Needless to say, the moment the door is opened, she jumps right up to me and tries to kiss me. Hahaha as much as I love her, I don't fancy her wet sloppy kisses too much!

Usually I try to bring her out for a walk everytime I go over. And she gets soooo excited about it! As soon as we put on her collar, she'd start running to the door, and back to you, and whine at you to "get out already!" She's pretty much trained now, so we can walk her without her leash, except there is still the risk of going hoarse yelling her name when she finds 1.) birds to chase, 2.) cats to disturb or 3.) food to eat in secret.

And a little more on #3... The little thing is really sneaky and too smart for her own good! When you catch her eating food that she's not supposed to, she PRETENDS to be the angel of all dogs. She gives you the most innocent and obedient look, so that when you yell at her to sit down, and give her two sayangs of a beating on the backside, people around you start to whip out their phones and key in the SPCA's number.

I swear, if there were a dog personality competition, this darling would take the cake.

See, she even scowls!

What kinda dog scowls??

sophomore no more

sophomore no more

Third year in school feels old and new at the same time. Thanks to the lovely break in Canada/US/Europe, I feel all refreshed and ready to tackle another semester of madness. Also thanks to the few months spent away from the NUS campus, I am back to getting lost on campus. Where on earth is LT14 again?? I swear they only went up to LT12 for FASS! So far, it's been 3 days of school, 3 days of cab, and 2 days of getting lost. Fail much! Haha.

Yet at the same time, I look old enough to warrant a question on the whereabouts of the POSB ATM from a Y1 freshmen when I was walking along the Central Library walkway with Fadilah. We were fairly bitter about it for a moment. Hahaha. But there's no denial; we've lost our freshie glows. Yes, freshie glow is the term to describe that ethereal happy aura that surrounds there fresh young things as they wander about school in their Monday bests hugging new friends.

Me? I've gotten so used to school that I seriously cannot be bothered to dress up anymore, especially on training days. It's gotten so bad that when I went to get a haircut after school, my hairdresser observed "Hmm, you really do like sportswear, don't you?" So I guess the sloppy clothes and flipflops have to go! I WILL dress up for school at least one day a week! That creates one more reason for liking school. (:

Yes, you didn't get me wrong. I've been meaning to reveal that I actually do like school! I've been secretly looking forward to it for a couple of weeks now actually. I call it the Glenn streak in me - I'm a secret workoholic. Hahaha. I absolutely cannot stand long days spent lazing around at home. I have to have a packed calendar and there's a certain thrill to rushing from place to place and finally crashing into bed at night.

So that's exactly what I'm going to get this semester - busy, busy, busy. With 4 tuition kids, regular touchrug trainings, Turbo Tryzone carnival, Korea trip in the middle of the term, Winter Touch League every Saturday and the grand ambition to pull my CAP up one final notch, world, you are going to miss my existence elsewhere for awhile.

And goals to keep me in check for the semester:

1. Keep up with readings every week.

2. Less Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.

3. More regular blogging.

4. Time for family, friends and boy.

5. Punctuality. For classes at least. :D

Bonne chance à moi!

greece, gorgeous greece (1)

greece, gorgeous greece (1)

Athinas

Can you stomach another holiday post? Because that's exactly what you're gonna get. And this one was drafted right after the best part of Europe, so you might wanna get a pail in case it makes you puke. Haha. Here goes!

As the 737 flies over the Mediterranean seas towards Milan, I'm already missing Greece. The ancient ruins of Athens, the blue and white dome tops of Santorini's rooftop houses and the medieval town of Rhodes still beckon with all their charm. Greece, of history so old it dates back to the beginning of time. Greece, of seas with a million shades of blue. Greece, of Gods and Goddesses, myths and legends. Greece, I could stay there forever.

Yes, as you can tell, I'm completely charmed over by Greece.

From the moment we saw the aquamarine seas surrounding the islands from the cramped, upright seats of Ryanair, we were already in love with Greece. Even when we set foot in Volos (have you ever heard of Volos? No, me neither), where possibly the smallest international airport in the world (it's probably twice the size of your living room, no kidding) is situated, not knowing how we were gonna get to Athens or whether we could even get to Athens on the same night, we were still happy that we were in the country. And even upon reaching the bus station and realizing that there was actually a bus to Athens that very night BUT we didn't have enough cash on us to get those bus tickets, we were still semi-rejoicing over the fact that we found ourselves a cheap flight to Greece. Of course, the Greek Goddess of Luck worked her magic, and we first found a group of very nice HongKong kids who were willing to do a private exchange of GBP with us, and then we (okay, not we, but Glenn) ran quite some distance and found an ATM that works! Greece!

This is where I attempted to jump off the plane.

Welcome to Volos, Greece.

When we finally got to Athens the capital, it was close to 1am, and a whole TROOP of cabbies surrounded us, blasting us with suggestions and prices. After much bargaining and some threatening, we managed to get a cabbie who agreed on a flat fare of 10 euros for the 10min ride to our hostel. I couldn't help giving myself a pat on the back for checking how much it's supposed to cost, because otherwise we'd have been victims of the let's-milk-the-tourists-dry scheme. But well, it was all part of the crazy Athens charm.

In daylight, the city is completely different. Well, not completely. I mean, of course there were still gypsies who "accidentally" bump into you so that you drop your wallet into their waiting hands. And strange men trying to coax you into buying the bloody dog hanging in the window while stroking your arm. But in general, the city is pretty safe in the day. I guess with PLATOONS of soldiers and police around every other street corner, it's kinda hard not to feel safe.

But once you step into the touristy areas around the Acropolis, you can stop clinging on to your handbag and start behaving like a normal tourist again. And finally, after a rather steep climb up the Acropolis itself, the view of the city just takes your breath away. My favourite part of exploring the Acropolis was sitting on the edge of the hill with my eyes closed and imagining the ancient Greeks walking the same grounds as I walked. I'm not even a huge history fan, but that feeling of being connected to people from thousands of years ago is simply amazing.

Reason #1382975 why I wanna be Greek - their little oh-so-charming streets.

Ahh, there you go, THE tourist shot.

And when the tummy starts to growl after the long walk around the Acropolis, stop by any local eatery for their 2 euro kebab and grab a cup of fresh orange juice for 1.50 euros, and you'll have died and gone to Greek heaven. It was a much appreciated break from the big, expensive European cities for us. Hmm, cheap food, breathtaking sights, city madness... What's there not to love about Athens?

Fresh fruit carts, 2euros Kebab, 5euros Fendi's and a happy boy.