i woke up very early in the morning to practise my piano for 3 hours straight!
and my dad specifically walked over to ask if i 受了什么刺激
-_-!

cos i haven touched my piano for a long long time, like 7 years.
Anyway, it was because when i was trying out the electronic keyboards at Best Denki yesterday, i realised i cant remember a single shit! i only managed to play a very very very small opening line of my favourite piece -Canon in D
and jayen was so impressed, hahaa! he's so easily impressed one, ahaa.. wait till he hears me play the whole song, heh!... BUT, of cos to play the whole song again, i have to get my ass back to practising!

Sigh.... why cant i just have the talent in playing. I always believed i lack that talent, cos i suck at sight reading (play by sight). Some really talented ones can play by ear! Like beethoven lor! Like you can tell him, "Aey, go and play jay chou's 七里香 now!" and he can just sit down and play the whole song for you!!
For me, i have to slowly count, then press one key by one key before i can get the song right.

Anyway, back to the keyboard. Jayen says he wants to buy one and put in our new house next time!! so i could play for him, wahahaha~ and he keeps saying he wants to a transform one of the rooms into an Entertainment Room, where he can work, relax and be entertained (not by me of cos, but games, music, TV -_-)

i was drawing in my diary last night....


the placement damn disorganised i know, but basically, what he wants are all there, haha

Anyway, i really want to say, go check out City Square Mall @ Farrer Park!! we just went there last evening after work and the mall is quite nice cos it's very empty! ahahaa.. Nobody one.
Despite it being very convenient as it sits directly above the MRT station, it lacks the crowd!

However, the place is quite cool. Food court also not many people and there are so many empty seats around, hehe.. and when you shop in the shops, the shopkeepers treat u like king, haha.. cos there's no other people to serve, keke...

yeap.. time to go do my project liao.
Have a nice day ahead, peeps!

i've been procrastinating.

i need to:
-Read my textbook
-Start working on my projects

but instead, i switched on my laptop and starting surfing since 9am.
i've just wasted two hours online. Well done.
There is no monday blues as i start work a little later today, so i could sleep in longer :)) and the weather is so cool, hehe

Guess this kind of lifestyle wont be for long once i quit my tutoring job after i graduate. Actually, i cannot wait, haha.. i'm almost imagining myself out there working in the private sector already.
2 years of school just went past like that. Left half a year to go.

Anyway, the NEX mega mall at Serangoon mrt station is going to be up in November!
Look at the progress of the construction!


The mall is quite huge! oh, and i love the clouds in this photo, hahaa

Expect eateries like Swensens, Dian Xiao Er, Pizza Hut, Crystal Jade, Putien, Shokutsu10 etc..
Stores like Watsons, Popular, Courts, Cotton On, Charles and Keith, nubox, Virtual land, Pet's Lovers etc...

The Serangoon Public library and Shaw Cineplex are the ones that make me most excited!!
Imagine a library and a movie theatre a stone's throw from ur house, WAHAHAHA~~

Hurry up!!!

Took 2 photos on my way out yesterday.



I'm holding an umbrella. hahaa.. yes, very auntie i know.
My classmate once thought he saw me crossing the road when he was in his car at the traffic light. He wasn't sure if it was me cos i was holding an umbrella. When i saw him in school, he came to reconfirm his 'sighting'. "Was it you i saw on the road that day? You will carry umbrella one ar? cos you always very stylo one leh.."
-__-!

Cannot isst, ahaha.. yes, i open my umbrella everytime i am out in the sun. This habit started since i watched on youtube how the sun can age and damage our skin!

Despite trying to protect my skin from the UV rays every time i travel outdoors, i would jump at the chance to spend the entire day at the beach under the sun -_- heh


p.s. help me click on my nuffnang ad pls! thank you dearies!! :D
btw, i just checked out that phone. It is amazing! got layaring (locate a landmark by just pointing the camera at it!) and ebook somemore! haha just that the backgd music abit eerie.

