✝ Take my World Apart

yes i've made the decision to switch back to blogger. smileliness, you've really served me well and the posts in here are like lil pieces of my memory which even my own mind has forgotten about. thankew for helping me store the treasures of my past :) now to greener pastures..

http://someonesmiles.blogspot.com 

went for the watoto children's choir concert @ TCC with amanda and guan last night. it was a pleasant experience and i absolutely adore the way the african kids speak. and i also couldn't decide whether to be amused or saddened by the testimonies shared by the kids as they shared them with such vigor and joy that you could barely feel the pain in their stories.. the joy that was exuded thru their dancing and singing was overwhelming. 





the concert was quite a short affair, so guan and i headed to bellini's room (st james) for a jazz night. it was a good recommendation, performance was put up by a very decent jazz band of mostly jazz standards before they ended the night with random ballads and some of the hits from the more recent decades haha. 





sent kai off at the airport today and although john said it felt like a very unemotional farewell, i couldn't help but feel sad, as i always do at most farewells. and i really do think i'm gonna miss him.

while thinking about how i would describe our friendship, i would say he's sort of a big brotherish character in my life, though not in a very educational / role-model manner haha. 

oh well, farewell again my friend and i hope you'll be able to find and establish your life's dreams and passions!

met up with my friends from another planet aka GEP friends last night for dinner at en's, was also a sorta farewell dinner for kai who's leaving for the states on two days :(



mr smartypants kairen chan was my TA for the NY BSM trip i embarked on in 2008. it was one of the best trips of my life, cos NYC is simply awesome. and also because people like kai and da were equally awesome and they led me to make very awesome friends like mark and john :D heehee. 





those were the good year two summer moments <3 although i didn't take away a fantastic grade from the BSM, i made two very fantastic friends to keep! 

afterwhich i proceeded to mark's to visit their new dog, and this is john forcefully dragging a very stubborn new dog into his space at the back of the kitchen. 



this is dusty, a ball of fur.

i was first charmed by the beauty of lake bled when i saw christina's photos on FB and couldn't stop complaining to yez about why we didn't go to such a beautiful place during our exchange days. honestly when he replied "don't worry, i'm sure we'll get a chance to visit the place soon" i wouldn't have imagined myself back in europe just less than a year after. i'm truly blessed to have visited and seen beautiful lake bled for myself :) 

we rented a small apartment furnished with kitchen facilities and tried our best to save some moolah by having instant noodles for breakfast and picnic food for lunch on our boat ride :P we spent both nights there watching WC matches. 

we were really looking forward to arriving in slovenia as we thought that we would finally be able to get away from the tourists and be immersed in an english-illiterate country, but we obviously thought wrong. most of the waiters there were pretty fluent with english and at most of our dining places, we were surrounded by english-speaking tourists - mostly brits, some aussies. 

the lake was nevertheless amazing, and i really wish i wasn't having my period so i could go for a dip with dodo. the weather was also perfect for outdoor activities, though people like yez would say it was too hot for his liking. it was also great that the air got cool once the sun was down, yea i know how much this sounds like greece weather in the summer! 

if you're the adventurous outdoor sort, there's definitely alot for you to do in bled - from mountain biking, to canoeing etc. etc. if you're the chill / lazy sort (like me), it's also perfect for just renting a boat out and just drifting away in the middle of the lake, taking a dip whenever you feel like it :)

a sovereign protector i have,
unseen, yet forever at hand,
unchangeably faithful to save,
Almighty to rule and command...
if Thou art my Shield and my Sun
the night is no darkness to me,
and, fast as my moments roll on,
they bring me but nearer to Thee.

