life and such

so the lease's been extended.
waiting for everything to be sorted out but it seems to get a bit more messy with each passing day.
The romance of leaving this place lingers still.
I actually wonder what I am going to do with my weekends free now.
to the GYM!

it's that time of the year where I start getting pensive. Or more pensive than usual.
I remembered that last year this time, I was doing my PLC course. That was freaking amazing. personal leisure chef.
hmph.. haven't used the skills from then but still it was a good experience and I surprisingly remember it with incredible clarity.
I like cooking.. I miss those classes. It was fun.

and I suddenly thought about what I liked to do when I was in pri school.
I used to like to write and draw alot.
used.
it's funny,a lost memory just cropped up : in pri 4, I had this really talented classmate whom I was good friends with. Her name was Magaret. She could sing, dance, act, write, draw and was rather good with her grades in general.
we were reasonably close. And one day we collaborated to do a book.
we wrote and drew the book together.
She kept it.
But it's funny that I think that was one of my greatest accomplishments in life.

You know how they say that those that can't do it, teach or coach.
I wonder if that's what I am missing.
I miss writing and drawing. I'm no Neil Geiman to be able to do up something like the sandman.

This year what have I done :
1.French lessons (2 terms)
2.Spanish lessons
3.Lifesaving basic
4.NAUI openwater basic
5.Gym
6.squash
7.tried my hand at kneeboarding
8.trip to Krakatoa -> climbed a live volcano and seen some beautiful beaches. Stripped at a beach to get massaged. That was kinda fun. heh..
9.trip to HK & Macau coming up

Personal life wise :
I discovered this deepavali that I have 2 cousins that I have never known of their existence. and they're my Mum's brother's kids. they're 17 & 14 this year. AND they just added me on facebook.I actually deliberated before confirming them. Didn't want relatives online.

there was reticient human. I still think it strange that he preferred not to say that he didn't like me. I know I know.. he was being nice and I'm sorta saying that I can't bear to be wrong to misread someone's actions and words.
actually, godammit I can't believe I was wrong still. Or maybe I'm not. It's just him.
there, that was so much easier.
Met some pretty rich kids NT & YP and some from the Scuba group.
Damn NT is still hawtness defined.

then there are still some things that I haven't figured out yet which I don't want to blog about yet.

Actually that's not too bad to have done in a year.

Muy bonita!

I can only hear out of my left ear.
ear blocked on the right side, I apparently decided to take some malaysia seawater as souvenir with me and something inside the right ear's inflammed.
my damned sinuses are lousy.
to keep bleeding all 5 times that I dived made me think I was a bit too 'gu niang'.
well at least the ear drums are fine, they haven't ruptured or punctured or sth like that.

We had the openwater dive training at geylang east swimming complex.
Having a lane booked just for 2 persons is pretty awesome and having the scuba gear and submerging in a pool is an experience I won't be forgetting soon.
we did skills test like mask clearing, putting on a regulator to breathe, finning the length of the pool and all that stuff was nerve wrecking.
then went to pulau aur for the weekend openwater course and it was WOW!
i never knew reefs were so beautiful. i mean i knew they were beautiful but how beautiful was exhilarating.
seeing the divers 10m below me was and is a sight i can't ever forget. it was so surreal. all those bubbles slowly surfacing.
We saw a the school of baby barracudas, a manta ray hiding in a crevice, a purple starfish, sea cucumbers, some curly whirly thing that looks like a slug or a fish and is only the size of a fingernail, sea anemones and in particular a family of clownfish inside that looked at us as if to say 'whatcha looking at?!'
I was like, am I dreaming or am I really here, doing this.
awesome! *pinch self*

That trip really made me think : about how much I take for granted.
My health, the fact that I can see, hear, walk.
carrying scuba gear is no fricking joke. Especially when you get out of the water, climb up the ladder and onto the boat - you go from weightless to 'WTF is strapped to my back?!' and the stainless steel ladder is so slippery and you do a sorta drunken dance on the deck of a rocking boat to get to the seats to put the gear back onto the holders. Glamourous stuff.
Underwater, sound travels faster. So imagine being unable to hear the sound of the boat engines or the warning signal of from the divemaster that there are trigger fish nearby.
then there's the view. breathtaking view of the corals, reefs, fish, and other things I don't know about. at 22m deep - all i can say is Oh.My.God. it's a life I only saw on tv but I never thought I'd go down the sea to see them.

