so i'm up at this familiar time in the morning again, watching the figure skating gala. over the past few days i've planned sleep around the winter olympics and champions league, helped by incessant early morning snacking. thank god for ice resurfacing intermissions and half time; if not i'd never get to replenish stock and keep awake.

anyway i was really happy on wednesday because ARSENAL WON, and beckham nearly scored 3 times! as it was only henry was successful right after half time, but i was thinking it would have been perfect if beckham then ljundberg then henry scored. you know, just so arsenal would still win. and by the way, guess which david has currently made the most goal assists during the league??? =D

and on thursday, i was really happy because chelsea lost! it was their first loss on home ground under mourinho; but things could be much worse if he wasn't hot. anyway the second half was far more interesting than the first and ronaldinho assisted this highly highly highly chio goal by passing to larsson then marquez then eto'o who headed it in! at least this made me feel less sore about channel 5 for showing soccer instead of the short programme in women's figure skating, although clearly this is a blatant display of sexual discrimination.

apart from which, this week has also been my exercise obsession week. i'm so proud of myself for going jogging and doing pilates and weights and getting some form of physical activity every single day! anyway the bad thing about this is that i broke my routine because of a crappy mood today, and as a result a long overdue ache is setting in. i feel as if my butt and legs are about to split into a million bloody pieces and i swear this totally makes up for the post workout euphoria. i am very tempted to reach for the tiger balm, but i'm being reminded of the last time i spent an entire night feeling as if i was on fire after massaging the tiger balm a bit too liberally into my legs. it was not a nice feeling at all.

lastly, today i drank lots of coffee in the morning and as a result my driving lesson went very smoothly. i only stalled the car thrice and they were all because the instructor kept talking to me and distracting me at red lights. plus i did 2 perfect U-turns and kept in my lane the whole time and gave way to pedestrians even though they looked like they could use a scare. i only had one near accident and that was because this asshole motorcyclist cut me from the left when i was trying to filter, but then again, whenever you have a car and a motorcyle, the motorcycle always dies. hah!

in light of all the sales happening now, i have decided to set a few shopping rules for when i see nice clothes and want to buy them. here goes-

i will walk away if

1. it is overpriced
2. it is regular priced but i know a sale is coming soon
3. it is on sale because it is defective, no matter how small the defect might seem
4. it will be discounted but only if i also buy something else from the same store
5. it does not match anything in my EXISTING wardrobe
6. buying it means i will be tempted to/ need to buy something(s) else to go with it
7. i want to buy it only because i have a pair of matching earrings, no matter how perfect the match might be
8. i want to buy it only because i have a matching nail polish shade, no matter how perfect the match might be
9. i can't remember what i want it for
10. i intend only to wear it to weddings / funerals / during winter
11. it has lots of sequins / has netting / looks gaudy
12. it will need to be dry cleaned
13. i foresee having to hide it when bringing it home
14. i am buying it on the pretext of giving it to someone
15. it makes me look even SLIGHTLY pregnant or pasty in the shop mirror but i am trying to convince myself that it will look better at home (it won't)
16. it makes me look even SLIGHTLY pregnant or pasty in the shop mirror but it is exchangeable and i plan to return in in less than a week
17. they don't have my size but i am desperate to have it
18. the salesperson is rude
19. i think i need to call someone for an opinion on whether i should buy it
20. i have something similar at home and the colour differs by less than 3 tones

anyway, this whole post about shopping is because today i finally bought the pink top i've been wanting for a long time! it's this lacey camisole thing from esprit which i've been eyeing since before CNY, but i'm so glad i waited because guess what? it was on 50% off today! plus i have the esprit card so i got an extra 10%, which means i only paid 40% of the original price!! finally, a lucky break.

=D

just a quick post!

today i cleared out my ang paos and wallets- i have this bad habit of leaving bits of stuff in my wallets whenever i change them, until i accumulate so many of them that they present a physical obstruction to the closing of my drawer and need to be Dealt With. like today. my mom is always telling me that my drawers need to be Dealt With or that my wardrobe needs to be Dealt With or the state of my table needs to be Dealt With or my shoes need to be Dealt With or my earrings need to be Dealt With. you have no idea how i hate that phrase. anyway so today i took out all the cash from my wallets and angpaos and stacked it in a little heap. in fact i felt quite pleased when i saw that little heap, which led me to conclude that i will grow up to be a very mercenary person.

