think of me

Think of me
think of me fondly,
when we've said goodbye.
Remember me once in a while
please promise me you'll try.
When you find that,
once again, you long to take your heart back and be free
if you ever find a moment,
spare a thought for me

wo bu yao la jiao

Dr. Kelly Khim (KK) was standing behind us talking to another group. Then she turned to my group and oops, i realised weimin was sleeping. how? i quickly pulled his jacket to wake him up. "haha, that was not very discrete" said KK.. "but it's ok, i know he always sleeps in class"
So that was the last 201 lesson of the year (not counting the final presentation though). This semester has been tough for all of us, especially those who take other modules besides the cores. And when we feel that everything is in a mess, exams never fail to come.

Had a long day today with German ending at 8pm, rather tired, but i did make an effort to dabao diner as i have promised John that i would take care of myself while he's away. And to my horror, my noodle was full of chilli without me asking for it. It was the smashed type, not the cut chilli so i couldn't pick it out easily. I was so darn tired to care about trying to scoup out the chilli, so i just threw the whole package away, feeling guilty for doing that ( Spoilt brat, i thought i heard Pam say this in my head ), and stupid for not telling the person "bu yeo la cheo please" (my own way of speaking Chinese)

So there goes my dinner, feeling self-pity (this is a silly feeling and i always remind myself that i should never feel that way)... if only i were at home, even if i had thrown the food away, someone would have cooked something else for me... you know during exams, you are more pampered than other days... If only John or Jane were here...



Well, at least the laughter from yesterday still have some remnant in me, making me feel a little bit happier. Watched 'Ice Age 2' with Zhenghan, Darrel and Wai Kiat (not sure how to spell his name) at Cine, my favourite Cinema where i've watched dun-know how many movies. I told Pam and weimin during 201 that "for those who are dating, i mean during the 'chasing' phase, watching it will be even better cos there are some funny conversations between the 2 mammoths" and it was followed by the various interpretations of the word 'dating'..

You mean when 2 persons are a couple, it's not called 'dating'?
Yes, it's called 'dating'. We say the couple have a date, rite?
You mean during the 'chasing' phase, they are not called 'couple'?
No, they are not couple yet (i think so)
If you are not yet together with the person, people won't name it 'couple', will they?

Whatever it is about the dating part. I think everyone who is feeling stressed up with exams or projects should give him/herself a break and watch ice age 2 in the cinema, not vcd, cos it's entertaining when so many people in the cinema laugh together (if you liked ice age, you'll surely like ice age 2)

Today’s Accounting Information System (AC213) lab session was special, very special in deed, for there came (drum effect at the background) the grand entrance of Dr. B, 30-year-old (confirmed by Pam) but looking 20 plus. Very pleasant-looking she is (courtesy of MY’s comment), and that drove all my class guys mad (those non-attached ones lah…), but too bad.. the observant Pam pointed out the ring on her left hand (confirmed married liao….but again I remember Khai Leng also wears one leh hahahaa)
It’s all started by Daph who typed ‘all the guys must be very happy lah’
And then all the comments poured down like waterfall (oh, we were chatting on msn, cos it’s an IT lab session, so while teacher was talking, we just opened a window and added everyone into the conversation to spice up our mood if anyone happened to feel sleepy)

Her fringe is darn attractive! (Qing Wen)
Hot, she keeps standing in front of me! (Wei Min)
Handwriting very nice le!
Perfect!
Now I know a working woman is attractive!

Well, Albert didn’t contribute much to this for there were other more unknown important things on his mind. Mong Yong was too excited (think those bona- fide kapo us were even more excited than him) about his beloved girlfriend’s birthday to care about Dr. B. Seeing his photos, I always think that Ming yong’s gf is very pretty, though never meet her in real life before, lucky guy ah, Ming Yong.

Supposed to attend some FACT Talk after 213, and the guys were dying to go there ‘cos Dr. B was gonna go there as well. Didn’t know if QW went in the end, but the unfortunate Wei min had something on… miss the chance of a life time, cos next week another teacher is coming.

Well, the arbitrator declared that my contract with Wei Min should be voluntarily terminated due to the breach of a fundamental condition (this is settled out of court for the privacy sake of both parties)… hahaha, what rubbish!

Dear (John, not Wei Min ah), remember I was joking about you going overseas so I signed a contract with Wei Min for him to be my substitute for 5 years? So sometimes I just teased him over this stupid thing, but now ah, think if I continue teasing him, he’ll be deprived of his chances out there… hahaha…. (like according to Albert), there was a girl, in Café by the Quad that day, who is actually Weimin’s SECRET admirer, and she must be very sad after listening me… poor thing!

