clean linen

Yay! Julie's FINALLY 17!!! In summary, One-third had a birthday dinner at Fish&Co the Glasshouse, finishing up with a delicious cookies and cream ice-cream cake from Gelare's and doing a little walking and photo-hunting. We even got the 2-man band to sing Julie the birthday song, although it turned out a little weird-sounding because it wasn't the conventional birthday song we were expecting. I also think that if we were in our uniforms, the other people in the restaurant would have probably called our school to complain because we sure were creating a ruckus. We also were hogging the table and ate something (Recall: Gelare's ice-cream cake) NOT from Fish&Co! Gasp! ;) Let's just look at the photos... Shots we took before the food we ordered arrived... TDT! The cheerful birthday girl! Now, we fast forward to AFTER dinner, when we eat the cake! :) The cutting of cake! One-third group photo Now on to photo-hunting! After seeing this shot, Bella said she lo...

If you haven't noticed, there's a large gap of about 2 weeks of which I did not blog about. Well, that is because I was in Australia with my parents and sister from the 8-18th of December. It was most unfortunate that my brother was unable to go because of some NS stuff. Well, in this entry, I'm just going to tell you our itenerary and then in the following entries, I will just show the highlights of this trip to Australia. Firstly, just some facts. Out of the approximate 10 days spent in Australia, we spent 7 days in Tasmania and 3 days in Melbourne. It's supposed to be summer over there but in Tasmania, it was windy, rainy and cold, seemed nothing like summer. In Melbourne, we may have started to see the desert flies, a big sign of summer... however, it still was windy and rainy in Melbourne. But one very good aspect of the summer season is that the days are REALLY long. The sun only begins to set at about 7+, 8pm. One more fact, Tasmania and Melbourne are 3 hours ahe...

Here you see the amount of presents the Chua family has received during this year's Christmas. I must say though, that most of the presents you see here belong to my parents. And being displayed in the centre of the photo is our very own Christmas tree! Last year, somebody gave us a box of ornaments as a Christmas present. My sister then came up with the fabulous idea to decorate the "twigs" in our living room. Ever since we moved into this house, we've never bought a new Christmas tree because it just cannot fit into the design of my house. This year, Tina Mama helped me with the hanging of ornaments! :) I daresay that this is the most unique Christmas tree yet! ;)

Wow! I can't believe it's Christmas again! Although I must say, this year's Christmas was much more eventful for me compared to last year's Christmas. Last year, all I remember doing was watching TV by myself at night, while my siblings had their own plans and parties to attend, and my parents slept at their usual time (which is considered rather early). Then going to bed as if the next day was just ANOTHER day. This time, however, I spent Christmas eve in Church and then the 17-year-olds in my church proceeded to my house for a movie, wanting to do the countdown together. We DID watch a movie (Ocean's Eleven on Channel 5) but we didn't do the countdown because we were all busy watching Ocean's Eleven. So our countdown party wasn't REALLY a countdown party... Friday night, I had a fun time with my cell as we ate dinner at the Han's cafe (restaurant?) at the National Library, then strolled to the Esplanade for photo-taking purposes. We even caught a m...

It has been 13 weeks since my brother first entered NS . Now he's out! My dad and I left the house at about 1.45pm for Pasir Ris bus terminal. From there, we took a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal so that we could reach Pulau Tekong. Everything went quite smoothly and the parade began on the dot. 4pm sharp. After the guest-of-honour arrived, in marched the 4 companies of soldiers who were graduating from BMT today, of which Falcon, my brother's company was one of them! Spot my brother! He's right next to the flag-bearer. After the speech and review by the guest-of-honour, the 4 companies marched out. Immediately afterwards, they jogged in without their caps. Then came the meaningful part where family members were allowed onto the parade square to help the soldiers wear their caps. Here's a shot of a proud father putting on the cap of his one and only son. :) When all of us were back in our seats, all 4 companies combined. It was quite a sight. On the signal, all the s...

