Visited Damai Primary during recess week to conduct our pre-OCSP enrichment classes with a whole bunch of 10 year olds. I don't want to say anything overly negative, even though it is built into my disposition to do so, ha-ha. Because ultimately, I was indeed interacting with kids and I should cut them some slack. The experience overall was interesting, ha-ha. It wasn't exactly eye opening because I knew to some extent what to expect going into this trip. But it definitely reaffirmed my belief that I am NOT cut out to be an educator. It also made me thankful that the people I'm interacting with during the actual OCSP are college students and secondary school students. On a separate note, kind of sad that recess week is coming to an end. Only left with the weekend, so time to make the most of it.

Labels: friends, OCSP, school

written at 00:51 0 comments

I am beyond stressed out right now. It's 0130H in the morning and I'm blogging, which can only mean one thing: I am procrastinating. Mid-terms are happening this week, in 2 days to be precise. And I have yet to study, surprise surprise. I am such an epic failure at mugging, it's not even funny. I had originally planned to start mugging some time last week. By wouldn't you know it, I managed to put it off till now. Am stress eating like crazy, which stresses me out even more because I am aware that I am doing it. Talk about a catch-22 situation. Shall do my best to STOP stress eating and do some actual studying tomorrow. I MUST!


Anyway, I'm not going to fill this entry with insignificant rants about my flailing academic life. Here's some random pictures I took just now whilst accompanying Daryl to shop for knick knacks for his upcoming birthday party. I was under the impression that we'd be buying tons of blue-related decor for his party, but we ended up only buying coloured paper napkins. LOL. Still, it was a fun night, traipsing around IKEA, looking for photo opportunities, checking people out and finally stuffing our faces with a second round of dinner before heading back home to procrastinate some more.

I'd say that I can't wait for recess week to be here, but sadly for me, my recess week has already been filled to the brim with meetings and school-related commitments. I'll just look forward to the weekends instead.

Labels: food, friends, rants, school

written at 01:37 0 comments

My family and I will be leaving for a short cruise today, and when I say short, I MEAN short. It'll be from Friday - Monday only, meh. As much as I would prefer a longer vacation, we have to make do since we technically can't really travel very far with a 1 year old in tow, ha-ha. Thought I'd get this post in just before we deport later, since I'll be wanting to blog about the trip when I get back.

Went for the VIP (Victoria Integrated Programme) Alumni Dinner last Friday with my ex-classmates. It's hard to imagine that 8 years have just flown by like that. In some ways, it's quite sad that the programme is coming to an end. It definitely gave me a lot of fond memories to look back on and even though I often say that the programme really wasn't for me, I have no regrets whatsoever going over to VJC in 2005 thanks to the invaluable bunch of friends that I've made. I know, sounds cheesy and corny, but it's honestly how I feel. I mean, yes, I would have probably done better academically if I had stayed on in DHS. I may not even be an SMU Business Student if I hadn't left DHS. BUT, who's to know how different things would have REALLY been if I had not joined VIP, am I right?

No surprises that the event itself sucked, ha-ha. It IS organised by a bunch of 15 year olds, so I went into it with SUPREMELY low expectations. It is unfortunate though that the LegenDIARY book that they were raving about, which is suppose to document the 8 years of the VIP, was SO ABYSMAL. THAT, I had high expectations for. I was expecting something along the lines of a VJC yearbook? Something hardcover-ed and substantial; but it turned out to be more of a pamphlet? Enormously disappointing. Honestly, I'm not sure where all the money from the ticket sales went to. Ah well, no use whining now I suppose. I guess we should focus more on being grateful for the effort that was put in to organise the event? Ha-ha, on my end, I'm still trying to adjust that focus.


My classmates and I booked a suite at The Sultan Hotel to gather after the alumni dinner. Nothing fancy and it's like my first ever hotel party sans alcohol. ONLY with my V12 classmates will I ever have such a party, ha-ha. Did what we normally do at our gatherings - make a bunch of noise and laugh like mad and generally, have an awesome time. Kind of thankful that we were located near a pub. I think the thumping music next door sort of drowned out all the noise we were making. We did take a group photo there, but I have a feeling it is in Tina's camera and the girl is now gallivanting in Australia.

To end off this entry on a more unconventional note, I'd like to dedicate this post to the friends that I've made after joining VIP. Here's to 8 years of great memories and many more to come. I'm thankful in different ways for meeting each and every one of you (you know who you are). Looking forward to attending all your weddings and playing with all your babies (even though I myself won't be getting married OR having children). You guys are really special to me and I hope we continue to keep in touch :)

Labels: friends, musings, school

written at 02:05 0 comments

Day 06: What band or musician is most important to you?


//EDIT


BOSS Bidding results are out and FINALLY, for the first time in my 3 years in SMU, I got all my bids during the first window. Plus, I was only over the median bid for 1 module and it was by e$0.01 :) Can I hear a FUCK YEAH! #nomorebiddingwoes

Labels: 30 day blog challenge, school

written at 11:02 0 comments

You have no idea how freaking happy and excited I was when I read this email this morning during my Consumer Behaviour meeting in school (yeah, FML right? Meeting on a Sunday morning, during recess week some more). I honestly lost count of how many OCSP interviews I signed up for since the start of this year (at least 10, seriously). And the countless rejection from all the OCSP was making me feel very bitter and annoyed towards all the projects because in my mind I was all like "why doesn't anyone want me?"

