en route; 
since mary went back home for a short vacation/visit, my sis &i decided to attempt to cook!
before:
after:
farfalle all'arrabiata, oven-baked herbed fish fillets &roasted sausages and potatoes :D
with extra love to didi &shawn, who lovingly ate the chili padi filled pasta despite their intolerance towards spicy foods.
yayy. "Things My Grandmother Taught Me"
- Mila Jaroniec
#1 It’s better to be young and stupid than old and stupid.
"You obviously can’t learn anything if you don’t make any mistakes, and you have the rest of your life to “know better.” How can you know better if you never knew worse?"
#2 You can’t expect to be completed.
"Going through life reaching for your other half only makes you half a person. You’ll never feel complete until you realize that you are enough."
#3 Things are not that bad.
"Besides the whole “appreciate what you have” thing, if you really hate something, make a move to change it."
#4 Family is the most important thing.
"Anyone who loves you, has your back and is right there with you when things get real is family, and these are the people you have to take care of."
#5 Jager makes it better.
"I’ve never had a stomach problem I couldn’t fix. Stomach virus? Jager. Ate too much? Jager. Hangover? Jager. Seriously, that herbal liqueur is good for so much more than getting blackout. Besides, how can you not trust a woman who’s lived to be 88 on a diet of bread, sugar and Jager?"
it is amazing how the thoughts of some others can evoke thoughts into you. i guess that's why they call it 'the thought catalogue' in the first place.
and based on the fact that i'm actually having a flu now, perhaps i should go get myself a shot of Jager. 
bubbles showed me her little project that day, a little something she calls the thankfulness project, and somehow it served as an intense reminder to me: let's forget about the things we don't have, and focus on the things that God has blessed us with.
so i've been trying my best to look positively no matter what happens in my life,
and i must say that trying to be happy all the time can really be quite tiring. but at the end of the day, when you see results, i guess that's what matters the most.
xoxo; 
MOOVIE GANG <3
(except we didn't watch movies yesterday)
"they always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
- Andy Warhol 
"You go in blindly, practically pricking yourself with a dull blade, and then you walk out with tougher skin."
- Ryan O'Connell, 2012
lunch with cheok (POOH BEAR) &sis, dinner with mich tan/lim, ben&kai, drinks with mich tan &kai (:
with awesome friends &company, what more could a girl ask for? 
The Panic Virus is really an amazing book so far.
like what my cousin mentioned earlier, it's like an elongated, lengthy journal article in one book. and it's amazing in a sense that despite the fact that it's the longest i've ever taken on a book (and i still haven't completed it), it still intrigues me in every chapter. haha.
according to kristen aka bubbles, "you've become nerdy!". HAHA.
perhaps i have.
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p.s.
happy (belated) birthday mr. shawnting aka neighburrrrrrr!! (:
cheers to our many threats to burn down each others rooms, and many more to come! :P yixian just uploaded some old, but definitely gold memories (:
#1 combined birthday celebrations@barracks!
a very sweet surprise arranged by the most awesome friends ever <3
#2 new year countdown@balaclava!
#3 mich's birthday@peperoni's (:
i miss these times.
i really wish i'd stop feeling so disconnected. 
“If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives--we are each of us unique.”
- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat KINDLE FIRE OR KINDLE TOUCH OR KINDLE KEYBOARD?!
or maybe a nintendo ds.
HAHAHA.
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'virgin' facetiming experience with the awesome chingster!
retarded friends ftw <3 hahahaha. 
marcus seng's new ride! (:
a mazda first gen. for a person who doesn't know much about cars, all i can say is: it's really old, and really low, BUT really awesome at the same time. he picked me up (his first passenger!! hoho) &we headed for froyo :D
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past few days have really been a learning process,
be it in terms of picking up something new, or learning some lessons in life, and honestly, it's been a grueling process.
i'm tired.
i really am. i'm tired of needing to think about nitty gritty things, and watching myself even in something as simple as a friendship. but perhaps that's just the way life is. everyone's life is complex as well, it's just a matter of whether we know what's going on in their lives.
so once again.
life goes on. what faith can do;
everybody falls sometimes,
gotta find the strength to rise
from the ashes and make a new beginning.
anyone can feel the ache,
you think it's more than you can take
but you're stronger, stronger than you know.
don't you give up now,
the sun will soon be shining,
you gotta face the clouds
to find the silver lining.
i've seen dreams that move the mountains
hope that doesn't ever end,
even when the sky is falling.
i've seen miracles just happen,
silent prayers get answered.
broken hearts become brand new;
that's what faith can do.
- kutless 
from top left to bottom right: boonyi trying his best to get the right amount of foam for our drinks, dz attempting to join us for drinks despite being 3 hours ahead of us, sab in her modelish mode whilst studying stats &boonyi, kai &i at reddot (:
esther came awhile later (: she very sweetly planned to surprise boonyi by lying to him that she wasn't going to turn up,
but was secretly liaising with me as to our location so she could pop up from behind!! hoho.
good friends always make friday nights awesome (:
BUT. these good friends made saturday mornings most unappealing, esp when boonyi set my 8.30am alarm to MAXIMUM VOLUME &my supposed alliance, kai, sat gleefully at the corner watching over the process. i went home, superbly tired &forgot that it was maxed out, only to be shocked awake to champagne showers because i placed the phone at its usual position: NEXT TO MY PILLOW. PFFT.
life is tragic.
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a friend asked me not to be emo yesterday,
&i told him that i'm not, because over time i've learnt to try my best to forget.
perhaps it's the hardening of the heart, perhaps i've grown numb to everything, or perhaps it's just my pride. but i'd never know, will i?
no matter what happens, life goes on. i've got this crazy headache that's been ongoing since yesterday,
and it's killing me slowly.
apparently sleep doesn't help,
and neither does an awesome egg sandwich.
maybe shopping will. 
google hangout!
but sab the cat was missing at this point :(
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so today i met a really amazing woman, who was juggling crazy a lot of things, yet she still found time to have leisure, still found time for herself, AND still had time to pursue a PhD. and even though it was just a short meeting, i felt really inspired as she spoke excitedly of different stories and different aspects. unknowingly, i found myself getting excited too, and the two of us got a bit carried away (and overused the word 'exciting' when describing almost everything HAHA).
i guess this incidental meet kinda inspired me a bit, which is why i'm so excited (there it's coming up AGAIN) pretty psyched &considering contacting her to arrange a meet up so we can chat again hahaha.
on a happier note,
thank God for journey mercies, and for blessing my dad who traveled out of new delhi a few hours before the earthquake began <3
so this is what happens when you start noticing the little (or maybe not so little) blessings in life.
even the words used in my post seems happier today. so my grandpa's back in the hospital.
again.
sometimes i really wish he was in sg, so i can at least do something. how do you do something for someone who's more than a 6 hour drive away? 
sometimes when you enter &leave somebody's life, there are always so many others involved.
and while i received a message yesterday that made me happy &sad &awkward all at once, a good friend encouraged me to think optimistically. perhaps it's true that a certain bond has forged, but the bond doesn't only have to continue with the continuation of another bond, does it?
honestly, i don't know.
"Love is there until it’s not. It might have everything to do with you or it might have nothing to do with you. The point is that people change and outgrow each other." (Ryan O'Connell, 2012) 
