Cindy and Tim's Birthday Cruise

We celebrated Cindy and Tim's birthday yesterday by going on a luncheon on a river cruise. Their birthdays were actually Dec 6 and Dec 1 respectively but since they were all going home soon we celebrated earlier. So we all woke up early and got dressed, tried our best to look pretty ( Someone in paricular even had a sash that said " Birthday Girl"!!!! Beh paiseh wan hahahaha), and set out in Ivy's car to Fisherman's Wharf, where the cruise was departing.

We got there and we were pretty excited when we saw this big beautiful cruise ship. So were started posing with it and taking pictures of it from every angle.

Then we realized that we were posing with the wrong one.

We looked further on and saw this smaller, less impressive one. Sadly, much to our disappointment, the cruise we were taking was the sadder-looking one.

Oh well.

We had a group photo before boarding... It felt like a school field trip or something..

Very proud that my name was on the tables.. but only because I helped booked the place cause Cindy was busy with exams and I was bored and her iPhone had a lot of extra credit...

Eveyone settling down and MC posing for the camera

Cindy contemplating life, posing for the camera with her best angle, and trying to take in the view from the river outside. We spotted a dolphin as soon as we started out and caused quite a bit of commotion as we were pretty excited and there was some screaming... but there wasnt much to look at really as there were mostly industrial sites along the river.

Whilst waiting for our food........

Different camera, different perspective

Nice pic, Pearl.

We spotted this lone kayaker. Poor guy was struggling against the waves sent out by our ship, then we realized he had a bowl of dessert in his hand. I dont know how he got it but that was the dessert we had ordered. The staff might've given a bowl to him. Haha, was funny though.

Birthday boy and girl a.k.a King and Queen of the day with their cake and a singing candle......

Very proud birthday boy who'd managed to complete his birthday puzzle... it was a present

Another group photo........... but this time with the cake.....

We then went up on the deck and proceeded to get all windblown and cold and messy......

And naturally, we HAD to start singing the main title for titanic and act the whole "You jump, I jump" Jack and Rose scene where they stand at the ship's stern.... Good fun..

We managed to spot about 3 dolphins that day. Which was actually very little as it was a 2 and a 1/2 hour cruise. Probably wasn't dolphin season but wth, we had bucketloads of fun and it was all good..

I Could Be A Million Things ( Pt. 2)

Years passed, seasons changed. They grew up, turned from mischievous, naïve children to cocky, gangly teenagers. And yet that special bond they shared never showed any signs of fading, of breaking. They were still the best of friends, still always seen together everywhere they went.
But there was a slight difference in their friendship now. People winked and clucked their tongues when they saw them together. Their names now rolled off people’s tongues with knowing looks in their eyes and teasing smirks on their lips. They felt it too, felt that slight shift in their relationship dynamics. He was no longer that best friend she hung out with every afternoon after school. She was no longer that snotty-nosed girl with the scabby knees and reckless plans.
Lingering stares, secret smiles, quick brushes that sent tingles down the spine. Afternoons usually spent in the arcades and making up pirate adventures were soon replaced with long walks down the beach and quiet conversations under that big old tree in the fields behind his house.
They shared their first kiss there, on a hot, summer afternoon when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and no breeze at all. It seemed the world stopped turning just for them at that very moment when their lips met. Everything was perfect. The slant of sunlight across her face, the perfect stillness of everything around them, the cloudless blue of the never-ending sky above them. That feeling that had been simmering under the surface for so long finally came out in full-burst, hit them with their defences down, and filled them.

I Could Be A Million Things ( Pt. 2)

Watched Australia in Australia

Baz Luhrmann's new epic movie is out!

Starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.

So what better place to watch it than in Australia itself?

We went to watch it this afternoon and I loved it. I laughed, cried and laughed and cried again.

It's about an English lady called Sarah Ashley ( Nicole Kidman) who comes from England to Australia to find her adulterous husband. SHe ends up meeting this Aussie native called The Drover ( A very delicious looking Hugh Jackman) and naturally they fall in love. THis movie also focuses on Australia's stolen generation- mixed aborigine children who get sent off to an island where they are given proper generation, discrimination and war.

All in all, it was an awesome movie, with a great soundtrack! A bit long but wth, thats what epic movies are supposed to be like anyway.