that's when a thought struck me- that i should keep all the money in the bank so that i'll never be able to spend and the money will always be there! of course i quickly dismissed this thought. but, it did occur to me that if i put all my money into debit card accounts, not only will i not have to worry about losing my cash, i'll also be discouraged from spending it! because once i make the effort of going to deposit all the money into the account, i'll think twice before whipping out my card to sign for whatever i want to buy. plus, not all stores accept cards, which means that my spending will be further limited. i've had a maybank card for a few years already, but this is quite useless because it's impossible to find maybank ATMs around and sometimes you just need cash you know? so i'm now looking around to find cards with the lowest interests rates and most accessible machines. i'm quite keen on the UOB visa mini, which is obviously uber cool because it's a MINI. but i don't think minis can fit into ATMs, so i foresee we will have problems, yes. or maybe we will just need another card on top of that, HMM.

lastly! did you know there are sales EVERYWHERE??? and it's like 50% off storewide kinda sales. today i thought i'd take a quick walk through wisma before meeting fishie for lunch and almost died. it took me one hour just to make it through forever 21 and half of the basement, by which time i was sorely regretting clearing my wallet of excess cash. did i say there were sales everywhere?!?! so many things to buy, so little time! and money! =p

i am beginning to think that the putting all the money into the bank idea might actually be the smartest thing to do...

yesterday was valentine's day and everywhere was so awash with couples smothering each other with kisses and flowers that i felt sick. i met iris and aud in the morning at PS and we were treated to this couple acting all lovey dovey in front of us and the girl was carrying this huge purple bouquet. and both of them were quite ok looking- not fugly, at least- so iris and i started praying that they wouldnt be seated near us during the movie or we just might projectile vomit. luckily, they didn't.

anyway after that we had lunch at cartel and that's when the highlight of the day occured. actually, highlightS. after failing to convince ourselves that any of the vaguely passable guys we had seen qualified for a second look, we spotted the 9. and he was at the table right behind us! the only problem was that he was with a girl, and when he stood up, aud pointed out that he had gay pants. which would be a problem, obviously, because nothing good ever comes out of gay pants. and just when we were fretting over this observation, guess who walks into the restaurant? a mr 10! i am definitely to be credited for this one because i noticed him the moment he walked through the door, along with (if i must add), the two female companions he had. i say female companions because the two of them sat next to each other and giggled amongst themselves the whole time we were watching them, which made us conclude that they must be lesbians and hence do not affect mr 10's rating. yes, so the day was not altogether horrid.

in the evening i met my parents for dinner and was surrounded once again by even MORE lovey couples. but at least there were less of the irritating secondary school couples, which are the worst because clearly nobody can be in love when they're 14, pimpley, and unable to construct fluent sentences. i am a bitch, i know! anyway, the good thing was that my parents were behaving like civil adults while we were out, plus we all went for haagen dazs after dinner. so i was in quite a better mood when i got home, althought that of course did not stop me from feeling miserable later on in the night and thinking murderous thoughts about whoever invented the damn thing called national service.

:(

i do not think there has been a single valentine's day which i haven't hated.

casnova- really funny at parts but sadly more of it is wholesome disneyfied entertainment as compared to witty adult sex jokes. the plot is horribly predictable, and the ending is disappointing, although it reminded me somewhat of the merchant of venice. the three of us were in disagreement about the status of heath ledger- iris and i maintain that the only thing noteworthy about him is his build, but aud insists that he is, ahem, cute. then again this is the same person who chose the beanpole josh hartnett over ben affleck in pearl harbour, so skepticism is well warranted =D

yesterday i was in an awful mood because it felt as if all the forces in the universe were conspiring to make me feel lonely and unwanted. so i did what i always do when i'm feeling depressed- i cried for a long time and then went to sleep. and then when i woke up i thought some hershey's might make me feel better, but since i had been crying intermittenly the chocolate only made me feel like choking. this always happens, but i never learn. so of course i started crying again and feeling miserable about how the tears would totally ruin my complexion, which just made me cry even more. and after all this i was quite tired so i went back to bed for the 4th nap of the day, whereupon the sister barged into the room and committed herself to milking my misery.

which is how i hid helplessly under my blanket as i listened to her sing variations of her very original "Sulky Face" song. which was basically a song dedicated to me, in case you hadn't realised. and even though i pretended to be asleep the whole time, she persisted in singing at the top of her lungs for the next HALF HOUR. it's a good thing i spent the past few weeks cultivating the zen-ness, because the old me would have done grave physical damage under such circumstances.