And weekends come again, how I dislike this feeling! How it was so exciting waiting for weekends to come, not just to relax after one long week (everyday lesson ends 6:30 or 7:30pm for me) but also to watch movies, to eat porridge at glutton square, to lose wallet (hahaha), to watch soccer, to meet at all the fun restaurants like the German buffet, to go to Esplanade my favorite place, to receive so many surprised little cards fo no reason like this cute one (you see the paper's turning yellow with time already hee hee), to…. the list goes on forever… It’s now slightly different… no, it’s just an euphemism saying ‘slightly different’, I should say it’s ‘poles apart’ (in accordance with Irene’s and my creative choice of words in writing our 202 report), for I spend more time doing my art works now, and looking through my French although I’ve decided to continue with German (the only thing I like for this semester but ironically it’s just a general elective and therefore not counted). Sometimes I wonder how life’s gonna be like for the next 5 years meaning 60 months, 1825 days, 43800 hours (and I don’t wanna count till minutes, or seconds or mini seconds because the figure will be too big, very demoralizing). I had wanted to make myself super occupied by registering for 2 extra modules this semester( besides my cores which already give me a mountain of readings) but I realized it didn’t work that way, cos I seldom study during weekends, and it’s during the weekends that I wanna make myself busier. And there’s no point adding more pressure to my weekdays for I’ve already had enough of all the core modules, so I decided to drop one of it (inspired by Tingkang who also dropped the consumer law hee)

((….just after I finished typing the above para, some girl who spoke French called me over Skype, she got my contact from this blog, and she thought that I must know how to speak French very well (because of my blog name ‘J’aime mon wombat’), but sad to say, I can’t converse everything I want to in French, so I just spoke a few sentences to her. I don’t know her, I think she got the wrong person; maybe she was looking for some long lost friend…))

Sometimes, when I try to visualize what Zhenghan’s going through, I can’t help tearing, imagining that he needs to put up a brave facade, but even if he’s just trying hard to pretend to be brave, the act itself is already brave enough (if you get what I mean). It makes me wonder why so many people around me (and also including myself sometimes) complain so much about long-distance relationships (ldr), being dumped or whatever and in turn become super miserable over it..
Come on, for ldr or break-up, at least we are still ALIVE to make things happen, to wait for our loves till the day we’re re-united in the case of ldr, or to make a brand new start after having been heart-broken once. But it’s just human nature to sometimes lose control and dwell into self-pity. We’ve forgotten that we are still fortunate enough to have a chance to continue with our dreams, and that the road ahead is still full of pleasant surprises waiting for us to discover, so let’s make a positive difference to other people’s lives by stopping ourselves from thinking about all the miseries which in many instances are actually not that miserable come to think of it carefully.

Idealistic as I may seem to be, it’s partly true, isn’t it? And to Zhenghan, I admire his courage, for if I were in his position, I think I wouldn’t be able to take it. The same goes to Trang (Elegence), my cousin Thu Hang (Autumn Moon), Stella, and Helga. ‘A part of me dies in her, and a part of her lives in me’ I read this from Zhenghan’s blog and I cried. It doesn’t matter whether all these friends of mine pretend to be brave or not, they are the people that remind me that we need to go on with our life, and to make the best out of it, not just dwelling forever into the misery. When we talk about the past, sometimes their voices tremble and their eyes almost watery, and myself too, but we know, deep inside our heart etched the dearest memories of our loved ones. These moments don’t give us pain, rather they're taken along with us to be the sunshine after the rain, giving us the courage to move on and to treasure our lives.


Look at me
You may think you see
Who I really am
But you’ll never know me
Every day, is as if I play a part
Now I see
If I wear a mask
I can fool the world
But I can not fool
My heart
Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
I am now

In a world where
I have to
Hide my heart
And what I believe in
But somehow
I will show the world
What’s inside my heart
And be loved for who I am

kiki 

Jane (zane zane, Mao Ming bright cat, blur queen)

I've told many of my NTU friends about Jane, my TJ classmate, one of the best Singaporean I've ever met. Bias views maybe, hahaha, cos I'm close to her, but more or less it's true that she's a real nice girl.

One thing about her, she silently admires her mum, but never tell her mum about that though (paiseh), and she has a few 'funny' sisters.