I Could Be A Million Things (Pt.1)

They had known each other since before they were even born. Their parents were old friends, so it was no surprise that they knew each other since they were babies, sleeping side by side in their respective cribs while their parents chattered away with their long cups of tea.
Her parents owned a chain of department stores while his parents ran a carpentry business. It would have been a shame if the two of them hadn’t gotten along, a union of two of the richest families in that little town they lived in would have benefited everybody. But they did. They became best friends since from the moment they could talk and walk.
She was the livelier of the two. More adventurous, more daring, more spunk. She was the one with all the great ideas designed to get them into trouble, the one who set their neighbour’s cat on fire and got them grounded for a good 2 months. He was the quiet one. Always more sensitive and cautious, always stable and collected even as a young child. He was the one who would make sure they weren’t caught during all of her daring schemes and the one to stand guard while she tried to break into their principal’s office.
They were always together. Everywhere they went, to the grocery store, the arcade, their school, the playground. Their names rolled off people’s tongues naturally like it was one word. Everyone knew that when they saw one of them, the other would either be arriving soon or in hiding waiting to pounce on unaware strangers.

Mac Pictures

Having fun with Cindy's Mac Photo Booth together with Ivy
Sakais who use PCs ba XD

Happy Birthday Dad and Bro!

Today I'm going to talk about the 2 most special men in my life.
My dad( as pictured above in one of his very rare candid moments) and my brother.

My brother and I are 6 years apart. Needless to say, we don't have very much in common except the fact that we live in the same house ( for his first 12 years anyway) and we share the last name. He's 13 now, and his voice has broken. It saddens me a bit that I wasn't there to hear his voice deepen from a boyish, lilting tenor to a half-manly, gruff baritone.

I remember calling home once and he answered the phone, I thought I'd called the wrong number!

It never occured to me that his voice had changed. They grow up so fast.

My brother's really popular with my friends ( he doesn't know this). It used to be because he was real cute as a kid ( Looked like an ang mo ba) but when he grew up, he was popular among my friends because the stories of his antics was always a hit with my friends. They were great icebreakers too. When things got boring, I'd pull out a story about what he had done or said today and even if they'd heard it already, they'd still be laughing their asses off.

I miss those times we had when I'd play badminton outside our house with him, or teach him to play the piano ( although I have to admit I wasn't all that patient with him when it came to teaching). And I have to say I'm proud of him. He's learning the guitar now and reading!!

I'm sure he'll turn out to be a well-mannered, handsome, and sensitive young man.

Happy 13th Birthday, Bro.

May this year be better than the last.

Next, my dad.

Now as you can see, he doesn;t always appear in pictures alone. All the pictures I have of him are in these family pics. Thats probably because he;s always the one behind the camera so much that I think we might have to start paying him XD

My dad's the greatest dad in the world.

He buys me stuff ( he never says I;m too old for presents!), he pushes me even when I don't want to be pushed and he's always there for me.

I have so many great memories of him I don;t even know where to start.

Like all those times I'd wake up in the middle of the night to find him turning our aircon off or covering us properly so we don't get cold, or how he used to put our christmas presents at the foot of our beds on Christmas eve when we'd fallen asleep ( of course, I woke up once when he was putting the presents- my Monopoly set i remember- and after that I realized that there was no santa claus :D). And even that time when i refused to go for swimming lessons and he got so angry at me he packed my bags and threatened to send me to the salvation army. I got so scared especially when he packed my socks (!!!!!) that I almost peed in my pants. But after that he bought me a book... so that helped a bit haha.

My dad makes me laugh too. And that's important. If anyone were to ask me what was the most important thing I got from my dad, I'd have to say a sense of humour and the ability to take things easy and laugh at myself. So thanks dad, for that and everything you've done for me.

So happy 49th birthday Dad, and many happy returns of the day.

P.s. I 'll try to bring as many nougats home as possible hahahahaha

Love you, guys.

Happy Birthday.

MY HUNDREDTH POST!!!

This is just to celebrate the fact that I have reached my hundredth post!!!!
Thats like a century in blog years!
WOOHOO!!!
*Cheering, clapping, whistles, trumpets*
Okay thank you very much I'm done.

Insecurities

How do you rid yourself of insecurities?
How do you just let go of all your flaws and just focus on your virtues?
How do you just turn your cheek away from what people may say about you behind your back and what people may think of you?
How do you just accept yourself for who you are and love that person called you?

