Hmm..

Saw this somewhere on cyberspace..

'Sometimes it's not the person that changed..it's the mask that falls off..'

Blink Blink!

In the blink of an eye or two...the year end hols have came and gone..

And it's now officially into 2015, oh my oh my!

Sunset

Amidst the never ending groups of PRC tourists throughout the 2 hours or so..today was one of the best sunsets I've ever experienced..

Happy & Contented?!

Bumped into an ex-colleague..ended up talking about the possibility of a joint project..and throughout the whole conversation, he kept emphasising that I seemed really happy and contented with what I am doing now..really?

Ok lor..since I just told me current colleague I'm more or less a constant 7 now..

旅程

同样的路程， 同样的景色
不同的是心境

LG

Well.. No news mean good news..?

Life's just humming along..some new routines formed..some old routines dropped..

一天过一天， 安安分分地过。。

让我想一想

不知不觉， 听着听着就听了18年。 
不知不觉， 看着看着就看了5场。

歌手成熟了， 歌迷也老了。

不变的是

清纯的歌声  带有感动
认真的作品  听出用心

她唱得陶醉， 我听得沉醉

音乐，本来就是一种享受

Cheers Cheers..

..coming up sooooon..

Different stages in life..

One of the things i really like about this course of mine is that my coursemates are so diverse..background, age group, life stages..

A few things that really hit me about the different stages of life we are in :


ZXL: So how was your weekend?
Coursemate: Oh, just sent off my son for his NS enlistment

ZXL : So you shopped a lot in US?
Coursemate: Ya..i'm starting to think a credit card is a good idea
ZXL: Oh, then just apply lah
Coursemate: My salary doesn't qualify..

And the ultimate(age is sensitive lah..) I added someone on FB..only to be greeted with photos of her 21st bday celebration..

21st bday?! Oh my..tat's eons ago for me..

The Influence of Hope & Optimism

For a person to change in attitude, the person must first realise that this is possible, must wish to do so, and must then implement the changes ~ Dalai Lama & Cutler (2000)

New Year New Stress

It's not that i've been slacking..i still blog but rarely publish these days cos it's all over the place..so..unedited..

Well..i think i played so much during the 2 mths hols..it's really hard to get back into the 'work rhythm' . In fact, on the first day of my new term, i sent a msg over 'i'm starting to feel damn stressed all over again..maybe even more stressed this term'

Be prepared for more white hair zxl..

Nuah..

4 movies in 4 days..haven't had this record in a long while..

Heh..it's the first week of my hols and i can totally get used to it..my 'sideline' was well..sidelined for this week so it's been eat, sleep and nuah mostly..wahaha..

I think i can see myself 'retiring' and doing this in 10 yrs' time..

Sch Friends

I devoted 2 paras in my reflection essays on my coursemates..interesting mix..can't get anymore variety in a mixed nuts pack..

Like I mentioned sometime somewhere..most people are more interested in my 'social wellbeing' than my academic progress when it comes to my school life..Well,i guess i do have a few friends in sch..i mean, we sit together together during classes and we do grp assignments together..so we're friends right?

Ya..as i always tell most people..i have an evil twin. I dunno why people call her my twin when she looks nothing like me, and speaks in a crisp australian accent. Oh, and she thinks all cats are evil -.- Her fave phrase to me? "不要欺骗无辜的少女" Nothing surprising..other than the fact that she is hopeless in Mandarin(she orders 菜饭 in ang moh at the sch canteen)

Then i have a hokkien lian friend(so-named by twink). She speaks in well..perfect hokkien lian accent. She usually sits behind me and evil twin..and in 7 out of 10 classes, she will ask 'what does _____ mean?' My evil twin will try to explain in perfect english and half the time, hokkien lian will not understand..then i will step in with some hokkien/singlish translation and true enough, she will go 'Orhhh...i know liao!'

What is 'interesting' about hokkien lian is her age..or rather the age gap between us. I knew she was young(21..omg!!), but it never really hit me until..


Incident #1
ZXL: U want a (chewing) gum?
Hokkien lian: Is that a sweet? Can swallow one?
ZXL: No lah..it's a gum!
Hokkien lian: I dunno mah..
(later out of curiosity i went to check when was the sale of gum banned in sg..it was the year she was born..and i was already in sec sch)

Incident #2
ZXL: Lets go Paulaner to celebrate last day of sch!
Hokkien Lian: Paulaner? What's the age limit? Can i go?
ZXL: *Fainted*

It's the hols!

Can't rem the last time i was so happy the hols came rolling..not even in uni days i think..since i treated my uni days as a looooong holiday..haha

There're a number of things i kept saying i wanna do..but i think i'll end up doing 20% of them..wahaha..

As most people already by now..i had to write a reflection paper on how my life changed over the past 3 months(with reference to the course of cos)..at first i thought oh shit, how to have 3000 words based on that? But guess wat? I exceeded it..haha..

Was thinking of posting it here..for posterity's sake..but then again, it's 3000 words..let me see if i can abstract some stuff out..

Post-Oct

Looking back(today's 1st), i think Oct had been a good month..

Of cos, Oct has always been good..considering it's my birth month ^___^  At this day and age(literally) I received surprisingly quite a no of presents this year..4 tees, 2 vouchers and counting...tanks ah peepur!

& in between squeezing out 4 essays and 3 presentations, I also did 5 sch progs and 2 nite rides..not forgetting attending a retro concert, birthday meetups close to midnight, trying to 'escape' from locked rooms..i feel tired listing all the things i've done in one month!