If you haven't watched it, you NEED to watch it. Because it's so entertaining, you'll go home at the end of it feeling so much more youthful, relaxed... entertained! This musical has a lot of local jokes that I think us Singaporeans will appreciate the most. The fairies are the most hilarious. They're all men in women's clothing so it was most interesting when they sang "We're happy and gay" in a song. They even tweaked the famous "Diamonds are forever" to say it as "Fairies are forever". The fourth, evil fairy was played by a caucasian lady. At the very end of the musical, they asked the fourth fairy why she did all the evil things she did and she said, "Because I'm always forgotten. I'm tired of being part of the OTHERS". Of which the 3 fairies replied, "But we always thought you were too busy to join us! We've never meant to exclude you. We know we must EMBRACE FOREIGN TALENT!". Ok, it's not as...

What is Kingdom Settlers? It's this year's Young People's Ministry (equivalent to Youth Ministry) camp! It was something new and VERY exciting because we had ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY campers since it was a combined camp for the Teens, Youth and Young Adult zones. Usually, we have separate camps that reach about 70 campers at most. This time around, it was a hundred MORE. I was part of the committee, planning one game slot called Time Chaser. Basically, it consisted of 4 stations each located at different parks near the church so the groups had to run from place to place because they only had 20 minutes to play and "travel". Oh by the way, the games got them dirty, they smelt ALOT like vinegar at the very end of Time Chaser. ;) I think it was well received and enjoyed very much as from the evaluation forms collected at the very end of the camp, there were many campers who circled 8-10 for Time Chaser (1 being the worst and 10 being best). Although I was completely d...

... But wait a minute! Where's the mirror!? There used to be a mirror over this grill-like thing! Oh crap it! It's broken! So I got the fright of my life when early this morning, at 12.50am to be exact, I just completed a dvd and all was quiet in the house when I heard a loud crash. The sound came from somewhere directly above me so I guessed it must have been something either in my room, my sister's room OR our toilet, which connects both our rooms. In the end, it turned out to be the mirror in our toilet. I would not have realized it if not for the fact that I needed to, erm... relieve myself. :) It was really scary. The first thought that came to my mind was: "Is it a burglary? Did someone just break a window to gain entry? I'm the only one awake!" I mean, my parents didn't even hear it, my sister heard it but couldn't be bothered because she was too tired and so fell asleep again. Then. I decided that I'll just close one eye, quickly switch on...

After watching today's episode of "wan quan yu le (completely entertainment)" on channel 56, I realized that it is very difficult to get people laughing at a joke you tell. You see, there always are different themes for each episode of the week in "wan quan yu le". Today, the theme was "wan quan hao hao xiao", literally meaning "completely very very funny". The 2 hosts together with a guest celebrity and a "xiao hua gao shou (joke expert)" took turns to tell jokes. They would be judged by 3 judges, who are all part of the production crew. It was quite hilarious. I will always remember how the guest celebrity said a joke and its end was met with 2 or 3 seconds of complete silence, then polite laughter following after. I wish I could post one of the funnier jokes I heard just now, but it's all in chinese, I think it wouldn't be that funny if I translater it. Partly because I'm s-duper lousy at translating... Anyhow, I thi...

I must say that my PW group is fun! Yes, we do have arguments and annoying bits with one another, but the fun we have just seems to make us forget all these bad points we may have in the group. Today, we had breakfast at the hawker centre near my house before adjourning to McDonald's to organize our PW file. It was then that we decided that we HAD to meet up even after this whole PW thing is over (that's TOMORROW! Whoo!). Maybe we'll call ourselves the Breakfast Club instead of a PW group. Jien actually pointed it out and started us on this subject when she said that we really have fun when we're eating. The thing I cannot forget was how Brynner suddenly put his plate of leftover bee hoon on the floor. We all thought he wanted to feed a cat or something, but he said he SPIT on it, PHLEGM. It was DISGUSTING. I was sitting right next to him so I didn't look in his direction or look down for as long as the plate was still on the floor. Brynner FINALLY went to throw the...

This is a rather interesting show, even though I don't really like the lead actor because his character in the show is OBNOXIOUS, ABSOLUTELY annoying. Yet again, I wished the girl ended up with the supporting actor instead of the lead actor in this drama serial. The lead actress dreams of becoming a G.O. at ClubJuly (think ClubMed), while harbouring a secret crush on this successful businessman who she always delivers sandwiches to. At her mother's arrangement, she was supposed to go a matchmaking session but she chose to go to Japan to visit her best friend who is working there as a G.O. not knowing that her date was actually her crush! She went to Japan anyway and met the lead actor, who is FILTHY RICH (heir to ClubJuly), young and immature. Both guys fall for her but she ends up with her crush, because he is, afterall, her CRUSH. But the lead actor keeps chasing her anyway and *Spoiler alert* when she finds out that her 2 suitors are actually step-brothers, initially, she ch...