I can't do all that.
I can't just let go of all my flaws and focus on my virtues.
I always end up obsessing about my flaws, wishing I was flawless, wishing I was perfect, wishing I was at least contented with myself, with my life.

But everytime I've reached something, accomplished something, I just want more
More, more, always more.
I have to be smarter, funnier, more likable, prettier, richer.
I have to be more popular, more accepted, more everything.

I'm sick and tired.
I'm sick and tired of constantly having to impress
I'm sick and tired of constantly being compared and appear to be lacking
I'm sick and tired of constantly having to hide that side of me I'm so sure nobody will like

That side of me that is shy, that part of me that is a loner
That side of me that is boring, that nobody wants to know,
Why can't I be happy for who I am? For what I have? For what I have done?
Why must it always be a struggle? A race? A fight to the very end to be perfect?
Nobody's perfect, I know that, but that doesn't stop me from trying to be.

I wish I could stop, I wish I could just give up
I wish I could stop being that girl so hidden inside
I wish I could stop being that girl with the terrible hair and the bad skin
I wish I could stop being that girl with the loud mouth and rash decisions
I wish I could stop being that girl who gets so terrified when it comes to meeting new people
Who worries constantly that someone might see through her and see who she really is
Who obssesses constantly that people might not like what they see

I wish I could just stop thinking about what others may think about me
I wish I could just stop obssessing about what people may be saying about me
I wish I could just stop having these insecurities
I wish I could just stop all this
I wish I could just be me, and love me for me.
For nobody else but me.
Me.

Quote of the day

Miracles DO happen You just have to be willing to look for them..

I Heard Ya Talkin'

I was watching Scrubs that day ( again) when I heard this awesome song!!!!
So I downloaded it and looked up the lyrics and I realized that this song is just for Madeleine and Yvonne right now.
Some anonymous coward left really nasty comments on Made and Evon's blogs apparently and I'm feeling very angry for them.
So for that cowardly idiot who wrote such nasty stuff about my friends, I hope you read my blog too cause this is for you, think about it...

I heard ya talkin' just the other day
You were sayin' things about a friend of mine so I just walked away
But I heard the words you said loud and clear
You were sayin' things that just weren't right
About a friend of mind so dear
I heard ya talkin'
Some people out there are always talkin' around
Seems they're never really happy unless they're puttin' somebody down
You know the thing they fear the most is that someone's gonna see right through
Their thin disguise and made-up lies
It's sad, but true
All these things that you say and doin time they'll be comin' on back to you
Your Words will be comin' on back to you
Nobody's perfect least of all me but it's time that you learn
Time that you see
Your Words will be comin' on back to you
Now don't you leave behind integrity
don't forget about the truth
don't lose the real meaning in emotional soup
Ask yourself a question-- just a thing or two
Are you happy livin' with that person you call you?

Scrubs Mad

Scrubs!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been crazy about Scrubs these past couple of weeks. It's my second favourite TV series after F.R.I.E.N.D.S at the moment and boy is it funny!
Its set in a fictional hospital called Sacred Heart and its one of the best medical comedies I've seen.

This is the series' main character. Dr John Dorian a.k.a J.D. He is the narrator of this series and everything is seen through his eyes. He has monologues, thoughts ( some very random and insane ones) and funniest of all, he has daydreams.

He has daydreams of himself being in Star Wars situations, patients waking from a coma to sing and dance, himself finally having a father-son moment with his mentor Dr Cox and so so much more that always leaves me laughing my ass off.

THen there's the others. His best friend Turk, a surgical intern who always gets his jokes, Carla, a nurse who'a married to Turk, Elliot, a super competitive and neurotic fellow medical intern who's part of the gang, Dr Cox, J.D's mentor and also the most sarcastic fictional doctor on this planet, there's Dr Kelso, the chief of medicine who cares more about whether the patient has insurance or not, the Janitor, who always has a problem with J.D and who has a crush on Elliot.

This show has the greatest soundtracks and the best thing about this show is that it is funny and touching all at the same time. There is always a life lesson learned at the end of every single episode. Today I learned that we need to take some time out of our life to just lie on the grass and do nothing instead of rushing around day after day while life slips out of our hands. Golden words. I'm going to do just that later, after I finish another episode of Scrubs. XD

Glenelg

The first time I went to Glenelg was with Elysia and Evelyn. I think it was the middle of the year then and I;d never been to Glenelg yet so Elysia thought it'd be nice to go there. I was all decked out in beach wear. Surf pants, singlet, hoodie in case it got windy and a cap to protect myself from the sun.