Jane has an undying love affair with Ludwig van Beethoven. She loves Beethoven, Beethoven and Beethoven. You must see her when she plays piano, so passionate. All my 22/02 people were enthralled by her music, that day when we got nothing to do in the lecture theater and she kena forced by us to play. It's so captivating and enchanting that Yvonne (or is it Yen San?) was so sure that she's gonna send her daughter to Jane for piano lessons in the far future (not forgetting to ask for discounted fee though)

It's like a little magic, the way she painted the dull lecture theater with colorful musical notes... like in a fairytale when you see the angel raise her magic wand, and in a blink, a tail of twinkling light evolves.

Nanyang girl, smart she is, 6 points for O'level, could have gone to RJ cos RJ also offers music, but thank God she didn't. I can still visualize myself persuading her not to go to RJ that day when we needed to put our choices after O' Level results were out. (Didn't care much about where Wei Chern would go to though, cos he was no more than a normal classmate to me that time.. hahaha.. though i did ask him what he got for his Os heehee..)

Now, Jane's taking music (what else?) at King's College London, "I wanna see you perform in Esplanade, not become a music teacher le!" i always tell her. But there is a reason for everything i guess..
Last time in JC, whenever I didn't feel well, I always called her for a live request "hey, can play the winter sonata song for me?" "Play Fur Elise le" or "Hi, play Moonlight Sonata for me, can?"
dont know how many times i had asked her to play piano for me over the phone. Her loud sisters were helpful, sometimes when i requested for some weird weird piece, they would help her search for the music scores.

That blur queen was the vicechair of TJ Chinese Orchestra, the famous CO that always get gold for SYF. That time, at the end of the term when i was almost broke, and erm... didn't really know how to appreciate Chinese music, but she wanted me to go for her CO concert "Thu Huong, you must go and listen to Chinese music once"... so she happily subsidized me half price, in the end didn’t have enough money for dinner (Hwei Ching told me), poor thing aiyo...

She's different from the rest, blur, 'stupid', sincere, bully-able, smart, funny, and never fail to encourage and motivate me whenever i feel lousy. Alex must be the luckiest guy in the world man! Good friends are hard to come by, sometimes when i ponder over those hi-bye friends, or friends who misunderstood me over certain things (Albert, I'm not referring to you, dun worry hahaha) I feel so blessed that people like her are still around. They make this small world more breathable, more colorful and more loving.

Today during lunch, mingyong suddenly asked me about where i'd live after graduation... good question! the answer is 'i dont know' for it always seems so remote to me, the word 'Graduation'. Never did i realise that i'm gonna graduate in slightly more than a year. where will i live then?

All my life in Singapore, i've stayed in hostels, hopping from one to another, from Eton Hall in Bukit Timah (first time away from home), to Raffles Institution Boarding School during sec school, there that is the photo that i took in RI, (good), then Dunman High School Hostel during jc (okay only), and now NTU Hall 12 (pleasant). Stories that are related to RI boarding are always alive in my mind. So strict! Yes, all the house mistresses there were very strict. Mdm Cheah (some naughty girl changed her name on the board to Mdm Cheat once) was the head of the house. When i first went there, she gave me the feeling of entering those British convents in olden days where the nuns are everywhere to catch all the naughty girls.

I was rather frightened imagining myself being punished and locked in a dark room... 'oh, how is it gonna be like' i wondered, 'but there shouldn't be any rats in RI at least' and that thought was comforting because i simply hate rats...
And how 'far-sighted' i had been! Cos it was proven right when on one of my first few days there i (and 2 of my frens i think) were locked out of the Moor House (that's the name of the block where other girls and i stayed) because despite the fact that i ran like a lightning back to Moor, i reached the door step at 10:02pm instead of 10:00pm, and that was right, the door was closed just in front of my nose! What a pleasant surprise! The rule was that we had to return to Moor BY 10:00pm (BY and not ON THE DOT or AFTER).. And when they were kind enough to open the door after us banging on it, Mdm Cheah explained to us how the rules and regulations there were to be followed and that we were there to learn the boarding school manner, we're special because we're in a Boarding School and not a Hostel (and not until when i went to stay in a Hostel was i able to see for myself that yes, she was right, there was really a difference, a stark difference!)

'So you have to submit a report to me by tomorrow' said Mdm Cheah, and we followed suit. And that was the first and one out of many reports that were coming my way through my years in RI Boarding.

Do you watch those Chinese show long time ago when there was always this person walking around the campus or the neighborhood saying "It's night time, the weather is dry, be careful about your fire" or something along that line?

