The New Year’s Eve Tradition

2008 is so near :) i can smell it already.

and like every year, here’s my annual New Year’s Eve meme :P it’s a different one from the last 2 years - i like this new one better! and i also managed to cajole Martian into doing the meme with me… hehehehe even though he protested at first. sigh why is my boyfriend so lazy. my answers in red, his in blue. and i tag EVERYONE to do this meme cos i love reading this stuff when other people do it :D

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Climbed Mt Kinabalu, went to europe, did an internship.
went to vienna and budapest. travelled on a train and bus across different countries in europe.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didnt make any last year because I was too sad. and I wont make any this year cos I’m too dazed.
never made any but self improvement isn’t dictated by dates

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No unfortunately :( I wish they would so I can play with babies :D
not that i know of

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank God.
my hk maid, edith

5. What countries did you visit?
Hongkong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Austria, Hungary
austria, hungary, china, thailand, singapore, indonesia

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Resolve, time, Mrs Fields cookies
a sense of humour

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
6th Oct, 3rd Nov, 1st Dec - my SAT dates. Haha I can remember them so clearly!
dec 30 cos it’s today and i can remember it well. i’ve special memories that i don’t know the dates of.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
A lesser version of nirvana
quitting my old job and getting a new one.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not sending in entries for MPH and TheCicak, not participating in ESUM, missing the deadline for the British Council convention. yes it’s been a year of many missed opportunities..
tidying my messy apartment

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Errr a few fever spells here and there, and I lost my voice for a few days a couple of weeks ago. nothing serious!
yes. i had a hole in my heart.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
This really nice duffel from Zara which is great for my frequent kl-sing shuttling! Lots and lots of lala socks for my dress-up days ^___^
a sofa to lounge in and a coffee table to put my legs on while lounging

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Beaver’s.. hahaha. Thank you for my christmas presents ^____^
the marchers of bersih and hindraf.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The mainstream media, my interior designer, pak lah
fuck that

14. Where did most of your money go?
Starbucks, cab fare, birthday presents for friends and family, shoes, college application fees (gawd)
paying the rent

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My birthday presents!!!! Yesterday’s chocolate cupcake with earl grey ice cream! Moving into the new singapore apartment with Martian. Going back to HK for a holiday (but tak jadi…). The opening of Pavilion and Gardens! My internship. Applying to college. Climbing Mt Kina. All those huuuuge meet-ups. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!!!
playing scrabulous

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Joshua Radin - What If You, Michael Buble - Everything
the singapore taxi phone-in music

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
Happier, thinner, poorer
happier. fatter. richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Studying, traveling, chilling out
going out into the sun

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying, procrastinating
lazing around wasting time

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With Martian and his family and then with my application essays :\
sleeping with my baby till lunch with my family

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Every single day of the year
yes. many times with the same person

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Grey’s anatomy, ANTM and gossip girl !! Heroes can go to hell.
west wing

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Two people. I really wish I hadn’t ever met them.
fuck that

24. What was the best book you read?
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
i’m reading j.d. salinger’s catcher in the rye now which is pretty funny

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
How the repeated symphony of glass breaking means that my house will eventually run out of drinking glasses unless i STOP PUTTING THEM ON THE FLOOR AND KICKING THEM OVER ACCIDENTALLY =(
the black key

26. What did you want and get?
a DSLR camera :) thank you baby.
a new job.

27. What did you want and not get?
Backpacking trip to India, my Peninsular Malaysia food roadtrip, a new wireless router for the home, deep red curtains
more time

28. What was your favorite film this year?
Atonement, Ratatouille, Shoot ‘Em Up, Hors De Prix
apocalypto

29. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I did my SAT papers, I prayed for Pakistan’s elections, and I made everyone wear pink!!!! Oh I was 19 :\ so old. And I opened lotsa presents!!!!
had dinner wit my family. 25

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Doing A-Levels? Joining all those competitions I’d missed out on. Being eligible for the WSDC debate.
more time in the sun

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Too many skirts
recklessly eclectic

32. What kept you sane?
Long drives, consolation and comfort over mcdonalds, 9pm phone calls, love.
my imaginary friend bob

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
MCDREAMY!!!
fuck that

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Lingam tape and the bocor comment by the Jasin/Kinabatangan MPs. Pak Lah resurrecting the ISA.
do you have the time? and green issues

35. Who did you miss?
Waimin
coldplay in hk

36. Who was the best new person you met?
This is a secret :P
new friends in spore

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
Being a perfectionist is inefficient
trust yourself.

—————–

Happy New Year, everybody :) :) :) i’ve got dinner with Martian later and then a house party at Frodo’s. i’m so excited!!! i love the holiday season. mwahhhhhs to all :)

39 comments December 31st, 2007

I’ve Still Not Gotten Used To The 7 in 2007

the new year is just hours away. but i know these hours, in the next few minutes, will shrink into shreds of fibrous somethingness and we will fall, fall, fall down to 2008 before we know it. will you land gracefully on your feet or will you flail and break your jaw? i dont know what will happen to me. i dont know what 2008 holds. the last day of 2007 is here with me as i sit here wondering how i managed to screw things up for myself yet again. is my 2007 going to forever be the year of screw-ups?

i asked him if i would be okay. he held my face in his hands and said, yes, you will be okay because you’re amazing. i wanted to cry and say, no i’m not amazing. i’m really just a stupid clueless girl who doesn’t know what the hell to do but wants it so badly.