However, after reviewing what went wrong in all my past interviews, I got to say that it all boils down to the fact that I have terrible interview skills. Perhaps the difference for my Project Agape interview was that I went in more prepared, and I was sincerely keen and interested in going for this community service project in China. I'm super stoked that the community service involves liaising with a university there and helping them come up with an English course structure. How cool is that right? I mean, it's so different from the usual building of something or teaching of something to the less fortunate. We'll be actually developing a curriculum of sorts for a university no less. Plus, doesn't hurt that the accommodations are supposedly going to be hotels (cheers to not sleeping in tents or on the floor).

I'm really super excited about this OCSP and I guess the whole point of this really wordy entry is just to express how grateful I am in general for the way things worked out in the end. I was pretty jaded after my billionth rejection that I told myself "fuck it, I'm just going to apply for local CSP or something." But I don't know why I decided to just give interviewing for OCSP one last attempt and looked how it turned out! Goes to show that with perseverance, there are indeed certain obstacles that we can overcome. Okay, enough with me spewing cheesy nonsense, going to bum around on my bed because I've only had 5 hours of sleep today (ha-ha, went out to party the night before the meeting, oops).

Labels: OCSP, school

written at 23:42 0 comments

LOL, okay, I know I kind of went overboard with the cam-whoring. But, I figured that I'm hardly ever in formal wear anyway, so might as well take a couple of photos after taking my main head shot for my Finishing Touch workshop.
OMG, I hope I never have to wear a blazer for work or anything actually, it's too hot in Singapore for such office/formal attire. I had to blast the air conditioning in my room to stop my body from breaking out in sweat every 30 seconds. That said, I do REALLY like how the photos turned out, ha-ha. And all this in one lazy Saturday afternoon :) I'm not particularly crazy about the last picture, which is actually the one that I need for my workshop. We were instructed to take a profile picture for our LinkedIn profile and our resume, so yeah, there I am looking like some property/insurance agent waiting to sell you something, ha-ha.

Labels: frivolous, lookbook, rants, school

written at 17:27 0 comments

Surfer Tofu says "HI". It's currently my 4th day here in Vancouver and I'm still slowly adjusting my sleep pattern to get used to the time difference. Last night, I fell asleep around 2230H and got up at 0400H this morning. Have been up ever since, uploading photos onto Facebook etc. Ugh, it's been such a nightmare uploading photos onto Facebook. I don't know what's up with the operating system, but it keeps fucking up the arrangement of my photos. Throw in my OCD complex and that makes for a very pek cek morning.

Anyway, there's roughly an hour left before class starts so I thought I'd try to squeeze in one entry before getting ready for lessons, ho hum* Life abroad has been good to me so far, and I'm hoping it'll stay that way.


Here are the awesome views that you can get from my hostel suite. The first 2 can be seen from my room and the last one is the view you get from the living room/kitchen/balcony. It's very serene and calm and because it's summer, there's a crazy amount of daylight. Like, the sun literally sets around 2100H and rises around 0400H. Took me a while to get into the mindset that just because it's still bright outside doesn't mean it's still early in the day.



First thing we did the very next day after we settled in (and after we filled our tummy) was to go grocery shopping! It's actually quite fun and exciting to do your own grocery shopping but I was constantly nagging my apartment mates to not go overboard with the shopping and over buy. The whole point of cooking our own meals is to save money right? I guess the only downside to the whole experience was that we had to lug all our produce back to our hostel, as opposed to when in Singapore where I'll just hop into my parents' car or a cab and head home.


Alright, signing off with this photo I took with the university's sign yesterday whilst en route to the nude beach xD Sorry for the rushed entry, but I got to go get ready for class. Can't afford to be late for my first day as a UBC student now can I? I promise to update more soon about the rest of my trip so far :)

Labels: food, school, summer exchange, travel, vancouver

written at 23:07 0 comments

Got to love the fact that the school is so near to The Standing Sushi Bar :) They have so many awesome promotions for different days of the week and the close proximity makes the place an ideal choice for dinner, especially after a day of 2 finals exams in a row. Glad to report that IEA and Ethics final examinations are OVER! I'm left with BP finals next Monday morning and I'll officially be done with Year 2 of University life :D

The Ethics paper was manageable. I didn't have enough time to finish though, not sure if many did. Pretty insane to have to write 3 essays in 2 hours, especially when throughout the whole semester, we have not done a single practise paper. Wrote until my hands hurt, which was kind of pathetic compared to my JC days, where I could easily churn out 5 literature essays in a row, in legible handwriting no less. My handwriting has really deteriorated since I entered NS. Hopefully the Professor can read what I wrote, LOL.
As for the IEA paper, I did the best I could given my total disinterest for the module. Hey, at least I stayed in the examination hall all the way until the end of the paper. I had this notion in my head, whereby if I had no idea how to do the essay questions at all, I would just submit my script and walk out. Fortunately though, I managed to pull some bullshit out of thin air and wrote quite a substantial amount of "stuff". Unfortunately, the MCQ was tougher than I had anticipated. I'm honestly not expecting anything more than a C for this module.

Ultimately, there is nothing that good food and good company can't remedy :) Despite waiting in line for 90 minutes just to get a seat in the restaurant, I truly enjoyed myself during dinner. Partly because the food was good, partly because of my Ethics group mates and partly because it was so cheap. 4 of us shared the 2 platters of sushi (Rockstar & All Salmon All The Time) which added up to be S$8 per pax. I had 2 portions of Sashimi (5 slices per portion) and a shot of Saké. Overall, after tax, I spent S$16.50. I guess the downsides to the place are that the promotions are only valid for dinner (I'm usually not in school until that late) and that the place is small, so if you don't go early, expect to wait for a long time.

Labels: food, school

written at 15:52 0 comments