Went to Marina Square last night and found that the UFO catcher machine stores have expanded up to a few shop spaces!

They are making BIG MONEY, haha..

i guess the most attractive part is the nice stuff you could catch from the UFO catchers!

Rilakkuma!! my favourite!!!

jayen caught a water bottle and an MP3 player for me!! He's damn good. He could tip the box off in just one try! i was super grateful to him and i thanked him like twenty times throughout the whole night, haha

i was really happy cos i could get all these rilakkuma gadgets!
Super cute!


i could just hold one of these and listen to it nonstop. It just makes me feel very, very happy!


i like my happiness simple like that.

This is all that we have been waiting for..





OUR HDB LOAN APPLICATION HAS BEEN APPROVED!!!
:D
YAYness~!!!!


Last tuesday, jayen and i went down to HDB personally to see the appeal officer.
No, we didnt make an appointment. Jayen said we had to use the 'Impromptu Strategy', haha
After fervent prayer and armed with all relevant documents, we reached HDB at 10am and called the officer up.
We met her at 11am and was surprised to find her quite a nice lady :)
Definitely not the one we argued with on the phone, this was another officer, haha

We presented all our documents to her and from her expression, we could sense that it was quite positive. And she told us she would let us know by this week, and it was approved yesterday evening! :D

HAPPINESS~!!!

and this happiness was one with so much gratefulness in our hearts.
after all that we've gone through, the emotional & mental stress, the heartache, the obstacles, rejections, up to the verge of nearly giving up....

i've learnt that it is very important to persevere in pursuing what you really want UNTIL you get it. Yes, HDB already rejected us twice. First the loan application, next the appeal for the first rejection. And they didn't suggest anymore things we could do.
Usually for me, i would just resign to fate. But jayen didn't. He did all he could to work things out and even spur me on.
We found alot of documents that proved to be helpful in our case (thankfully!) and consolidated all before going down to HDB.
Thank you baby, for not giving up :)

and i believe God is using alot of trials and tribulations to chastise both of us and it's in His perfect plan that we go through all that we've weathered these 3 years. It's impossible to express what we've undergone in a single blog post, but life has been a roller coaster ride and i can only say, we've emerged stronger.. For every difficult situation we face, there is something in ourselves we have to overcome.
And only until we have overcome it, the situation would not persist anymore.

For myself,
I can say through all these, my relationship with my mom has become stronger.
I used to believe that she was always demeaning and never really loved me. I had told myself that i wanted to be successful in my life so i could be solely independent and not have her to 'look down' on me. I was prideful and i didnt want to believe she cared about me.
But things always didnt work out very successfully for me. As much as i prayed that God would make things work, He did not. Instead, i had to endure all the nasty comments made by my mom because of my dire situation and ended up quarrelling every time we met.
However, something i realised is whenever i had to ask my mom for any help, she wouldnt spare the harsh words, but every single time, without fail, she would lend a helping hand.

For the past 2 weeks, she was at home since her cataract surgery. She's fine, just that the doctor gave her 3 weeks of MC, so she sort of bummed around at home and cooked lunch for us every day. It was very nice and i was starting to look forward having meals with my parents :) We talked about alot of things and she was becoming nicer, as in she stopped saying nasty things and it really helped our relationship alot. I guess she probably understood me a little better, and started trusting that i've matured a bit too.
Yes, i am really, really happy about it. Because i no longer have a sick feeling when i think about our strained relationship. Now, i feel really warm and fuzzy inside. i think God wasnt very happy that i used to feel that way about my mom and i believe He is using this to help me change the negative perception i have of her.

Thank you mom.
It makes me cry to tell you this.....

"I love you."



p.s. Thank you all for ur well-wishes and prayers :)

I wonder when 2 people are very close to each other, would they dream the same dream?

Sometimes, jayen and i would share our dreams (not the future kind of dreams, but sleeping that kind of dreams) and found out that we had similar dreams, hahaa..
Not exactly the same, but of the same categories (eg. deserted house, kill zombies etc...)