When i watched those shows last time, i always laughed at those people, until one day guess who needed to play that role, and it was not even in a play or a show, it was in real life... hahaha, who else but me, but lucky for me, it was not those ridiculous 'be careful about your fire' but a simple 'hey, it's 10:30pm, it's time to sleep' for the whole week, every night, i needed to walk to every room on every level, can't remember how many rooms there were in total, to remind people that it was time for them to return to their room and sleep. After checking all the levels, the final job was to switch off all the corridor lights, no doubt the punishment was named 'lights out duty' and then reported to the one of the house mistresses.

And the cause of this punishment was quite surprising, if you have never stayed in RI boarding school, you may even find it rather absurd. The mistake that i made was to sit on my roommate's bed and talk to her at 10:40pm while i was supposed to be either sleeping on my own bed or reading books at my own table at that time. The rule was 'you can only stay at your own corner and do quite work after 10:30pm.' So a report was submitted by me explaining the reason for my misbehavior and i was awarded with 1 week 'lights out duty'. Of course that wasn't the only time i broke the rules and regulations in Moor House, there are many others and various types of creative punishment that i recieved through out my stay there.

Prep time was the time for us to study, 'remember that you can only leave the study room at 9:45pm, not 1 min earlier' and how clever i was, leaving the study room 4 minutes before the clock on the wall said 9:45pm, reason being my watch showed 9:45, i was certainly caught and my resoning was rejected straightaway.

But for this time, i was really honest, didn't mean to be mischievous. It was ridiculous that i would wanna leave 4 minutes earlier, isn't it? Even if i had finished my work, i couldn't have been so out of my mind to leave early knowing that punishment was definitely coming my way if i did. But the house mistress didn't accept my honest reason, and for the first time there i cried.... in front of them, i didnt care about their presence.

That night I missed home, the place where people trusted me, the place where noone was gonna check on me every single minute.

Well, ups and downs in life, i believe all of us experience, but the most important thing is that we've got no regret when we look back. And now, looking back at those times, i'm glad that i was posted to RI Boarding. And no doubt, compared to the rather run-down (even though it was newly built) dunman high school hostel, the house mistresses were right in saying that there was a difference between boarding school and hostel. One of the obvious difference was that, there was no swimming pool in the hostel (i'm not talking about NTU though, cos NTU belongs to a diff class, tertiary education, i'm refering to those lower education level hostels), but i didnt really care so much about swimming pool, cos i dont really swim, i can only float, so i seldom go to the swimming pool (there's one near dunman high so most of us would go there if we feel like). There were quite a lot crack lines on the walls in my room, i hope they have done something about it after i left. And the lift gave me a fright when one time it jerked horribly and then stop in the middle of nowhere. Darn scared, i thot in a moment I would free-fall, and could tell my physics teacher, Mrs Loo, how the real free-fall felt like.

There are a lot of funny memories about all the places where i've stayed. and with all that, i grow up. got to know many people from various countries as the result of staying in boarding school and hostel, some of them have become my friends-for-life, Yan Ling and Stella, the two seniors who are so so so nice to me despite the fact that they always say i'm very naughty, i think i was cos i always teased them. Stella has gone back to Hongkong, while Yan ling is now working here, Ching Chui, the 'stupid girl Lee Ting' (she calls me Stupid girl as well), Anesia, Zoe, Thanh Ha, Tu Anh and others. Time flies...

Flash back... thinking of all the punishment and reports that i got to write while staying in RI boarding, (didn't write any in Dunman hostel cos i was in TJ's council so had the permission to come back late everyday, all thanks to Rohan who helped us apply for it, and there were not so many rules and regualtions in Dunman hostel, a positive aspect of it), I have no regret. Sometimes somehow, i missed the house mistresses and tutors over there in RI. The house mistresses were strict and suspicious over certain things (i haven't mentioned the time when all our slippers were confiscated because we didn't place them nicely under or in the shoe-rack), they had mood swing sometimes too cos it was pretty obvious if they were in a bad mood, but behind that facade of being a house mistress, they were just as nice as anyone else, when i accidentally met them again after i left RI Boarding, they smiled brightly, they remembered my name and even how i looked like back then. It made me feel nostalgic. And when Ching chui told me about Mdm Cheah looking rather weak when she met her, I thought perhaps we did contribute to all her white hair.