Oh well, what there was of the sun anyway
Imagine how disappointed Evie and I were when we went there and the wind was strong enough to knock us over and cold enough to freeze our bones and the sky was dark as anything.

But still, we didn't want to waste out trip and dipped our feet in the incoming tide just for the heck of it. We didn't last very long though because the water was simply too cold. So we figured we'll come back some other time when the weather was good and enjoy a real day out at the beach.

The only few people dumb enough to go to the beach in this weather
( us and the photographer la)

So the 2nd time was Pearl's birthday.
Oh I had such high hopes for that day. The weather forecast was good. It said sunny!

So there you've got all of us decked out in sunny looking shorts again and our shades in place.

Thank goodness we remembered to bring our jumpers because goodness gracious me what a

cold and windy day that was!

We ended up playing in the indoors arcade instead.

But finally,

FINALLY,

We had a REAL day out in the beach the day before I headed off to placement.

This is the Glenelg beach I so wanted to see. Nice, calm, blue rolling waves, white, fine sand, people dressed in shorts and bikinis ( bad for our self-esteem to see all these swimsuit model lookalikes but wth), and heat! The type of glorious heat that only a day at the beach provides! And also that beautiful, balmy sea breeze. For a moment there I felt like I was back home again, if only Malaysia had beaches like this....

Hilda, Ivy's friend had come for a visit and we went there together. Finally decked out in all the right attire!!! Finally not needing a jacket, and finally not there when the wind was cold as anything and the sky was gloomy as my teacher's face when he finds out he hasn't got enough time to finish teaching his lesson! FINALLY!

So there we went. Four of us ( Ivy's taking the pics) walking towards the jetty. I think we were the minority there. We were those conservative Asian girls who weren't decked out in bikinis with their flat-as-a-surfboard tummies and J.Lo's asses.

Got to the end of the jetty= Excited.

This guy was going to jump off the jetty.

Ivy was waiting for it, she just had to take a pic.

Finally, proof that Ivy was there.

Shadows in the waves.

Sexy beach babes

( trying to be anyway...)

Having fun at the beach being losers sitting at the side looking at all the other beautiful people lookin like something out of Baywatch. Damn Ang Mohs.

Sexy beach babes Episode 2.

Cindy with her Angeline Jolie pout ( well she thinks so anyway)

and me with my trying-hard-to-be-Angeline-Jolie-pout (I'm humble that way)

Jenny's Farm

Jenny, a nurse I was working with during my placement in Waikerie, a little Australian country town ( and apparently it claims to be the citrus centre of SA) invited us to her farm. Her farm was 5000 acres!!!!
It was HUUUUGE!!!!
And she had horses and stuff.. so of course we were hyped about going!
Nah, that's not her farm
Our impressions ( and hopes) about what her farm
looked like was, you know, green rolling fields and
winding roads with quaint cottages- like the picture
above, see?

And cows chewing and mooing contentedly on
green pastures..
Like something out of a Anlene ad i suppose

I don't know about the others but
I even had milkmaids in my imaginary farms...

Well, this is how her farm really looked like.

Apparently, it was a drylands farm. Meaning in Australia, because of the frequent droughts and water restrictions, the farm was basically like a huge sandy, dry and dusty stretch of land.

I have to say i was a teensy weensy bit disappointed at first

But then I had a look around and it was really quite nice....

This is Jenny's farmhouse. It'd been around for 100 years or so and it was absoultely gorgeous.

There was the whole antique looking furniture and walls and even a real fireplace!

Gorgeous.

I met Solomon the spoilt cat.

And the highlight of the day:

Feeding the horses! There was Mandy and Tristan and Bridget

Here we're still feeding.. This is Jenny's stallion and his mare.

Jenny's horses were breeding horses, so other breeders would

lend her their horses to breed with her horses and that way created

more purebred offspring.

Pearl and I were pretty fascinated by the huge tyres these tractors had

When jenny was driving us through her paddock these horses

came clomping out to meet her, and her car

Then Jenny took us for a ride through her crops

Even better, she let us hang on to the back of her truck!!

Here we are having the best time of our lives hanging off the back of

her truck with the wind in our hair and the sun on our backs

And this is me, still hanging off the truck, having the best time of my life