Maybe we spend too much time together, talking and doing stuff, so even when we go to sleep, we dream about the stuff we talked about or saw in the day.

This morning, i was having tuition when jayen messaged me


It was such a coincidence cos i dreamt too! :)
so i replied him with a


and he... -_-


aeh, but seriously. i dreamt about us debating whether the bath soap is actually soap. Cos it was carved nicely into flower petals and in the dream, jayen insisted that they were edible.
Yes, it's so weird. But he put them into his mouth! -_-

anyway,
Inception is an awesome movie.
Watch it and get ur mind fucked, hahaa

Marina Mandarin Singapore.
:)

Last night, my classmates and i were invited to Raymond's wedding at Mandarin Orchard.
I missed them soooo much cos i haven seen them for ages. Now that school has reopened, but i'm not in the same classes as all of them :((


It's great to see them all again! Classmates from SIM


with wendy the 台湾妹, my favourite classmate!


All of us had a great time catching up, taking photos, talking nonsense and match-making, wahaha~



The newly weds.. Raymond and Michelle. They have dated for 9 long years!!
i believe tonight is a very special day for both of them :)

see how sweet the bride is?? :D she's so lovely!

and her gowns are gorgeous! hehe

weddings are always sweet! and wendy was saying she has the urge to get married.
Not after we help her to match-make!! wahahaa~

Thanking their family and friends on stage.


=)




Took a group photo together
\

it's really nice to be able to share the joy of Raymond and Michelle.
Hereby wishing both of them happiness and bliss forever!!!!

Had my hair trimmed last thursday when i had a 45 minutes break before my night class.
And not only did i cut my hair, i bought the curling tongs from the salon. hehe!!

No, they didnt psycho me to buy. I asked them if they sold their curling tongs, and i knew i had to get it when i saw how pretty it was!!

Baby pink!!!! love it!


i just used it today, and i rate it 5 out of 5!!
Definitely much better than the curling tong i've bought a few years back. Curling hair is now as easy as ABC with my new curler, and most importantly, the curls last me the whole night!!
Super satisfied and i'm now a convert indeed!!
:))

this was taken in school after my hair cut last thursday

i like how shiny the tongs made my curls look! teeheehee~
i trimmed away my damaged ends. The stylist actually asked if i wanted to perm my ends cos he feels it would look nice. But after 2 attempts of perming my hair before, i reckon permanent curls are ugly. Anyway, doing a ceramic/digital perm cost ard 200-300 for my hair length..

I would rather pay lesser to invest in a good curling tong, style my hair as and when i like, for temporary curls are definitely nicer looking than permanent ones =)

Hey guys, thank you loads for your words of encouragement, advice and prayers!! :) i cant really reply you one by one at the tagboard, but i could only say how appreciative i am. Thank you very much.

And one good news, IRAS has replied me this morning.. i am very surprised by their speed, really! One day and they got it done! heee...

and now we're in the midst of strategizing our next step. Consolidating all documents and information before going down to HDB personally. If things dont go well over at HDB, our last resort is MP liao.. hopefully we dont have to.
Cos somehow, i feel we've been unfairly treated. I dont know, but i think we pissed the appeal officer off sometime back for being too... erm, how should i say it... 'firm'? I mean, sometimes when we are firm with the govt employees, we get things done quickly but we get 'blacklisted' as well .. and subsequently, everything else does not get approved..

we only overlooked the letter asking us for relevant documents. When we called the officer (and that's when we pissed her off big time i think), she told us there was no more room for negotiation and asked us to write an appeal letter instead. I even asked the officer if i need to send in the documents (that they previously wanted in the letter we overlooked) together with the appeal letter. She said No need and after we've sent in the appeal letter, it was rejected straight away stating their own unsubstantiated assumptions! Without even asking us for the documents!
That frustrates us alot. cos i was wondering, is it that if we have not overlooked the letter and sent in all supporting docs by the deadline, everything would be fine? :(

sigh i think the IRAS also very irritated with me for stressing them yesterday, haha.. i wonder if i am on their 'black list' now... but i'm still very thankful.
At least one hurdle down. And More to overcome...