December 31st, 2007

Hello CR and CM

there are feathers where my heart is - i can feel them fluttering against my ribcage, tickling coyly. and there’s a hole in my stomach, gaping and capable of collapsing into itself. tickle, collapse, tickle, collapse: it’s a cruel oscillation between nausea and suffocation. my immediate reaction is to curl up in bed and pretend i am either elsewhere or nonexistent. my skin craves something intangible. the scratch of my pillow doesn’t quite cut it.

what a juxtapose we both formed as we stood there side by side - him with his ripped jeans and many tattoos, me with my sweatshirt, files and teacher recommendation forms. ‘dunhill men-toh!’ he hollered as he slammed his palm down on the counter. i quietly held out a ten for my RM 8.20 bill. but we were both ignored for something bigger which we didn’t care enough about to protest. so there we stood, waiting, drumming our fingers. the moment dragged on, nonchalantly awkward. we sideways-glanced at each other. i pretended to look for something in my files.

‘alone?’ he asked curtly in cantonese. ‘mmmm,’ i answered in murmurese. stretchy moment like an elastic waistband. lip biting. saved by the loud hip-hop ringtone as his phone rings - notice that he has a tattoo of a snake-like thing on his ring finger - and he answers with a ‘mat chat??’ with extra emphasis on that last syllable like he’s almost spitting the word out between his teeth. he yells some more into the phone. gawd, cashier, what’s taking you so long? absently, i start to visualize a photo taken from behind us - two people standing beside each other, from different worlds, who dont speak the same language, who obviously have very different tastes in shoes. if it even existed, i think it would have made a great picture.

i have never found much promise in myself in adhering to Aristotle’s golden mean. it’s a sad truth, but i am a creature of extremes. however, i still struggle to achieve some kind of balance or strike some kind of middle ground whenever i remember to or see it fit. of course, i almost never succeed, because it is not my nature to be neither here nor there. neutrality for the sake of it… what is that crap anyway… if you believe in something, you should stand up for it all the way. dilution of character is not something i buy into. yet for some reason i keep telling myself a little moderation would be good for me. sometimes. kinda sorta.

stupid Beaver told me that whenever he sees any of my posts with Comments Off, he skips them right away because he’s too lazy to read my emo crap =( Kevin Beaver Low why are you like this =( dont you like my emo writing =(

this one was going to be a Comments Off post, but now the comments are open just to force Beaver and others like him to readdddddd all my emoness!

eh but seriously lah are my emo posts boring =(

38 comments December 28th, 2007

Merry Christmas!!!!!

it’s been a low-key but wonderful christmas :) had a Secret Santa dinner with the best friends (all 18 of us!) and then Christmas Eve dinner with Martian and his family. chased down midnight of the 25th at a bubbly party, but missed KY’s christmas eve party which i was really looking forward to :\ the theme was - Embrace your national culture : Dress like an Ah Beng or an Ah Lian. how cool is that, right - i even prepared my lala socks and all. but i had to miss it :( this Martian lah, actually it’s his fault wan!

but i’m still glad to be spending christmas with him :)))

here are some pictures from Secret Santa dinner the other night. HK was my secret santa, and he got me a yellow knocker thingy which i am to use on anyone who bullies me! i was Jin’s secret santa, and i bought him taifu… hahaha. and then we all had banoffee pie and chocolate cake. ah i love christmas!

the ‘Pretend Like You’re Talking To Someone Else’ pictures!:

shu shen, back from melbourne and currently interning in a company with the hottest boss in the world (guess which :P)

rebecca! she’s our resident blur case

sze yin :D sue ling was her secret santa and wanted to buy her a bone!

kezanne, back from ireland and not yet indoctrinated by the leprechauns

christine! she is very chee sin wan

jin, whom i bought taifu for. it says ‘marshal’ on the back. HAHA!

ben, also back from melbourne. he threw a krispy kreme + tim tam party the night he came home. sigh one of the most wonderful nights of my life <3 donuts!

justin, who has a lot of pink shirts!

kok ket, whose facebook picture is soooo kick ass

rudy, he’s going to open a new j.co outlet with a special lane just for us!!! <3 actually no lah, for his girlfriend only :(

HK, my secret santa, back from england!

jon, back from canada and leaving KL way too soon

sieutheng who was going to the toilet

me and the back of aira’s head hahahaha damn funny i love this picture

sue ling who isnt very much of a secret santa cos she gave herself away in her card by saying ‘mufufufu’ :P

wai min, lovely as always :)

it’s so good to have everyone back home again and just hanging out. another reason to love the season! we were missing a few people tho - ivan and jovann were busy, freddy was away on vacation. but a good night nevertheless!

i’m still not finished with my college apps. sigh, horrible, i know. but i cant completely ignore christmas :( the starbucks-everyday-till-midnight thing is depressing enough already; i would just die if i couldnt celebrate christmas!! so i’m very glad for this break :) it’s been a great few days and i love all my christmas presents! especially the ones from Martian and Beaver ;) but it’s back to work tomorrow.

merry christmas, everyone :D i hope yours was as meaningful, happy and blissful as mine.

28 comments December 25th, 2007

In A Nutshell What I Am Trying To Say Is

i have probably expelled my billionth sigh today. the table to my right spilled a packet of Cadbury Chocettes on the floor earlier, and the sight of one particular Chocette - post-shoe squash - is making me sad. no one deserves to be treated that way. and i would probably be more productive if i were less of a perfectionist. i keep telling myself it shouldn’t matter if i don’t get what i want, because i am not above settling for second best. but i need, too. why are the most important people just. not. getting. it? i am an extremely capable person and i can get through this. i used to not care, but now i am just like everyone else. i don’t know how to react now.. if i could rewind the past two months, would i have done things differently? would i not have said some things, would i have not interfered and just let things unfold on its own natural course? probably not. because it feels kinda good now. but not entirely. how do i make it feel entirely good? patience sounds like a bad word at the moment. all these shoes and all these perfectly-sugared donuts .. do they even mean anything? i have always won when playing Charades.

December 23rd, 2007