creation sings the Father's song
He calls the sun to wake the dawn
and run the course of day
till evening falls in crimson rays
His fingerprints in flakes of snow
His breath upon this spinning globe
He charts the eagle's flight
commands the newborn baby's cry

survived a weekend with the least sleep by far since the summer holidays began (for about four months already hee), followed by a monday which was spent doing nothing else but sleeping and waking up for abit for macs breakfast in the morning. the weather has been so fantastic for sleeping, my heart goes out to those who have to drag themselves outta bed for work in the cool drizzling mornings -_- 

while i'm free and totally in the zone of blogging i shall continue with the travel updates :) next up.. austria! it's an insanely beautiful country and totally underrated as a travel destination. we drove to austria from germany and the sceneries encountered during the drive were so spectacular. beautiful landscape, clean country, quaint towns :)

innsbruck was the epitome of beautiful. i especially loved the sights of hovering clouds amidst snowy alps in the summer-like weather :) our hotel, an attic room totally fit in with the whole context of the town. 




tell me that the mix of nature with pastel coloured buildings in the background isn't awesome! 


mind-calming effect


the church outside our hotel


austrian draft beer


breakfast in yez's favourite cafe sacher




we were on our way up to bled and we saw this awesome lake. we had to get off for pictures and i'm so glad we did..


i <3 skies like this. best traveling weather - bright skies + cool air :)

salzburg was a straddle between innsbruck and vienna. slightly more city-like than innsbruck, but still bearing the likes of a pretty town minus the amazing alps. definitely more sightseeing in salzburg though, due to the background related to mozart and sound of music.






dodo was very amused by this sculpture of a boy standing on a ball. no idea what's the significance of it though.


we paid one euro to enter this house that was carved out of a mountain. it was apparently the memorial / burial area of mozart and his family..


strolling thru a market.. i love european 'pasar malams' :) and it's amusing watching people get amazed by these 'exquisite' items from india and the likes, which we would easily brush off in little india here in singapore. 






photo taken in a palace garden by a pair of filipino sisters who referred to us as their neighbours haha


this was the oldest restaurant in central / eastern europe - st. peters stifteskeller. 


i had duck breast, obviously not as good as the one at ledbury, and also quite overpriced in my opinion. i think i paid about 30 euros for this duck breast which was kinda overcooked. but the sauce and pea mash were nice.

i am crazy full from dinner :\ that was the first thought off my head when i thought about to blog about haha. today was an extremely tiring sunday.. i've got no idea how i'm gonna survive at work in the future. and i don't know how the working adults can take long sundays like that, the final day of rest before trawling thru a whole week of work again :(

i have every bit of intention to KO early tonight so i can wake up early for breakfast with my longest friend. before i do that, i shall blog about LONDON :)


our first breakfast in london was chanced upon randomly while exploring the sights near jas' place in lambeth. we'd just taken photos with the parliament house and london eye when i felt an upcoming gastric pain, so we randomly entered a french patisserie and the place was so lovely :) complete with cute old angmoh couples reading papers and chilling to croissants and black coffees <3 


this was our fourth / fifth time visiting london, but our first time doing sightseeing! haha every other london trip has been packed with catching up with friends, eating and SHOPPING! so we went to the all-famous buckingham palace to witness the change of guards at elevenish in the morning :)


can't remember the name of this gate, but it's next to trafalgar square and it also bears a nose on one of its walls. 


the westminster abbey


yez's favourite drink


bicester village @ oxford. this shopping trip did alot of damage :\ 


bubble and squeak! i'd never heard of this dish until i visited sherlock holmes bar, which i read about from a website :) it was a very cute bar, decked with a room dedicated as sherlock holmes' study :P 


view of london eye we went past everyday


happily munching on the two-quid box of strawberries we got from a roadside stall @ covent garden :)


lunch @ the ledbury


pretty jas in her trademark flower dress






our regular chinese fix @ four seasons 


crazy jumbo-sized fresh oysters from borough market 


holding a not very yummy pie




sitting in harrod's cafe, waiting for jas and bert to be done with their swan lake concert! harrod's was frickin crowded as it was their first day of sales -_- even our phone receptions were all down zzz


favourite couple :)


jas' humble room :P you can imagine how we were practically climbing over each others' heads when the four of us were gathered in the room in the nights before sleeping :\


beef & guinness pie @ newman's was sooo good! the sticky toffee pudding we had after at the same place was even better!! mmm totally craving it right now :\


dinner @ aunty doris' favourite korean restaurant - assa! 


