Clutch of Inspirations.

August 26, 2009

visa spells frustration @ 11:14 AM

Always waiting.

You know you're running out of time, but you can't do anything about it.

You put in 101% effort to do something, but it's still your fault and your loss when the something never becomes anything.

You run, huff and puff in a race to realize that everyone is already at the finishing line.

You fell into a well but passersby think the well is a trash bin for some reason and dumped garbage into it.

You feel frustrated.

my dear visa letter, woncha come to me faster?? puh-lease, i beg of you.

0 muffins for me

August 23, 2009

$ @ 7:06 PM

Omg. The overwhelming guilt of spending money. Can't stop pouting about the accommodation and tuition fees which cost a bomb each. I am so gonna move outta the campus hall next year to find the cheapest decent place available. Most importantly, I pray that God help me be self-disciplined and study hard in Manchester. The last thing I want is me wasting my parents' money and effort. Brr.

0 muffins for me

MOCS App. Dinner & Christian Book Fair @ 10:41 AM

Thanks to Dr. Loh, one of our MOCS patrons and also a choir member, we had the joy of having an appreciation dinner for the annual concert. You know how fond I am of free food! But alas, it was announced that members above the age of 18 has to arrive at our venue for the night, Grand Palace Hotel, at 6p.m. because the Annual General Meeting was to be held. Being an obedient girl, ahem, I did as told. Sigh. So there I was, being the very 1st one to reach and enter the ballroom, weell, except for the few organizers. =.=

Felt very obliged to pop some food into my mouth while waiting for the other adults to come. (And people say youngsters nowadays are never punctual. Hello? I was probably the youngest and the earliest! Whoahaha.) Luckily there was Eleen to chat with. It was the first time we talked actually XD - we sit too far apart in the orchestra since she's a cellist and me a violinist. Apparently she studied music in UMS( Universiti Malaysia Sabah) which is in KK and which I always pass by when I'm in KK, heh. Anyways, the meeting went past in a breeze, lasting for only around 20 mins and was like Aunty Lily said, the shortest AGM ever held. Concert O.C Kelvin gave a brief thankyou speech after that and we get to EAT! =D The underaged kids had not even arrived yet..sorry kids!

It was a buffet-style dinner with main dishes such as curry chicken, black pepper beef, tangy sea bass fillets, cheese-baked cauliflowers, mixed vegetables and fried beehoon. Then there were salad and desserts as seen in the pictures. First time I tried umai which is made of fish. So-so for me, not very used to the taste.

While we savoured our food, the recorded video of our concert performance was played on the TVs hung on the wall. Oh man. Obviously we were laughing at ourselves, like, ''Hah! This song..I messed up at this and that part..''...''Omg, I don't dare to watch this song.'' I was very engrossed in the vid and suddenly, they stopped it and say it's time for games! whoosh. I had not eaten the fruits and desserts yet. But no, they wouldn't have any of it. Every single person had to participate in the games.

Game #1 was something like ice-breaking - gotta know people's names that kinda stuff. In the end there were 3 losers. Marcus was unfortunate enough to be one of them along with two others little kids. Game #2 let me know after 18 years of living that I suck at ''rock, paper and scissors''. Yeah, all these years I thought I was good at it but either I was wrong for my entire life or some bad luck fell on me 'cause I almost lost the game that just involves playing ''rock, paper and scissors''. Some 60+ people were playing the game and God knows how I lost and lost until I was one of the few ''chicks'' or ''eggs'' left. Mind you, I was praying to God as I fought on so thank you Lord for letting me escape from being the sole ''egg'' that just can't hatch in the end. Someone wasn't as lucky as I was. He seriously had some bad fortune that night for losing in both games.

The downright interesting punishment - belly-dancing.

I carried on eating the fruits and pudding with the only plate left, muahaha. Soon, the karaoke session began and I trotted downstairs to wait for my car after the first song ended. Could still hear the singing continuing down there, together with Amindah, Sissel, Crystal and the other Caroline xD. We were saying that the 2nd anonymous singer had quite a good voice...a few days later at home, I learnt from my mum it was my cousin Melvin! Lols. Nice job.