Wow wow wow..i'm quite impressed by myself..of cos, all these came at an expense: 我老了不少！！

My white hairs popped out at such an alarming rate, even my hairdresser grew concerned..好像多了很多白头发。。白的快要比黑的多了！

And no less than 2 pple have commented 'you looked much more tired..even haggard these days'

Wat can i say..

Hibernating in progress...

Didn't realise i was hibernating..then a msg came floating across the continents : Are u very busy? U have not talk here for a long time..

Considering this msg came from someone who is on my all-time-top-3 persons whom i communicate with..i guess it really means i was in social hibernation..

Too many stuff stuffed in my shrinking brain these days..too lazy to make the effort to clear some space required for social interaction..other than those in the default list(these days it's the sat nite routine of rushing through dinner to catch a movie, be it the 7pm show or 945pm show)

I replied the msg with a virtual diarrhoea of sorts..work, school work, home work, cat work..and she replied with a photo of her apple tree in bloom..

Ahh..but i know she was listening..

Holidays!

Yes! It's holidays for me this week! What better way to start my holiday than to plan my next holiday..wahaha

Am really feeling quite glad now..i'm finally feeling 'not sick' anymore. Have been sick for almost whole of sep, to the point i started to suspect i have dengue due to fluctuating temperatures, body aches, lethargy and all..my body just couldn't self-repair (maybe this is how fed feels..when the flesh is really weaker than the mind as time goes - damn fustrating)

My appetite was gone, barely eating 60% of my normal volume...energy level dropped so much i took naps at every chance...body aching so badly i couldnt work out at all..

Just received a text from Fish, on fine motorskills vs gross motorskills (u would think that for 2 pple who are 10000 miles & 8 timezones apart, we'll have more 'important' things to say) These days our conversations revolve mostly on school work, lousy lecturers, dead braincells..well, one consolation is we'll graduate at the same time(holidays again!)

For now, lets forget that i need to spit out some 15000 words for my essays in the next 2 weeks..

Nostalgia

It doesn't keep people from looking ahead and planning for the future - it helps give them strength to move forward.

~ Straits Times(21 Aug 13)

August..

Just as we enter the second half of Aug and i'm beginning to sweat...not from the weather, but from stress? (ZXL stressed?? Rather unheard of...)

Anyway..sch's started..and most of my wonderful friends* are concerned about one thing: Did I make any friends? Hmm..so much faith in my socialising skills *.* (So I never really understood why someone would call me a 'social butterfly')

Well...got 1 or 2 lor..as I tried to explain, I have yet to met someone the same age as me. So far, closest I've got so far is 5 years younger or 4 years older(yea, age does matters to me) and because I have my own transport, I tend to 'disappear' straight after class(yea, anti-social..I know). I'm sure if I were to take public transport, I'd have much more interaction time with my coursemates, given how far away from civilisation we are.

A rare few(maybe 80/20) will ask how am I coping academically..the truth is: not gd, not gd at all!

6 modules, 15 assignments(8 with APA format, omg!), 12 weeks.

A sample of my readings:

 

 

Like what 2 shades darker said over prata buffet(omg again!) all these are interesting knowledge to know, but to study them..wooh, gd luck to me!

I've calculated: 20 online hours + 20 offline hours = 40 hours. That's like a full-time job..a fact which is drummed into us repeatedly - you get full-time pay, you do full-time studies.

Add to that equation a booming business(ok I exaggerate a bit, but hey, business is really not too bad), i'm seriously breaking out in a sweat..

Chill..chill..

*more or less the same pple who asked what did I wear during my sch attachment... -.-

Summer in Macau 2013

I'm such a 'consistent' person..was just telling fish how many bds I counted in these 2 weeks..of cos, one of it is hers(& thanks to twinky who helped to shop for her present even though she was feeling groggy)

First, I must rant(again) how much the airfares cost me this trip..never since the full-fare/full-service flight I took n years ago when SQ was the only carrier and there were no such things as budget airlines have I paid soooo much for an air tic to Macau..but of cos, this was the long weekend and half of sg was flying off to somewhere(there was at least 100 pax in front of me at the airport checkin counter at 5am)

It was a new, and yet not-so-new experience this time..new cos this is the first time I've been to macau in summer; i've been there during winter, spring, but never summer. It's also the first time i'm staying in a different place..fish's new house to be exact.

Maybe it's the fact that it's summer..we walked a lot this time..as in walking on the streets with no particular destination in mind..we didn't even really step into shops or malls..we did so much walking that I felt we were like the characters in 'Before Midnight' (oh, I love the series)

We were just walking..sometimes talking, sometimes in silence..what did we talk about? I dunno..everything? anything? Some are frivolous things like which movie did she catch recently..some are 'technical' topics like how to calculate the max heart rate(no hor, not the 220 minus age formula)..some are 'sensitive' issues like dealing with her 'becoming-OCD-sister'

Anyway, thanks for :

- Going for a bike ride with me(though I suspect she's just as 'gian', if not more, 'gian' than me to ride)

- Arranging the bike ride timing such that we could catch the sunset(though I suspect she's also very 'gian' to catch the nightview, which is erm, after the sunset?)

- Having my teh ready when I wake up in the morning(somehow I suspect she was afraid I will fall asleep halfway)

- Waiting for my flight to take off before leaving the airport(somehow she was afraid I will not be able to board my flight cos I went in during 'final call')

Next up..graduation tour summer 2014 :)


p.s. HB fish!