anyway, thankfully today was markedly better, especially when i woke up and was surprised to find that i wasn't even in a grumpy mood. the only bummer was that just now i was hoping that the sunday movie would be catch me if you can, but turns out this week it's Planet of the Apes. and movies about animals are near the top of my Hated Movies list. plus, the extra bummer is that it stars MARK WAHLBERG, who used to be one of my favourite actors. i mean he has this rugged muscly cuteness about him, but i think it peaked in the italian job and went downhill in all the rest. it's like getting johnny depp to act as a singing banana or something, which would be a nightmare from hell. =p

so, last night i was up till around 6 watching the olympics figure skating pairs live. my gosh it was breathtaking. especially the china duo who skated to paganini's variations on a fugue, the way they choreographed their programme was fantastic. and then there was this young canadian couple who did a really sprightly programme that was cute in so many places- and she's only 18! i am definitely wasting my life here. eventually i was a bit disappointed when the russians won because their performance was less interesting than many others, but their twists and pivots were PERFECTLY in sync, even when they played it back in slow motion. it was crazy. it reminded me a bit of when alina kabaeva won the all arounds for rhythmic gym at athens. i guess maybe the key to being safe is to be boring.

apart from that, the other big even was the JGs on friday. i was actually kinda worried the night before because it's my first time taking a team at the nats by myself and obviously i don't want to get my ass raped by some unknown secondary school. that would be embarrassing. anyway i was relieved that everything we anticipated came out, but it was too bad that the girls were nervous so they didn't make full use of the rebuttals we prepared, plus one of them dropped a whole page of her substantive. sigh. and that would definitely have made another kickass first prop speech, so i was disappointed to say the least. ah well, on the whole i was quite proud of my work =D and, i was hugely shocked when the other school i coached won their round even though we've only trained like twice. call me a lousy coach but i definitely was not expecting that! i guess in C div there always little surprises in store, haha.

otherwise, movie reviews!

fearless- apparently it's super hyped because it's jet li's last kungfu film, but this of course meant nothing to me since i've never actually been a huge fan of jet li or kungfu. anyway, apart from the usual blood spattering there were a few really stylo sequences, like the bit where jet li is about to topple off a 5 storey high scaffolding but stops himself by doing a gravity defying YOGA POSITION. as mark pointed out, who ever knew yoga could be so handy eh?

match point- an EXCELLENT woody allen film! johnathan rhys myers totally lives up to his gay rep, although mandy maintains that nothing can beat his gay jog in bend it like beckham. i actually quite agree. plus, this time he wears lots of suits and we all know suits limit how gay you can be. the plot was amazing and in fact very disturbing, especially when he murders an old lady and his pregnant mistress with a SHOTGUN. i mean ordinarily you would just think how retarded is that! but the way he did it was so clever that it made up for the stupidity of the shotgun. the unnerving bit was how he managed to get away with it by a disgusting stroke of luck. if it happened in real life it would totally be the cue to say 'there is no God'. anyway scarlett johanson has this very unusual sexiness about her- she's sorta voluptious and hot in a very unconventional way. very 50s kinda thing. but overall the movie was excellently shot so everybody should go watch it!

whee, off to lunch now! :)

life has been hectic since my last post. on friday i spent the entire day sleeping and shitting speeches cos of the SRs on saturday, which turned out to be an almost complete waste of time. somehow, between reading what was on the paper and saying it out, the kids managed to almost always paraphrase everything so that it turned out totally different. there are no words to describe the frustration. the only consolation is that my first speaker got best speaker twice as proposition, so it means that the speech i wrote was definitely kickass. HAHA, take that!

and then yesterday, i spent the afternoon writing speeches for the JGs. it reminded me of primary school dictation where the teacher reads out sentences and you're supposed to listen carefully and write them down word for word. this is definitely a test of my patience. on the upside though, i have cultivated a very impenetrable zen-ness which has been very useful the past few days. in the face of irritation, i now blink and take deep breaths and remain calm. no more swearing and showing middle fingers and stomping off. i think i might even be becoming a nicer person on the whole, that is, if we excuse the daily dose of bitching and healthy amounts of mean thoughts that i have. we all need some things to keep us sane, after all.

oh and funnily, now that i have to be a responsible working adult and all that, i seem to have like these bouts of restlessness, during which i get sudden mental aberrations and feel the need to run. if i was superstitious i would take it as a sign that the world is coming to an end. on monday i actually was proactive about taking a healthy evening run and found it surprisingly liberating. i definitely need to work out more. i even found this new park in my estate, and stopped to swing on the monkey bars for a while. (of course i made sure there was nobody looking). the only other person at the park was this old lady who was looking really lonely and dejected and spent the whole time looking at the trees. i felt kinda sad for her, especially since it hit me that one day i could very well be like her.