***

There is a Christian Book Fair going on now at the Indoor Stadium these three days - from 21/08 to 23/08. We were planning to go with Aunty(vh mum) on the first day's afternoon but yc and linda needed to go to the optometrist's. I had some 'fun' watching yc trying to put on her contact lens for the first time. It certainly looked easy-peasy but someone spent more than an hour on it and still didn't managed to get the left side lens in. Poor her. Linda, on the other hand, was making a new pair of spectacles so she wouldn't need to wear contact lens even on weekends.

Point is, I did go to take a look at the book fair after all! No one wanted to stay at Parkson so yc 'dumped' linda and I at Imperial Mall for her car couldn't take us in later when she go fetch her bro and sis. My mood was very down that afternoon though, ermm, more like I was extremely bothered. (BIG thanks to the no.1/one and only thing on my hate list - Visa). Linda made the effort of looking for dresses for me but of course, being me, it ain't a simple task. Why oh why are dresses so costly in UK that I have to buy them now? The pain of shopping, urgh.

My mum picked us up after work and off we were to the book fair. Met Pastor Xiao Cui who recommended us which stalls to go to. Chunsian came appearing with his bombastic hair also, no change in character at all =P Around the corner where the sweet aroma of popcorn origins from, it took me 5 secs to recognize this guy whose name I can't recall. ><>apologizes*

Linda and I tried making our own cotton candies at the snacks stall - one nice part about friendly church people. Thanks to a kind-hearted lady too, for offering us hot water when we were whining about how cold it was in the stadium. Anyway, our cotton candies were pitifully small and out of shape. The pro was nice enough to make new HUGE ones for us (YAY!) and we bought popcorns as the smell was simply too irrestible.

Moving away from the little ''fun-fair'', we sauntered around again, spotting Steve working with the P.A. System as always. Then we saw Anna aka Wei Wen who was helping out at a stall. Yonghan and Edward were doing the same thing as well. Gawd, how much Edward changed physically, somehow he seems to bear a close resemblance with someone. I don't know who. x.x

Here are some of the stuff I bought :

''THe Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.'' - Psalms 23:1 - I shall be hanging it in my room in Manchester. (=

A sheep necklace - RM9.90 buy 1 free 1. Linda got a bear one.

A bible. I bought a NIV version actually but my mum said the words are too small and cramped to be read so she went and exchanged it for this Good News Version.

A keychain. With a bible verse and a violin printed on it.

A balloon that was shaped into a bear initially but I accidentally twisted it and poof! It turned into a dog. It's free in turn for our ''keep the change'' gesture. =D

They shall all be coming with me to UK except for Mr BearDog.

Some of the CDs my mum bought. The one with the piano was bought by me in KL lah, hehe.

Go give some support to the book fair if you have the chance. Lots of worthy things up for grabs at reasonable prices (= It's the last day today!

0 muffins for me

August 19, 2009

thanks, teachers! @ 8:42 PM

The original plan was to go to Park Hotel for pork, 乳猪, to be exact =D But one isn't enough for all of us, don't ask me why we can't order a 2nd little pig..so the dinner location was changed to Ulu Mulu at Marina Bay. RIT lecturers must love us so much for bringing them there to enjoy dinner, kind of an appreciation dinner, since our results just came out a few days ago.

Very exceptionally, no one took pics of the food that night. Either we were too hungry and tried to snatch food before the plates go empty or the food presentation/deco wasn't exactly very impressive. The taste of the food, on the other hand, was pretty average. Sis was ranting that the dishes were all 'extreme', 'extreme' in the saltiness. I'm wondering if the price of salt has plunged or what, since I met this condition in one of the Pujut 2B coffee shops too.