They have all left RI, I don't know if the new generation of mistresses are as strict, but I know, for a lot of people, those that stayed during the same era as me, when we have a chance to meet and reminisce over the old time, all those stories never failed to warm our hearts, as much as we hated being punished, now we know that we've learnt from all those experiences, and as much as we disliked the idea of being forced to have a 'boarding school manner', now we realise that it's fun actually, being boarding school girls.

my sister

Sometimes I wanna return to my comfort zone, my sister’s room. There, that is the staircase that leads to my sis's room.The time I stay in her room is more than that in mine. I just didn't like to sleep alone in my room. So, for as far as I could remember, I slept in my sis’s room, ignoring the existence of my own one. My sister loves me even more than she loves herself I think. Since young, she'd already had the habit of letting me choose first whenever my parents gave us anything, from rooms, to holiday trips, to TV channels, toys, and even apples. She can cook whatever I feel like eating, even if it's in the middle of the night, while I've never even tried frying eggs (or maybe I tried once.. I can’t remember), she could also solve all my Maths questions, those super hard, outside syllabus ones.

She could even stay up whole night to fan me with her foolscap. When I was small, the electricity system in VN was quite bad, and sometimes there were power failures in summer (that’s the worst thing that could happen, I hated it to the core), and the amazing thing is she's only 2 and a half years older than me, meaning when I was in primary 3, she was only in primary 5, and she actually sacrificed her sleep to fan me throughout the night so I could sleep peacefully. I really admire her for that. That night when my grandpa passed away, we were alone at home, I was rather scared. But my sister, so young only, was already so brave, trying to cheer me up. When I was small, I always thought that my sis would become a police woman, but nah, she’s now working back home in a bank.

Long time ago, when the city was not so filled up with concrete houses and pavements, my sister liked to pick those wild flowers, daisy especially, my sis loves daisies, from the field next to my house and made a nice flower vase. It never failed to bring a smile to my face whenever I reached home after running around playing those childhood games with my neighbors.

I was super duper good at playing all those ‘silly’ games like five stones, different types of rubber games, marble games, much better than my sis, but she’s darn good at high jump, long jump, standing board jump, and whatever jump plus she could run very fast. That was why my PE marks (in VN, PE grades are counted) were always so low cos the teacher never tested us on those five stones or marble games, he’d rather test us on running and jumping which proved to be a total hazard for me. The only thing I was good at was to lead the class in morning exercise which my PE teacher gave me a perfect score. If only he could test me on the morning exercise through out the year… (the morning exercise was a bit similar to the Singapore workout here … I actually led the Singapore workout in Bishan community centre when I was in sec 3 hahaha)

So many things that my sister has done for me, words can't say it all. As I left home for this land at the age of 14 and slowly grow up to discover that people in the outside world do not treat me the way my sister does, I came to realise how important she is to me, and how I had taken everything for granted, screaming at her for nothing, fighting those 'wars' that she never fought back, the most that she did was to avoid my fits (how horribly violent i was!)....my sis's the best sister on earth!

i was pissed off by Rayner today, 2nd time in my life that i got pissed off by him (first time was during JC when he kept my autograph book for 3 months and i couldnt give it to my classmates to write... but in turn he gave a super nice entry, with interesting colorful drawings. The above pic is part of his entry. The mumny was not supposed to have eyes and a smile, but i found it rather scary so i added the smiling face, it really looked much cuter i thought)...today's incident revolved around the away Newcastle jersey that i bought for him.


After talking to John over Skype narating everything i could probably remember, i felt better and decided to restore peace with Rayner... erm... this reminds me of primary school days and those "i dun friend you anymore"s....

always feel much better talking to John whenever i've got a lousy day. He's just so extraordinarily good at consoling me everytime.

Hey, did i sound as if Rayner was a horrible guy? i must clarify that he is definitely not!
I think it's me who was quite terrible to him. He's always quite nice to me for reasons ( according to him) that i'm his great friend (John Lee)'s gf.. and that he treats me more like a boy than a girl (???) He said it's easier to friend a boy, girls are too complicated and sophisticated to understand. am i that boyish huh??

Anyway, peace restored.. and i'm quite happy. John must be laughing inside 'cos he kept saying that i was so childish.

this was how i looked when John first left for Australia.. sianz deo...
But things slowly got better as i gradually got used to not having him near, and being more contented with seeing him over webcam in the evening after school.
Hope 5 years will quickly pass by. For now, just patiently wait till July for his 2-week holiday. Long-distance relationship, somthing i had never wished to experience, can be a good 'torture' for the soul.
But must have faith, then everything is gonna be fine.