i am very sure i will NOT be one of those women who age gracefully. i will probably become mean and hateful and suicidal and depressed and that will not bode well for the people around me. plus, i realised that if i persist in wanting to never have kids, i won't even have anybody to take care for me and make sure i'm well fed and alive all the time. which would be horrible because who wants to be one of those old folks who die in a cruddy apartment and nobody realises till a few months later when there's a putrid smell of rotting carcass. and so, i have decided that if i'm going to have kids, i'm going to make sure that at least one of them turns out to be a genius. from birth, i will make sure that she is immersed in an environment that stimulates her mentally, and will read to her every night. and possibly get her those head phone things which teach you to speak different languages when you're asleep, although both mark and aud have said that's a horribly mean thing to do to a kid. which might be true but then again it's not everyday that you get to raise a kid is it? plus she will thank me for it when she's older. of course if it happens to be a HE then everything will be thrown off course, although you can count on me having another ambitious plan to nurture a star athlete...

lastly! driving lessons are progressing well. today i managed to do an almost perfect U-turn. it would have been perfect if not for this asshole cyclist who cut in front of me just as i was straightening after the turn. then my instructor started nagging at me for not having checked for him earlier, which was when i stepped on the accelerator really hard and she jerked forward a bit. HAHA. so maybe my transformation into a nicer person is still at its early stages, but whatever. oh and i managed to pass final theory despite cramming only the night before, thanks to some ever reliable retards setting the test. basically as long as your answers are all about checking blind spots and not accelerating when people try to overtake you, you're safe.

teehee.

have been kinda busy this past week, so here's just an update on my life-

1. shoe shopping- eventually i did go back to metro on saturday with the purpose of buying my pretty pink shoes, but alas, this was not to be! even though they had my size and it was a perfect fit, there was only one pair left and there was this big blue stain on the heel. i begged the salesgirl to try to remove the stain but there was just no way of getting the stubburn thing out :( :( and so when i consulted my dad he said it was 'unwise' to pay big bucks for a defective product and that's how nirvana slipped through my fingers. :(

2. CNY- visiting this year was the same as all previous years. basically me and my sis just have to dress up early in the morning and then spend the rest of the day sitting around bowls of CNY goodies and answering questions about how old we are and where we're studying etc etc. i guess it's the one time of the year where everyone has to do the concerned auntie/uncle thing. and for some reason everybody thinks that my sis is older than me, which is insulting to say the least. especially since she has the mental maturity of an infant. it's not my fault i was born short! the only good thing is that we get to sample all the CNY goodies and take angpaos. ok so that's TWO good things. this year my favourite CNY goodie is a toss up between peanut cake and the curry puff shaped thing filled with peanuts and sugar. somehow i just love the way peanuts squirm into my molars and dig little cavities while i'm sleeping. and as for the angpaos, i haven't been allowed to open the up and do the math, but i have a sneaking feeling that this year's profit might be less that last year's :(

3. reunion dinner- as usual, the cousins ended up with the dysfunctional steamboat set, so we spent half of dinner waiting for the soup to boil. which only meant that we were forced to eat the cooked food and abalone in the meanwhile, but you know it's ABALONE so obviously this wasn't a huge lost. and after that my mom allowed my dad and sis to brainwash her into wanting to go to CHINATOWN to buy potted plants at midnight. so we picked up mark along the way and headed down, and all the while i was telling them that it'd be super crowded and congested and we wouldn't even be able to get out of the car. but does anybody ever listen to me? no. which was how we drove right through chinatown without stopping because my mom and dad were feebly conceding that there was no way they'd go shopping in that kind of crowd. so we ended up going for dessert at fullerton hotel instead which was definitely much more pleasant than chinatown would ever have been. especially the dessert platter which came with excellent strawberry cheesecake and sorbet and mudpie! :) :) :)

4. cafe iguana- had a mini class gathering on the 2nd day of CNY with darryl and paulee and tung at clarke quay and it was great to see everyone again. tung is unrecognisable now that she's joined the army. i still don't understand why anyone would do that, but i guess that's just the opinion of an unatheletic, lazy bum. throughout dinner me and iris were practicing our 'interested faces' as we were reminded that all the guys ever talk about these days is NS stories. i think we almost know enough about field camp rations and route marching and firing an M16 to enlist ourselves =p lucky the food was not bad- i had the shredded beef taco and mark had the steak and it was all good- and the everyone was margarita happy so we were saved by good company and good atmosphere. clarke quay by night is a really nice place :)

5. today- i have ZERO voice. at most i can make out a little half-hearted squawk and whisper some stuff, but otherwise, this time i have done it good and proper. mark just told me that peanut cookies are potentially lethal for sore throats, so i decided to not tell him that i'm also currently kinda into the 3kg box of bak kwa that my grandmother just brought over. =p how i'm going to coach debate later is a mystery, especially since their competition is tomorrow and i need to rewrite speeches, pronto. ugh :(