Dr Lee brought 5 litres of red wine, only sis and suyi didn't drink a drop of it. Maurice and Pollux and Mr Koh drank the most if I'm not mistaken? Followed by Winy. I actually drank half a glass! Surprised myself.

Introducing the latest Fila handbag.

The nnf portrait.

Ms May, Ms Winnie, Dr Lee, Sis and I. My face looks oh so round here.

The big family.

The night was an enjoyable one except for the fact that there was this sort of air-conditioner with fan right behind me, causing my hair to fly and mess up so that I look like a mad caveman. Hope that our dear dear lecturers found the dinner and of course our companion pleasurable. I guess I probably won't be seeing them in near time anymore after collecting my statement of results yesterday.

To all the beloved RIT lecturers, do take care and God bless (=

0 muffins for me

August 18, 2009

the lazy life @ 1:07 PM

It was a last minute decision that we should have a sleepover, at vh's house. Anyway, since that has always been our way of doing things(bad example), we managed to prepare everything nicely in time. In case you're wondering who 'we' refers to, we = Detective Belinda, Policegirl Voonhui, Inspector Yeeching aka bully and Sergeant Caroline. Lawyer Jane, you're missing!! But seriously, how lame can we get in primary school =.=

Our self-prepared lunch. belinda's Carbonara macaroni, my herbs and spices chicken and yeeching's shepherd pie she felt so proud about. Aunty who probably didn't trust our cooking skills completely ordered fried bai guo (炒白粿). Our dear voonhui made plain ice for us to dump into our drinks. We err, appreciate it very much. XD

Thanks to 痞子英雄, a Taiwanese cop series, our whole afternoon was occupied until late evening when aunty stopped the DVD and drove us to Tanjung beach.

This was taken last year at Lutong beach.

Time flew. And here we are more than half a year later.

That's aunty in bright pink =D

Fate brought us together quite some time ago..

Here's solid proof.

It was terribly hazy at the beach so we retreated to dinner after fooling around and playing at the playground. As usual, we ate the famous dry noodles at open market. Back at vh's place, our eyes were glued to the TV once more, vh was already totally addicted to it =P When belinda went home to bath, we took turns to bath as well and continued with the series. All this time my sore throat and headache were slowly developing. Halfway through the series, I gave up when the aggravating headache became unbearable. Aunty had me drink honey water which sis suggested as comfort food. It really was! But not for long. In the end, I had to call it a night and snuggled into bed while these peeps progressed on deep into the night.

Things were much better the next morning. We killed time with series, food and singing at the piano or at the laptop with Youtube. Lunch was yummy chicken mee sua cooked by aunty. We really owe you a zillion meals! Haha.

Basically this sleepover has not much details, just tv, youtube, some gossips and most importantly, food. Duh. Someone even had tummyache after returning home. And that was why, we had our 2nd sleepover exactly a week later...

***before the 2nd sleepover***

I drove yc and vh to somewhere near Boulevard for some ice. It has been ages since I drove somewhere else other than the Pujut area, clap hands for myself. This shop we went to is air-conditioned, thank God - the sun was burning hot. The first thing that attracted my attention in the shop was a gigantic uber cute penguin ice-making machine. Wonder where they got it from. Coincidently, Fu Yuan, Michelle and 2 of their friends were sitting in the shop enjoying big bowls of ice too (=

Green Tea Ice with cornflakes and sweet red beans. Refreshing.

Mango yoghurt ice. The frozen mango chunks sent chills down my spine.

Plate of french fries to warm our icy throats.

***2nd sleepover***

This time, it was an even more eleventh-hour decision of sleepover, for me, at least. The scene was something like this...

Vh and mum came to pick me up for beach again. I hopped into their car.

Vh : How come your hands are empty? Not bringing anything?

Me : *blur for a split second* huh?

Vh mum : Not sleeping over?

Me : Ohh..we're sleeping over? Yc and belinda are sleeping over?

Vh : Yess!!

Me : Hmm, needa call my mum. *phones mum office, no one answers* Eh?? Past office hour dy.

Vh : So how?

