Had to leave O Week early yesterday coz I had to attend Uncle Wayne's wedding dinner; haven't been to any wedding dinners in a long time, it seems. But everything is pretty much the same: I don't recognise or know half the people that I meet (slightly more so now, since my family hasn't been going back to Malaysia for reunion dinners for a couple of years), saying hi and smiling to everyone and yadda yadda yadda.

Struck me at some point during the night though, that the difference between my mum's side of the family and my dad's side of the family really shows when you consider that all the wedding dinners I've attended in my life are for my dad's side of the family.

Then again, the most we hear from my mum's side are from her sisters, only one of whom is married with two sons. We're closer to our mum's side, anyway; we only see our dad's family during reunion dinners or special occasions such as these dinners.

Then at some point of the night, an auntie who married about ten years ago came up to our table and in the course of her conversation with my mum, started talking about how she was remembering her own wedding dinner when she was watching Uncle Wayne and his bride enter the ballroom; she said it was because her own dinner was held in the very same ballroom that we were in right then.

If you must know, all the wedding dinners that I've ever attended have been in Shangri-La. And the Island Ballroom is huge: the doors are twice the height of a person, and the ceiling is three times the height of the doors; the walls are painted (the ceiling as well) with murals and hung with paintings and what I think is meant to look like tapestries, the chandeliers are three-tiered and their diameter is slightly wider than that of the tables; even the chopsticks are heavy because there's some metal (which I suppose is meant to pass for gold) on the ends.

And when I look at all the relatives and the sheer opulence of the ballroom and the amount of money that must surely be needed to secure it, and how my mum always tells my sisters and I that a person's family background is important, and how all the uncles and aunties talk so enthusiastically about who should be the next to marry-- it's vaguely unsettling.

Probably the funniest point of the evening however, was when Auntie Joy was commenting about how it'd been when the two newlyweds' families were all face to face for the first time; she "lamented" about how the boys on the bride's side were too young and if the girls on our side went after them, it'd be like cradle-robbing. :P And on our side, the girls were too old for the boys, and that our girls were too "fierce"; then she made a comment about how all our family's girls were the spunky type. My sis and I agreed on that. Haha... :P

Dear Jared,

I woke this night from the longest dream:
Of a sunlit corridor
And a voice like home;
A patter like children's feet
Dancing off the walls from time to time,
And laughter like bells
Raucous and ringing
And tolling chiming through the floors;
The world turned on it's side then
And the voice fell away,
I woke with my chest hollow
And my heart in my hands;
Round the windows the curtains were tattered
And the clouds all cloistered, bunched;
My hands were empty and my face wind-chilled,
Pushing at the glass to let in the rain,
And I wondered long about the apple trees
Sitting alone in the storm.

Well, I suppose birthdays are meant to be happy.

It happened again this year; I forgot my own birthday. How sad is that. And I think that almost everyone who knows me forgot as well. (Although I don't really expect anyone to remember insignificant little me, haha. :P) Only remembered when Pam messaged me to say happy birthday in the afternoon, while I was at work. And later, in the evening, Beatrice messaged!!

Haha... the last time I heard from Beatrice was in J2, when she and Josephine went to all the trouble to get my number from someone just to wish me happy birthday... and I haven't even seen either of them ever since we left secondary school. Turns out that Beatrice is starting first year at NTU this coming Monday; good luck to her; have fun, girl. :)

And sadly, while friends whom I haven't seen for years can remember my birthday, my boyfriend can't.

Yes, Ivan forgot my birthday. Only remembered when I told him, and then there was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and then, a half-mollified, half-apologetic tone asking, "Oh yah... 22nd, right?"

Sigh. Oh well.

Not the best birthday this year, considering the stuff which has happened today, which I don't really want to say here, but thanks Pam and Beatrice for the birthday wishes.

(Update: Thanks to Benedict too; he messaged at 11.55 pm, so by right, there were still 5 minutes left. Haha.)

Maybe I should change my minor. From English Studies to Gender Studies.

Gender Studies does sound more appealing to me than English Studies. Plus, I'm still kinda leery of both E Lang and to a lesser extent, E Lit as well.

O week precamp was somewhat disappointing, because of e rain that we had for the greater part of both days. And somewhere in the middle of it, I realised just how important people can be. I mean, as in, what important determining factors people can be.

I still remember when Xuzi called on Saturday night asking if I would be coming for precamp, and I was suddenly given the option of completely staying out of O week (which I was told Alvin had already taken).