If a person is a parapalegic or mentally impaired, he or she'd be incapable of enjoying this.
that's sad. really sad.

But the trip all in all was good. Met some interesting people.
Raise your hands if you know of any person who at 17 got his own boat.
Raise your hand if you know of people who do sports fishing.
Raise your hand if you know of people who at 21 are 3 dives away from being a dive master (it is an incredible feat!)
Raise your hand if you know of people who own a resort on an island (the resort we went to is owned by my ex lifesaving coach).
Seriously I need a rich bf / husband (that's faithful and shares the same interest etc etc etc)!!!!!!!!!!!
Since it was just my brother and I doing the basic openwater and there were a couple doing their advanced openwater, we got to do some advnaced openwater skills too! that was pretty worthwhile and interesting too.
Try doing an inverted stand in the water 6m deep with scuba gear..I kept doing somersaults instead. my brother kept hitting his head on the seabed.
heh..

----------------------------------------

the trip to the doctor's yesterday worried me slightly.
I kinda figured why I had the problem with the ears and sinuses was because I was stressed the past month and really nervous about descending the in sea as well. So my muscles are really tense and I have been having difficulty breathing for some time.
And she confirmed my suspicions in an indirect way.
I was told that I need to take it easy in general and no amount of muscle relaxant would help me because it was all in the mind.
I know that and I realise that I used to be more highly strung and I am trying to be more relaxed these days in terms of attitude and all.
BUT it was good to know that the blood pressure is back to normal. so it means I must be doing something right =)
well I hope my ears unblock soon, I can't even plug headphones in because the sound waves against the ear drum annoy it so.



Hasta pronto! kisses!!

friends and such

I believe I have mentioned this before : some interpersonal relationships are like purchasing an expired item. You don't see the obscurely placed use by date.
then what do you do with the item (frenship) in your hand. since you have already bought it with your money (time and effort).
Bin it or eat it since you've paid so much for it?
ai..
sometimes it's just not worth the effort.

some people might look mature, but really they have no eq or iq sometimes..
and you realise that while some people might read really deep books, it doesn't necessarily mean that they fully grasp the meaning of the book.

I think I am distancing myself from people like that - I dislike people with no moral courage, with too dark a disposition and with an arrogance that is beyond help.

sometimes, it's better to walk away. If I stay - i will inevitably quarrel and it would be an irrevocable rift.

This time - it's a test for me too. to be nice yet walk away cleanly.
challenges are always fun no?

and another question : why do I feel no sense of time when i'm in the gym. I seriously think I might be addicted to the 'time warp' feeling!