Me : Err..nvm, I pack first lah. Should be okay with her.

Vh mum : Faster go pack. We come back for you after fetching yc and belinda.

Me : Ok ok!

So I zoomed into my house again, up the stairs, packed everything in 2 minutes and got ready before they returned. That's one Super Caroline, haahaa!

This time we drove to the Marina Bay - where Ulu Mulu and the Seahorse statue are located. We were saying that this place in the photo above is great for suicide. You can run from afar on the soft grassy stretch, onto the grey hard rocks and SPLASH, jump into the deep blue sea, let your body sink down slowly until your world goes black..perhaps you can even do a bit of fish-watching before that.

Scenic view of the boats and the sea.

The seahorse tower you can't enter. White elephant.

Almost sunset.

The conifer tree looks so estranged.

Somehow I find this photo, yeah I edited it, somewhat fairy-tale like. Maybe it's because the sky has become a green shade. It was tranquilizing, taking in the slightly salty air and sitting there chatting in the breezes. We left for another 干面 dinner at the little wooden house in Krokop. The O.K. noodles, as we call it. ^^

Returning to vh's house, we did more meaningful and interesting things compared to a week ago when all we did was watching the series :

We played piano and violin and sang from Christian songs to oldies like Yesterday Once More.

We gulped down a big bowl of barley each at midnight, writing contracts which contents you wouldn't wanna know.

We sat outside on the balcony's floor at midnight when the thunder and lightning were cat-fighting, gossiping..my 1st urge of banging head on the wall. oh my, why on earth did I.

We looked at one another brushing teeth and found out who is the worst at bearing listerine in the mouth.

We mattress-fighted and pillow-fighted and blanket-fighted until aunty woke up.

We listened to aunty's talking(bully's too) - my next 100 urges of banging my head on the wall.

We drifted off at 3 something and woke up at 7 something.

We watched ''Wipeout'' and ''Amazing Race'' on AXN on the bed because vh couldn't find Scrabble.

We ate fried beehoon for lunch =)

It was our last day together before the separation begins with vh going back to KTJ in Semenanjung to continue her A2. Then Belinda to Newcastle and I to Manchester on the same day. Yc to London about a week later.

But no worries, we'll be back to create havoc. Next summer. Stay tuned wheeheehee.

0 muffins for me

August 11, 2009

contradictory feelings x.x @ 10:36 PM

"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. "

- Luke 11:9 -

***

Just can't thank God enough for my A-levels results. It's amazing how He treats His children. I prayed for at least something that gets me into UK, be it ABB or AAB. He gave me even better results which I didn't thought of at all. Perhaps I should be more optimistic in life (=

Sadly, I can't at the moment 'cause my spirits are terribly dampened. Dear me. I hope this is not considered an emo post, is it?? I never write emo posts! Those are meant for diaries..no, I'm not going emo in my blog. There are, after all, many things to look forward to in the days to come. Praise be to God!

2 muffins for me

August 9, 2009

MOCS Devoted to You Concert @ 12:10 PM

1st August

We had a final rehearsal the night before our real concert. Everything was pretty messy and slow. The female emcee was absent, still in KL. The audio system was rather bad,

producing ear-piercing noises now and then. The place was hot and stuffy. Anyways, happy to say that I performed as one of the first violinists this year.

Choir rehearsing.

Chamber orchestra.

Chamber choir.

2nd August

2.10p.m. Our first performance - the matinee, started. The 1st and 2nd pieces were performed together with Pei Min Chinese Orchestra, conducted by their teacher Tham Wan Siong. The audience should be familiar with the 1st one, Matsuri by Kitaro. Next song was 好日子 / Auspicious Day - a song exuding Chinese feel.