I was so inclined to skip O week completely since Rag definitely needs all the manpower that it can get, but in the end, I still told Xuzi that I'd be there for precamp. Not sure why. Maybe I felt that as an MC member, I should at least be around to help for one of our major projects. Maybe it was just because Ivan would be there. Probably more of the latter.

And then as early as the night before precamp, I realised that even if Ivan was there, I probably wouldn't be able to spend much time with him anyway; the same thing happened during Arts Camp (although it was better then since it was a stay-in camp and we could at least spend the night together).

But my freshies came into play the next morning; at first, I was quite demoralised when I saw only Carrick, but then Kelvyn showed up as well; Ernest came shortly after, and just as we started ice-breakers, Jennifer came back from her medical checkup. And when we were starting the second of our ice-breakers, who else did I see saunter up to the registration table but Ben. Later, Jennifer even said that Elda would be coming for O Week itself as well, although she couldn't come for the precamp.

Six of my seven freshies are coming back as freshie councillors, and watching them interact and laugh and joke like Arts Camp had never ended, it made me think that maybe O Week might be better for me than it was last year.

Busy busy day.

Tired, so if I don't speak/type in complete sentences, don't blame me.

Woke up early in the morning to rush to school for archery exco elections; the interviews lasted longer than they were supposed to, but I decided to stay on for voting anyway. Only managed to stay for the first round of voting though, coz by then I was already an hour late for work.

Good thing that hardly anyone ever bothers to check on the promoters. :P

Later, at about 2.30 pm, Khim Nyang messaged me saying that I'd got the publicity head post; yay. :) Also means that my first two months or so of the semester when school reopens are gonna be pretty damn hectic. :S

Sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm doing this; why I'm doing so much. Then I think, why not? And then I wonder if my life will really be that much fuller as a result of all this. And I think maybe; my life as it is now is already quite full.

Worked till 9 pm coz I figured that I should at least make up some of the time that I was late, then rushed to catch the bus so that I could get to Heeren to change the pair of flip flops that Jianwu and Keyou bought me last week. They bought me a lovely pair of light blue Havaianas with white butterflies on them, but they turned out to be a size too small, so had to get them changed. Luckily they had sizes this time; when I went last Friday, they didn't.

Which means that now I can wear the lovely things to O week precamp. Haha. :P

This must be the busiest holiday and time in my life; I'm working, I'm helping out in almost all the FOP projects (on the comm for four of the six), and I really should be training more often if I want to take part in the outdoor competition in August, but I don't have the time... maybe one day I'll just sit down right where I'm standing and not want to move.

I need to get the Bash tickets printed, I need to plan my modules (EN2111 is frigging getting in the way of EVERYTHING; maybe someone out there is trying to tell me something), I need to think about how to get the alumni's help for Flag, I need to help out for Rag, I need to buy something to wear for Thank You Dinner, I need to help out for matric fair for Arts Club and Archery Club, I need to do something about that design for the archery club T-shirt which I've had for the longest bloody time, I need to train, I need the bloody thousand-over bucks of pay that Reckitt Benckiser owes me, I need I need I need, ARGH!!!

Ngh. Must not slap self.

My poor organiser looks like a bloodbath.

Woke up this morning feeling happy. :)

Sky's a light, bright blue and sunlight's streaming through my bedroom window, grilles making patterns on the patterned floor, crissing crosses over adjacent rectangles, and dust motes hanging and dancing and floating in the sunbeams.

Gonna be staying over at the Rag house tonight; last night, I finally found where all those gorgeous Orlando Bloom pictures that I've been seeing on everyone's LJ icons recently came from. Celebration calls for a picspam. :D




I *love* that smile. :)









Also, was watching the "Elizabethtown" trailer last night; pretty funny, I must say; whoever knew that Orlando Bloom could do comedy? Well, not straight-out, flat-on-your-face-laughing comedy, but subtle. Whatever it is, it makes me smile. Haha. ;D Take a look, if you're interested. I might even decide to watch it, after all; although my first reaction when I found out that Kirsten Dunst was in it as well wasn't a very favourable one. :P

Sometimes life makes me want to find a small little space in the middle of the world, and twirl round and round and jump up and down and sing a happy song without words.

To top it all off, I'm blasting my feel-good song of the moment, Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot"; currently, this is the song that I wanna shout while twirling round and round. :) Download it here, and I hope it brightens your day as much as it does mine. :D