technology and friends

some time end sept and early oct I deactivated my facebook account because I realised I was spending (or wasting) far too much time on it.
and a week later, I decided that I should be strong enough to have it activated and not look at it.
I don't know why i decided that at that time. I activated my account again and then deactivated it and re-activated it in a span of 3 hours.
My welcome back to facebook was an msg from my neighbour (lives a block or 2 away from me) that my sec school classmate's mum had passed away.
My sec school classmate and I just got to know each other better in 2009. I've always liked her and she's one of those infallibly chirpy, studious and all round sweet & innocent person (she likes Chew Chor meng for goodness sake and had never heard of a wedgie till I explained it over dinner sometime early this year).
to see her break down and cry was.. it was a certain "not feeling anything" kinda feeling.
Her mum had died of cancer at the age of 53.
my classmate herself had just undergone surgery for breast cancer.
I am so ashamed of myself. Her situation really set me thinking. And to be honest, I was slightly pensive for a few days.
That night - it was the first funeral I've been to in a long long long while. I know I didn't attend alot of funerals when i should and could have been there - Because I just can't bear seeing people cry. I feel so helpless. especially when it's a near and dear friend or relative.
Stranger still is that : my neighbour and I were classmates in sec 1 but not too close. and all this while, we've never had each other's numbers. We are friends on facebook but I deactivated my account and she couldn't find me.
2 hours later she tried again, hoping that it was just a facebook glitch and thankfully I was back on facebook.
And then my 1.5yr old sony ecrisson died on me when I was on my way to the mrt to meet them. the lcd screen passed on.
It was one of those "WTF?!" moments. For 45 mins I tried desperately to switch on and off, remove battery, remove sim, remove memory card. nothing worked.
And me being not too good with numbers, I didn't recall my friend's number. So I hung around B.Vista mrt looking out for a familiar face.
I saw a girl in a blue tee shirt that looked like she was from CGS, she didn't wait at the escalator area. she went down and then disappeared from sight.
I thought that maybe I had the wrong person.
it was close to the meeting time and I was getting worried that I would miss everyone.
B.Vista mrt station was getting crowded and there was alot of construction work still, so it was a mess.
then I saw someone I was absolutely certain was from CGS and a close friend of my classmate and neighbour. She walked very quickly and was almost out of sight after going down the escalator.
Luckily I caught sight of her again and she was walking to the old chang kee shop that just opened on the first level of B. Vista mrt.
I saw the girl in a blue teeshirt and the others and.. relief is such a sweet feeling.
my life's just too exciting for words - it seriously WAS freaky friday.
anyways..

I've bought a 2nd hand phone and just sent it for servicing at sony ericsson because it was laggy and just switching on and off on it's own. It even comes with a funky statement when the restarts , "the phone has restarted to optimise performance". nice touch sony ericsson!
I had a pleasant surprise because the previous owner just extended the warranty in aug 09, so I didn't have to pay 72.76 for warranty extension and my servicing is free (it would have cost me $90 otherwise). =) YAY!

right now, I'm still thinking of my friend and how she's getting on.
it's different when you lose your parent - before you've graduated, before you've gotten married, etc.
After the funeral, I really felt like, "omg.. I am going to marry the first guy that comes along, give my parents grand kids and I think I am sort of done."
all right it's an exaggeration, but I did think it.

I love listening to gold 90fm on sun mornings. It's the perfect way to start a beautiful day =)

perfect days like today..

I really like my life now :

1. i love going to the gym, I don't really need gym buddies, as long as I get my workout and build strength, I'm happy. I have increased my muscle mass though! YAY!
i went for tai chi lessons today!!
got a 2 week complimentary pass at cali from my brother.
man my body feels like it's been bashed up.
I did boxercise on wed, body pump on thurs , rest on fri (beacuse of spanish tuition) and taichi today.
since thurs, my back muscles are aching really badly.
love the steam room but not the nude saggy bods hanging around though. i don't know where to look sometimes and it makes me feel like I am some sort of perv.
ick.

2. have been thinking about doing my lifesaving again. and diving course- NAWI certification but it's monsoon season now. crap.

3. I like my job. most part of it. work's been so so busy and I am really trying not to dislike my colleague.
it's really hard because while she is nice to some extent, her bossiness really gets in the way.
and i realise that's alot of "really"s.
and the bloody USD is going down faster than the titanic and my salary is disappearing. *shakes fists at USD*

4. I feel 'normal'.. a certain sense of stability and fun. balance. It's nice. =)

5. I am still not over Halle Berry looking HAWT! damn.. Gabriel Aubrey is yummy too. They're like Brangelina. only sexier, classier and more low key. and less united colours of bentton too. I LOVE HALLE BERRY *gush*

6. this morning : there was a picture perfect moment when there was a cloud in front of the sun - the cloud was translucent, the sun was a beautiful outline, and ends of the cloud was a salmon pink. it was unbelievably gorgeous.