The magic number of plates of sushi we consumed today at our one-third outing! It is a pity though that the one-third gang wasn't in full attendance because Joanne wasn't feeling well so she didn't come at the last minute. We met at about 1 to "walk-walk", which turned out to be something akin to pure torture because we were absolutely STARVING. It was 2 hours' worth of perseverance and determination not to buy something to munch on so as to quell our hunger pangs. Out of the 6 of us, I'm afraid Tina and I gave in. We bought this mini D-E-E-LICIOUS tiramisu-flavoured chocolate bar from Marks & Spencer's. :) The moment we sat down, it was madness because we were actually carrying out our long-awaited plan to have a sushi buffet together! Jien and Julie were the closest to the conveyor belt so those furthest, namely myself and Bella, started shouting for food we wanted. It was really fun. What more, we exceeded our target by ONE plate, isn't tha...

This outing was at Harbourfront, after our OP 2nd dry run, which went well. It was at Harbourfront that we had lunch together at Pasta Mania. It's a pity Jien couldn't join us because she had hockey training. After satisfying ourselves with pasta, we took a walk around Harbourfront and I discovered so many new things about Harbourfront, which is quite silly because I've been so close to this mall for a year and yet I still don't know it inside-out. In addition, we spent close to half an hour, if I'm not wrong, in the Poh Kim VCD shop, making LOADS of noise. Oh well, we made the shop look crowded, so that would attract more customers in because they would think that the Poh Kim VCD shop is "happening" right? ;) On my way home with Tina, we stopped at the 2 VCD shops near our houses, and spent yet another half an hour in them. We have officially made friends with the friendliest shop assistant in Vision Atlantis rental store. Both of us are familiar faces al...

For PW, my group wanted to show our very own advertisement. The thing's that besides the video-ing of scenes acted out by my group members and I, there's also the editing before our advertisement is presentable. Unfortunately, the task of video editing fell to my lot because I told my group members my brother had a video editing programme. I also foolishly thought my brother would be able to spare me the time to teach me how to use the programme, but I was wrong. In the end, I had to read the manual and hope that I would click the right buttons so that I could get the Pinnacle programme to work with me. Thank God, it did! I'm so glad it's done. Now I just have to hope and pray it plays well on my brother's laptop. Video editing sure is challenging. But I'm proud of myself! I'm absolutely ECSTATIC that it's done! ;)

YPM service is now on Saturday, 4-6pm! It still is something I have to get used to because for the longest time, everything has been taking place on Sunday. Saturdays were purely for music practices for me. Now it's completely different. Take for example, today. After service, I actually had dinner with all the other 17-year-olds at the KFC outlet nearby. Then after dinner, we walked around and did a little window shopping. I only reached home at 10. It really felt weird. We could even ask each other if we wanted to go for the 1st or 2nd main service the next day. It felt alien. All this while, we only have the choice of attending the 1st service since most of us had to help out in the Teens Service. Well, Youth Ablaze was interesting. For once, the speaker had complete silence when he needed it, which was fantastic. In the past, the speaker always had to "shh" the teens right in the middle of his or her message. I think Youth Ablaze is going to get more and more exciting...

At the last minute, Ben and Lydia could not make it for cell because Ben had to take a very sick Lydia to see a doctor. While I was still at Changi Village Hotel, Ben called me to let me know I'll have to help facilitate a time of prayer with Eugene instead of having the usual Word session (because Ben always takes the Word sessions). I kinda agreed, knowing that I didn't really have a choice. However, moments later, Eugene called me to ask if I would be okay with the 2 17-year-old cells having a combined meeting, because the other cell still had its cell leaders. Eugene checked with the leaders and it was a go-ahead signal. So for the very first time, we had a combined cell meeting, something a few of us have been asking for. I arrived half an hour late because I could only leave Changi Village Hotel at 8. When I got off the cab and walked towards the block where the meeting was taking place, I could hear singing and a guitar playing from the 3rd floor! I was completely filled...