these 2 days have been quite a bitch. sigh..
i've always been very reluctant to blog about stuff that makes me upset. in fact, i hate it.
sigh..

we are fighting very hard. For our flat.

you wouldnt believe the number of hiccups and obstacles that came our way in pursuing our lovenest -Dawson. One bad news after another.
Our Q-number and units selection were a miracle. We're doing all we could to make that miracle a reality now.
We've applied for the housing loan with HDB and it's rejected last mth cos we overlooked a letter asking for some documents. Called up HDB, wrote a long appeal letter and they requested for documents to verify my income (since i'm self-employed at the moment) and my NOA from IRAS. Deadline given: Next Friday

my NOA was filed wrongly at the beginning of this year becos i didnt know i had to file under "Trade, Business" instead of "Employment" since i'm a private home tutor. All along when i was in MOE, my NOA was sort of filed 'automatically', so i didnt have prior experience in filing. Well, even so, i know it's not as good an excuse, so i had to call in to ask IRAS to kindly amend it for me. And the drama started :(
IRAS in turn wanted me to verify my 'business revenue' in order to amend the NOA for me. So i had to submit whatever documents to substantiate my claim that i earn a certain amount and all allowable business expenses incurred. They claimed to have sent me an email sometime last week but i didnt receive it, so i told the officer over the phone to please fwd it to me again. He said OK, he would do it right away. I believed him and i checked my inbox when i reached home. But the mail wasnt there :(
so i called the same person up..

me: Hi, i've not received the email you have sent.

him: Ohh.. i will do it right away. If you still do not get it by tomorrow, you can call again.

me: what tomorrow?? you said you would send it right away right?

him: erm, yah. but if you still do not get it by 5pm tomorrow, you can call again.

me: 5pm you all off work already what. Even if i dont receive it, i wont be able to get any one of you after 5!

him: exactly...

me: THEN? (agitated)

him: erm, yah. okay, i will ask the department to send it now.

me: WHEN exactly?

him: within minutes. Now, i'll go to tell them now.
-_-!

really have to vomit blood talking to these "just follow law" govt bodies people!It's just forwarding an email, is it so hard? Dont tell me "YES I WILL DO IT NOW" when you just meant to get me off the line! :(

Anyway, i got into a 'frenzy mode' to consolidate my monthly revenue i got from my students' parents and went over to their houses one by one to ask them to counter sign for me. Thankfully the parents are all really nice and supportive :) Got it all done within 2 days and i sent everything to IRAS late last night.
I got up early this morning to call them again so that they could expedite the request for me.

The guy wasnt around. i called at 9am sharp.
I spoke to another lady and she told me i had to wait ONE MONTH for my NOA to be amended. I told her it is not possible as HDB needs it by next week. She told me even if she were to expedite my request, i also have to wait for 2 weeks, COS they are alot of people like me who have requests to expedite :( but she would put it as 'urgent'.
i knew if i hang up, i wont be able to take up my HDB loan and there goes our Dawson.
So i kept pressing her to make it earlier. She repeats (5 times) that it is impossible as the earliest is still 2 weeks :( until i asked her how she could help me. She paused, heaved a sigh, and said she will go and ask... while she put me on hold.
she returned and told me she would put it as "urgent urgent", so it would be mailed to me by next week friday BUT NO PROMISE. she said if i still dont get it by friday, i could call them again.
(that sounds rather familiar. Sat and Sun they not working then how am i supposed to get them? End up still 2 weeks what!) i dont know.. but i would call them later this week again.
Just leaves me wondering... if i had pressed and stressed her more, would she put it as 'urgent urgent urgent' or even 'urgent urgent urgent urgent' and get it done in 2 days?