Since the chairs had to be rearranged after the 2 songs, we went backstage first. We waited for a loong time during rehearsal the previous night so I thought we could rest for a little while. But, apparently, the stage helpers were swift that day. Everyone started moving back to stage. Only then I realized my stand partner Jacqueline was still in the long corridor backstage. I rushed to call her, we rushed towards stage, then she asked me where was our stand. I felt like banging my head against the wall, 'cause I forgot about it totally. By the time we went out, everyone was already seated nicely. Even our conductor Yap Ling was out there, ready to start anytime. Talk about embarassment. Duh.

This little girl here is Shazlin Salamat. She gave a vocal solo on the infamous 月亮代表我的心 and Awan Yang Terpilu(The Sad Cloud??) accompanied by our orchestra - Yap Ling conducting. Don't judge a book by its cover - she sings wonderfully for her age. And the Malay song is one of the best I ever heard. I mean the melody. Try look it up in Youtube. It was originally sang by Ning Baizura.

We proceeded with Dance of the Comedians and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5 with James as the conductor. Then Yap Ling again for Bach's Concerto in D minor and the William Tell Overture which I felt like suffocating because I couldn't catch up with the pace, tempo was too fast for me at some parts. *apologizes to whoever was present*

James as 1st violin soloist, Eben as 2nd - Concerto in D minor.

We were up for a rest after that. Stagetime for the choir. They sang 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and some other songs. Love the 'wheeeEEEeeEEeeEEeee..um..um..aweh!' XD

A highlight of the night - Yap Ling's violin solo with his wife, Grace Lee accompanying on the piano. Yap Ling performed Brahms' Scherzo in C Minor and Kreisler's Liebesleid. I wanted to upload the video but sorry, too slow. Anyhow, he's awesome. P/S: someone looks like a waiter sitting there XD

Towards the end of the concert, we did a combined performance with the choir, presenting Lionel Richie and MJ's 'We Are the World'. Last of all was Rolf Lovland's 'The Dawn of the New Century'. I fumbled a bit with our ending song's bowing though. Weirdy.

The performance at night was exactly the same

. Ohh, we had chicken rice for dinner =.= Pustaka must have smelled of chicken rice since there were at least 60 of us eating chicken rice. At least I ate it out in Pustaka's garden with some others hehe. Everyone lingered around waiting for time to past and I finally ended up reading newspapers in the library until we began our second round of 'war'.

***Behind the Scene***

Lols. It's the exclusive BTS special. Haha. Kidding. Took some photos backstage while killing time - It's most likely the last time I perform in MOCS. )=

This is Amindah. Credits to her for the photos she helped me took. Whose hand is that?!

Vivian appeared during the interval so I quickly grabbed a pic with her. Come to think of it, we were buddies in choral speaking way back when I was in Primary 5! =D

My cousin Melvin and I. He still has many performing opportunities - only in Form 2.

I guess many people know who this is. Miri's most versatile musician, expertising in violin..James Lau. I started learning violin from him in 2004 so it has been around 5 years. He likes to do silly things, doesn't have good eyesight and is very absent-minded. But still, he's a great teacher, that you can be assured of. Never seen him get angry before all these years.

Aaron and his bling suit XD This boy is one of the top students of his form in RRSS. Cheers for juggling both studies and music at the same time!

My partner Jacqueline! With Brandon and Aldrich messing around there.

She's my relative Kah Yie - any alikeness?? She's taller and skinnier than me.

Terrence from CH. Much more mature than a few years back, uhh I feel so old!

The lovely kids - future pillars of the orchestra! Have fun learning in your days to come (=

Shin Zhi and I. I hope I spelt your name correctly. She's a good violin player~

Posing with the little girl Shazlin.

More kids, lols at Lean's eyes. They sure were excited.

I spy...lots of rabbits ears popping out of nowhere.

Emo guys..

..who do street performances for a living?

Group photo with the VIPs. Only the town mayor and his wife were left though.

Caroline, Crystal, Caroline =P

The peeps with Vh's mum.

The peeps with Vh's dad.

Just us. Thanks for coming!! Hey, I just remembered..you guys haven't paid me the tickets price yet!!! T.T I want my money back, i want my money back! *echoes goes on*

0 muffins for me