Our first CIP activity was to help out logistically at a sailing conference for the disabled, held at Changi Village Hotel. There were 3 major things we didn't realize: 1) The scale of this conference One thing's for sure, the scale of this conference is big, INTERNATIONAL, in fact. Because I volunteered to help out at the registration table, I got to arrange and give out the name tags of the participants and speakers. Nathaniel, Jia Xing, Ren Ling and I were assigned to help out at the registration table. The photo's a little dark but you must agree that it's not bad for a self-shot. :) Boy, there were people from Great Britain, The Netherlands, USA, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia... and many more. The Guest of Honour was Teo Chee Hian AND one of their VVIPs was the KING of Greece! Cool eh? ;) 2) The good appearance of the hotel When I first heard that the conference would be at Changi Village Hotel, I thought it wouldn't be that new, maybe a hotel that is a little ru...

It was RREEAAALLLYYY nice meeting up with all my Sec 4 classmates after such a long time! Actually, I met quite a number of them at my school Founder's Day, but that was in July, which is quite a number of months ago! We didn't get full attendance at this bbq reunion, but we still had quite a lot of fun. This reunion was held at my god-twin sister's house, which had rather good facilities. We were the only ones using the bbq pits so we had all 6 tables, 2 sinks and 3 pits to ourselves. However, we ended up only using 4 tables, 1 sink and 1 pit. So, please don't be mistaken, we didn't hog and mess up the whole area. ;) Here are a few photos... I look quite "bleagh" in this shot but I'm posting it anyway so that my dear friend Cheryl can take it from here. :) I will always remember how I used to nag Cheryl in Sec 3 and 4. I think she got the grunt of it in Sec 3 when we sat next to each other. Besides telling me about her eventful love life *;)* she woul...

My sister, her friend and I finished this show (18 discs) in 10 hours. 5 hours yesterday night, 5 hours today. And we all agreed that we like this show, and that the lead actress is really pretty, especially when she smiles! I have also come to the conclusion that I LOVE winter wear! I mean, they all look SO cool in their coats and their cardigans! BUT. Back to the main topic. "Love Story In Harvard" is a very interesting show that has its funny and heart-wrenching parts. The chemistry between the lead characters was electrifying! This was a scene where they just had some fun together on the beach somewhere in America. You should have seen the guy THROW the girl around! GOODNESS! Besides the great acting, the storyline was good as well. Here's a condensed version of the show. The guy meets the girl when they were both studying at Harvard University. He was studying law while she was studying medicine. They start dating but soon she has to leave because of a medical prog...

I just read my sister's blog and HAD to "run" in here to post the photo that my sister found of the three of us! It seems like she has been packing her box of old photos and, oh boy! I LOVE this shot because my sister, brother and I were all smiling sooooo nicely (Well, maybe except for my brother because his hand is covering his mouth, but it's still quite a cute post)! Take a look! And this next shot is of me with my sister. By the way, I'm the baby in the photo. ;) I think our smiles are so nice in this photo as well! :) My sister and I didn't use to be very close, partly because of our big age gap of 10 years. I used to be very scared of her actually. But recently, after the BOTH of us discovered the great JOYS of drama serials, especially Korean ones, we started to bond over TV. My parents always call the TV the "one-eyed monster", but to me, it's the "bonding box" because I've found a grrreat friend in my sister!

I couldn't find a suitable picture of the VCD cover of this Japanese Drama serial so here is a picture of the 2 lead characters instead. I find that the guy has quite a "duh" look, whereas the girl is actually quite pretty. If you're wondering if this story is the same as the Japanese movie that was showing in cinemas sometime this year, yes it is. In fact, the movie is adapted from this drama serial, if I'm not wrong. I haven't watched the movie so I am not sure if the way the story is told is exactly the same. In this SLOOOWWW-moving drama serial, it flashes to the time when they were 17 years old (photo of them when they were 17) and flashes to the "present", which is 17 years after, which means, both of them should be 34 years old already. Except that the girl died of leukemia when she was 17. So this shows how the guy deals with her death, how he tries to move on in life and basically centers around how they actually met at age 17, their love st...