:( i mean, if it could be put as 'urgent urgent',why tell me 2 weeks in the first place? :(
i understand they all have an SOP to follow. SOP are good in a way, but well...... i cant understand why they are so rigid. This is not the first time. In fact, we've talked with IRAS, HDB umpteen occasions. And they always 敷衍 us.. and this drives us mad!!
We've learnt that if we arent very firm about it, things get procrastinated like nobody's business. And then, the people who suffer are us :(

and then, amidst the mad frenzy, Jayen called last evening to tell me there's one more bad news :(
from HDB, that our appeal has been rejected. Now this is confusing. We've got 2 letters from HDB (different departments). One is to tell us to send it documents for the loan/grant to be further processed, the other one to tell us that the appeal has been rejected.
So now, what?
The latter stating reason being that they feel i cannot afford to pay the flat IN 5 YEARS' TIME based on the fact that i only have minimal savings in my bank account NOW -_-
hello~ i mean how they know i do not have 'eggs' put in other 'baskets' and from just judging a month's bank statement, they conclude that i wont have money to pay the flat installment AFTER 5 YEARS?
Hey, i'm just studying part time for 2.5 years and after that, i wont even be teaching tuition anymore. What makes them so sure that i wont have savings by then? i'm really so upset!! They can still write in the letter to tell me i should learn to save and it's a good habit to do so. F***!!
All becos i'm self-employed and i get all these troublesome shit. why? People can easily get the grant even when they're earning less. Just becos they are employed under a company. And they dont get their bank statements checked. Or whether they have a habit of saving regularly. Makes me have the urge to quit right away to get myself employed in some company.

anyway, i was really upset so when i called up mom to ask her about our joint fixed deposit, she found out how much i had in my savings a/c.. she said, "No wonder HDB thinks you dont have money to service the loan.."
So i told her, "but most pple my age have around this amount of savings in their banks what..."
and my mom rebutted me saying, "No lor, ALOT OF PPLE YOUR AGE HAVE A FEW TEN THOUSANDS IN THEIR BANKS. you just never managed to save that."
:(((((
really?
i was so upset.. i called hoping that she could give me some comfort but ended up, kena a few more buckets of cold water. I was near breaking down after i hung up the phone with her.. sighhhh... i really do not know what to do.
Jayen and I are stuck together in this shit... BUT we are praying very hard and trusting God for deliverance. Cos if the ball arent on our side of the court, there is very little we could do.
We have promised each other that we will never give up fighting for our Dawson flat. For God has blessed us with the chance, we will do all we can and have faith till the end.

Today was the first day of my last semester in school. I was feeling a mixture of apprehensiveness, sadness as well as a little bit of joy.

Apprehensive cos i wont see most of my classmates in my clique (in fact, none of them at all, and it's very sad :( cos we're split into different classes) and i have to start getting to know new people (which i totally dread :( i do not like to make new friends, haha cos i'm shy. Yah, i know u all dont believe me.)

Sadness cos it's the last semester (hopefully) so that translates to parting. To my classmates and officially, my teaching career. Time to look for a job in the corporate world by end of 2010, and the mere thought of it SCARES me big time.

Joy cos it's the LAST lap before graduation. Actually working and studying part-time is no joke, but somehow, it gives me much joy. i love studying and i hope i can study forever and not work, haha.. but i know it's impossible.

This evening, i reached school slightly earlier but was devastated (not exaggerating) to find that there was no food! There goes my dinner! :( Usually the stalls would sell finger food to the part-timers to bring into lecture cos we usually do not have time to eat a proper meal after our work and before class. But i do not know why they are not selling today :(
I was feeling so upset to have only 'green tea' to drink.

But was surprised when jayen came over to fetch me after school, YAY! :D
he was so nice cos he knows i'll be alone and lonely, so he purposely came to lift my spirits, heee..
He even brought chocolates for me...

HAha.. 1st day of sch reopening -_-
also need to celebrate, hahaa

Thanks anyway, dear!! u are the best! =)