lunch @ gordon ramsay's


in her new topshop buy :)


bert's cute dessert :) it was a choc cylinder topped with ginger mousse!


this complimentary choc was incredible!! loved the way the white choc cracked in my mouth, releasing the strawberry icecream within. 


no better way to end the london trip, than to chill in starbucks with a hummingbird cupcake and a cuppa starbucks hot choc, accompanied the greatest friends in the whole wide world :)

commencement 2010 was my second time attending an smu commencement ceremony. the first was commencement 2008 whereby my jazz band got invited (or maybe, instructed) to play for the opening act. the crowd + suntec convention hall was way serious and intimidating. this year, we had the privilege of celebrating our commencement at RWS instead, due to the YOG preps going on at suntec. i'm no longer nervous because i do not have to be on stage facing a few thousand guests, graduands and parents. i can only attempt to imagine how nerve-wrecking it must be to be delivering the salutatorian / valedictorian speeches on stage.. hats off to their guts, composures and insane GPAs haha. 

also, i very stupidly left my batt pack at home and thus, have a very pathetic collection of commencement photos :( extremely sad, photos form such precious memories! but the condition of the day was really way too hectic, such that i wasn't really in the mood for photos and such anymore. was having so much difficulty contacting my parents and yez due to the poor mobile reception and massive crowds in the food reception area :\ was really glad to be outta there at the end of it.. 

but thank God really, for having seen me thru the past sixteen years ++ of education and being there for me every step of the way, since i was being knit in my mother's womb. this is only the end of the beginning and the path ahead seems so daunting and uncertain really. the unpredictability of life seems to be an exponential curve along the way as the probability of illnesses, accidents, fortunes / misfortunes are increasing rapidly as we grow older. i can only pray that God's will be done and that i will set my heart to be in line with His. 

We had our grad night last Saturday @ Shangri-La! Foodwise, it wasn't a good deal for the price we forked out for the meal, but I'm glad I went for it. What is graduation without all the glam photos with people in school whom you might never really get to meet again / who have been a part of your life somewhere along the journey? 

Throughout the past four years, whenever SMU peeps met, all that clouded their lips and minds were just concerns about grades; be it projects / exams / professors. After having been through all of that, and having laid our hands on the graduation certificate we'd worked towards for the entire SMU life, all that come out of our conversations are of course no longer about boss-bidding or project groups anymore, but jobs, prospects, gossip of which person had landed up with which prestigious job. Before I got charmed into such conversations and culture that came in my face daily, I wish I'd taken a step back and put things into perspective daily, and avoided the unnecessary in life, and spent more time on things more valuable and dear. Not to say I shouldn't have put in so much effort into schoolwork, but the very contrary. I should've worked harder, in all aspects, not for the glory of the culture that I was engulfed in, but for the glory of the hope that I claimed I held onto. 

There was one night when Yez made me watch a CNA documentary that featured Buffet's humble office, home, hobby and life. I wonder if it would really take for a person to have attained the wealth comparable with that of Buffet's before he / she will then realize that there is more to life that wealth cannot provide for. 

I can only pray that walking into a new phase of life will bring about a refreshing beginning of commitment to the utmost continually, of never losing wonder at the cross, of working hard, for the glory of the revelation that is to come. Lord, please help me for I am prone to wander.

On a lighter note, some photos taken from grad night with some of the people that I've met along the way since 2006 :)




Shiying - we used to live walking distance from one another, and she was also one of my first bunch of friends in ASOC


With Lester in the centre, whom I met during exchange while visiting Mandy in Barca :)


Some of the girls from Yez's close clique in SMU 


Jerry - I honestly can't remember how we first met but we met again by chance, in Mandy's home and even traveled Barca together for a day :)


Blaise - I remember how we met! In FT class, thru Jiayan. I remember how we had to write down what we said in class every week and submit it together! Haha


Manfred was my project groupmate for my foundations corp comms class. The mention of GE Money (our client for the project) still sends shudders down my spine.. 


Random ASOC people who all happened to congregate in Lee Pey Woan's coy law class during our final semester :)