what's CNY without Chinatown with the Divas?

Our signature photo at the Garden bridge every year!

rejection

I never knew how to reject such people. Even though i really didn't want to agree to their request, i never could bring myself to say No and not feel bad about it. The only time i managed to do it, was when i was in Cali and fangers was with me. And being overseas, i seem to be a totally different person. But now, back home, i lose the ability again. Until today. Because i was trapped in the extremely crowded MRT train and i was kind of forced to do it. But i did! SO happy. hehe. hopefully from now on i can say no to all!!yay~~

Aloha Night!

DnD this year definitely did not disappoint me. I had loads of fun there! Hawaiian hunks and babes, hula dances, lucky draws... hehe i won lucky draw again this year! tho it's not as good as last yr's video cam, it's a 31st prize of an electric air pot! hey.. don't laugh. my family happened to need one ok! so it was relaly timely. And, i won 2nd for best dressed too! though it was really embarrassing having to dance on stage in front of everybody, the prize made it really worth it! i thought best dressed people would get something like a bag or a $10 voucher as participation prize. but no! it was $60 worth of takashimaya vouchers! whoahaha i really regret not trying hard enough in previous years to get this award!

didn't take many pictures with my camera. too lazy. so these are some i took from others. the professionally taken ones would come later! ^_^

Dancing with my twin~
with of course, my fav microarray girls

yes, he was high very early in the night.

The Hawaiian queen and runner up (me)!
the best dressed competition... (notice the mini surfboard! so cute!)

it's our 3rd year anniversary!

plus, it was CEO's bdae, and close to CNY. so that's triple the reason we had to get together! The pictures speak for themselves. The fun we had... will never end. I hope arzhou returns often enough to not forget us, his family! =)

I just thought this was very pretty... my body shop collection. hehe

that aside, i had a wonderful time with ling~

alas, i didn't bother to get pictures from her. nowadays, everything gets uploaded to facebook that noone ever bothers getting (and giving) the original copies anymore. which i really dislike, coz it's so troublesome to click on each and every picture on facebook to save them, and the quality is compromised. i do want to keep these pictures for memories you know.

ah i drifted again. a LSM outing turned out to be a sisters outing with ling instead. and we did some really fun stuff together, planning out next meetings and communication networks with the rest of the hall divas. can't wait for CNY with them! our yearly meetings... wonder how long we'll last? hope it'd be looooooooong

and talking abt CNY.. that arzhou.. want to stay in Oz and not come back.. cause us to have to change our CNY reunion+anniversary lunch to another day. grrrrr. better bring back some good stuff from oz to make up for it!! :P

stuck in a bottleneck

wonder why a large majority of people walking the same path as me have to face this kind of bottleneck at least once in their lives. why is it just so difficult to do it? really envy those lucky few who go through it every so smoothly. the tremendous encouragement from everyone around, only made it seem like i was blinded all along. Seeing things through tinted glasses, everything brighter and accentuated when actually there's nothing much to be excited about. Maybe it's good too, that now i get someone totally unrelated to bring me back to reality. Rather than living my entire life in my own delusions.

With a spin, it’s December already. Did I even do anything much? Was talking to Tong and I had even forgotten what my 2008 resolutions were. HOW TERRIBLE!!

Fortunately, I have a blog. Hahaha.

New Year Resolutions 2008

1. To grow spiritually
2. To serve well in the new ministries I am committing myself to. (CG and Sunday School)
3. To maintain the enthusiasm in the lab, and not to slack. Hope to clinch an opportunity to go for a conference overseas, based on my own works.
4. To improve my health.. coz it’s been going down. I don’t want to die yet! >.< (Thank God for a fellow friend who wants to be more sporty this year too! =P)
5. To spend quality time with friends and family, and not let anything happen due to my negligence.

Did I do it?

1. Unwilling to say, I don’t think I have grown much in this aspect this year. Haiz.
2. Managed to survive the first year as an understudy at SS. Next year I’m promoted to co-teach with rose! ^_^ Thanks to Stan and all who’ve given me the encouragement, let me sit in their classes and learnt from them… This is definitely not an easy ministry to commit to, for the responsibilities of teaching are tremendous. Nontheless, it’s by faith that He will provide. J Had the chance to teach Thai for a couple of months too. ^_^
3. Did go for a conference! And a month-long collaboration trip too! Hehehe. Think I did progress relatively well. I definitely did not slack too much this year!
4. Health’s been going up and down, but I’m still alive.
5. Met up with a whole lot of long-lost friends this year! All the way to friends whom I’ve not met for up to 15 years! I’m really happy abt that. ^_^

New Year Resolutions 2009

1. To read more and grow more spiritually
2. To serve well in SS as I co-teach with Rose, and to be a good CGL as I lead the group this year. Really hope that footprints would grow as one in the Lord this year.
3. To keep up the rate of spending time with family and friends, maybe with a better temper
4. To read up more in the field and keep up the work, without losing the steam. Hopefully a paper would come up soon! ^_^
5. To successfully overcome the inertia and pick up a couple of skills outside of labwork.