I am so happy today that I could probably skip all the way out of HV. =)
There's only one more thing that could make my life a little extra perfect. *wink*

morality, friends and relationships

what does it mean to have a relationship?
what does one mean when one party judges his/her partner by the company he or she keeps?

several friends have been going through rough patches in their relationships.
what gets me slightly is that these friends disappear from the radar for quite awhile and resurface only when they need to talk.
yes we are friends and yes I listen and care enough to be the shoulder to cry on. but I don't like being the friend of last resort.
It's almost as if I have a calling card that says,'call me. when you have exhausted all other resources.'

another thing that I found curious was the role of "friends of the boyfriend/girlfriend."
generally it seems that a cause for quarrels is :
a) partner spending more time with friends and seeming to enjoy the company of those friends instead of partner.
b) the type of friends kept. Is one really the company that one keeps? Is it fair to make a judgment of that. If so, I wonder if my will-never-happen-boyfriend would take kindly to the friends I have.
Of course the ideal reaction would be that of envy,"oh my what cool,awesome,wonderful friends you HAVE"
I have a complex range of people whom I meet socially.
Are they are all my friends? NO certainly not.
Will I be judged should I be in their company socially? maybe.
in that case, I will have a TON of explaining to do : I am not a swinger, sluttirella who sleeps with white fellas ONLY, emotional wreck, bitchy socialite wannabe, etc...

Which leads me to another issue, which I have written about : Do I judge everyone's personal life? Yes and no.
Yes because after listening to their situation, I think,"what a _____ person". And no because after I have those thoughts, I don't think of it anymore. It perhaps either gets deleted or stored away in a compressed archival which I don't think of. And whatever their actions or choice, we're still friends until you step on my toes.

Does the way they choose to lead their life affect me? When I was younger, I was affected by the lifestyle choices of certain people. especially at work. and I am still trying to rid myself of the deeply entrenched stains.
I can honestly say, it's a battle everyday.

These days I frankly don't care too much. Perhaps it's harsh to say this, but frankly, does anyone care about anyone these days? pity cannot be confused with caring. And bitchily gossiping is a more likely reaction.

deleting someone's number can be harder than I thought.
I actually sighed before deleting a friend's number - because he's left and will never return to SG.
well..
thank you for emails and fb?

With the above in mind, and with shit at work (both places).. I haven't been the easiest person to deal with of late. I find myself in a rut. again. and thinking alot as usual.
And yes I judge myself.
am I happy, well adjusted, cheerful, sweet sister, daughter, friend?
No I'm not. I'm tired of life.
I guess after having a taste of escapism which didn't suit me at all : the problems never go away. I am just waiting for freedom from the chains of life, expectations of people. Having to smile at people who happily backstab you. Family issues.
I want my freedom.
actual. real. freedom.

or maybe I just don't have enough discipline.

I finally really feel the meaning of a sentence so often used by my dad when he was younger, and in some Hong Kong movies :
"how's life?"
"waiting to go to the coffin."

Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again. Ovid

I sometimes regret the candour in my words.
My cup of bitterness does runneth over I admit.
I do so much want to be the ideal californian girl or the Girl from Ipanema : sunny, sweet and charming yet cool.

these days, it is almost as if I have discovered that I DO have a sunnier side that has been repressed inside me. It is slowly entangling from the cocoon within a web of distrust, disappointment, petty behaviour and so many other darker forces raging inside of me.

It has been often said that man wages wars within himself everyday.

I do feel it. I want to fight the cynical side of me that has coloured my life for so long.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I would like to live life la vie en rose but I would like to believe again.
believe in that people can be essentially good or at least are capable of having good intentions; miracles can happen, love can conquer all and be faithful to one person; global warming can be stopped.
I suddenly feel new. not quite born again, but that I am starting afresh, taking baby steps to be a better person : one that does not shut people out, not too sensitive, not viewing life with a terminal ennui.
I believe that I can change myself for the better, that my thoughts will no longer be stained so deeply and thoroughly with sadness and cynicism.

I think this time, I do choose to embrace life.
Reading Ovid helps too =)

"It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul."
~ Ovid