So much has happened this one year. Good things, bad things, happy things, unfortunate things, exciting things, unexpected things. It’s another year I’ve survived, another year where I’ve learnt a great deal about life and people. The years can only get better, life can only get more joyous, for God’s plan for me is a pleasing and perfect one! ^_^

Christmas dinner@sentosa! ^_^

My dinner tonight... *drools*

Christmas awaits us!

It's been a really crazy 3 weeks upon landing back in Singapore. but amidst all the experiments and presentations and church camp preparations, i managed to slowly ease into the christmassy mood!

First was christmas party with the lab.deco on the wall..

and some gifts i made for each one of them... :)Since part of the lab was moving down to our level, we had a ribbon cutting ceremony to welcome them! of course, that's Mr Santa in red, and the rest of his little elves in green... hehe
Doesn't this shot look like we all just broke into some crazy singapore sale!?!? hahahaha

the food! with choc fondue! (originally a choc fountain but the fountain wouldnt work! so sad...)

many shots of microarray gals in green! plus our gifts from the gift exchange!

my gift from wyee..

read the words... such a meaningful gift on christmas...

big family shot!! ^_^

Ronald and Yen Nee's big day~

For the first time in my life, someone was daring enough to invite me as emcee for their wedding. haha. and in mandarin too! especially when the wedding was one day after i touched down following a month-long trip to London. A place with minimal mandarin spoken. haha.

Well, it was a good opportunity to do my hair though. haha. i loved it. I can always trust Ken from Monsoon to do my hair nicely. Which is why i have been going there for the past decade! =)

That's me after i did my hair..


The side view..

The emcees!
Sisters with the stars of the night

cg group shot~

tomorrow is PB's big day!!! ^_^

And i received a "postmaster" rejected email today. For an email that i tried to send almost a month ago. So i've been waiting for the reply in vain! What a wasted month.

So there were some very bad news. Oh well, at least that's what it seems to me now. But somewhere within me, something tells me i'd get something better. But I need to wait. and the wait will not be short, i predict. I just have to trust the people involved, and trust that God has the best thing in wait for me. In the meanwhile, i have to learn to live with what i have. =)

weekend with yingying and eujin

took a train to loughborough to find yingying, and we had a 2-day roadtrip around the area! went up to the peak district at derbyshire, saw the chatsworth house (home to some duke, with a garden half the size of singapore, went to some cavern where the helmet saved my life multiple times, celebrated Guy Fawke's day at loughborough with the biggest bonfire i've ever seen, with fireworks that could match those at disneyland, and then down to stratsworth where shakespeare grew up, and cadbury world, the place which smells heavenly! =)

it was a really fantastic weekend, being able to speak with singaporeans once again. both yingying and eujin had really great cameras that captures very nice pictures of the time together, especially eujin's camera, that made the pictures look so much more colorful than they were during the gloomy afternoons!

besides traveling so much, i also met some of their friends, who, coincidentally, were all phD students too! but they're not the boring science/engineering phD students i know in singapore. these are people who're doing things like product design, people management, green energy, media, even surgery robotic design! what a wide range! had a really great evening with these people. i wish there were more of these interesting peeps back home! will really miss the night we shared.. ^_^

at the chatsworth house. it was decorated with christmas lightings, which made it so beautiful!

at the garden, with an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G view

still in that garden! actually what i saw was mostly orange and red, but eujin's fantastic camera captured what the naked eye couldn't!

group shot, still in the garden! i really love the colors...

at the bonfire night! the bonfire was so hot, but we were still cold under the rain and winds

the girl in pink

i didn't realize that most clothes that i brought over are in pink. or even if they aren't, my jackets and coats are. so essentially, i'm in pink almost everyday. and i didn't realize it til friends told me they described me to their boss (whom i only met today) as the girl in pink! and today, coincidentally, was my first day NOT in pink. and i met the boss. hahaha.

spot me!

photos of london!

If you've forgotten how i look like in this 1 week of absence... haha

this is the street where i am going to be staying at for the next 3 more weeks

That's the street to work. autumn hues!

me with a street busker with ultra long arms. ^_^

Westfield shopping centre, during its opening. it's HUMONGOUS at 1.6 million square feet! i'm so gonna go there everyday after work. many brands that i have never seen before!

more other photos on facebook, but more on flikr http://www.flickr.com/photos/31958478@N06/sets/ enjoy! ^_^