Saturday, June 24, 2006

guess wat? i found myself 2 different telemarketing jobs! one is from 2-6pm and the other is 7-10pm. wat perfect combination! but it's so dumb la! i'm like starting to work when all my friends are going to stop! hahax. then there is this ntu camp in july and i can't possibly take leave to go for it because my employer was nice enough to employ me for just one month although she was looking for long term staff! and she spent so much time training me all tat too! then she told me to at least make full use of the one month lor. oh man. and i'm going korea in july for 6 days too, and i haven't told her in case she gets angry! howhow! if i really do take leave for tat, i can't take leave again for ntu camps! haha. anyway i must be the weirdest gal la! when everybody was still enjoying post A'lvls and post prom period in dec, i rushed into finding a job and worked during most of my dec hols. then i quit near end dec when everybody started finding jobs. so i was slacking the nx few months and soon became known to be the slack gal together with peiwen who is oso doing tuition only. (at least she does full time tuition. haha). then finally when it's really time for them to quit their jobs and enjoy the last month of july before uni starts, i go and take up a job! i mean TWO jobs! plus my current 2 tuitions. ok tat simply means i work everyday, even wkends. it's amazing why i'm always working at the wrong times! hahax.

P.S. oh no, i accidentally deleted half of my blog! the page wasn't fully loaded then i went to save changes, and now half of my blog entries are gone, together with my tag board and my picture below and dunno wat else! :(

Serena @ 1:07 AM

+♥♥♥+


Friday, June 16, 2006

June has been fun so far! went to redang island in malaysia from 9-12 june! went snorkelling in beautiful clear blue seas! saw nice colourful fishes and corals underwater too! =) but my family din really like to use the snorkelling equipment, so on the second day, we opt out of it and simply used goggles instead. and requested not to use life-jacket. much easier and more carefree, though we had to keep coming up for air. hahax. and we went to turtle bay, but sadly we din see any turtles while in water(although we spotted one while on the speedboat). well well, i came home being tanner than ever, which is not gd at all! (haha it's weird ok...pple who can't tan easily will be jealous, but when u tan TOO easily, it's horrible!) anyway, here are some photos of Redang island! =)

This last photo was taken underwater with an underwater cam! so it's not tat clear. tat's my sis feeding the fishes bread! (my dad din take photo of me feeding the fishes!) haha so cool rite? so many fishes all swimming near u to eat the bread. geez :p






Serena @ 3:09 PM

+♥♥♥+


Sunday, May 28, 2006

yesterday was an all gals day! i went out with jiamin and mei hui in the afternoon to chinatown to check out travel packages to korea. haha. we're planning to go there in july! then after having lunch with them, i went to join char, pw and seb at orchard! they were having high tea at imperial palace. haha. anyway, char left for dance and seb left to meet cy. then ying ying and sam joined. we went shopping at far east! bought super alot of things la! glad all of us bought something. (well, it's the GSS!) haha. char joined us again later and we shopped even more! :) oh and we met miche there with her bunch of 'crazy' friends! haha. it's really exciting hearing them talk man. they all have the same speaking style and sound FULL OF ENERGY! i wonder if they'll be exhausted at the end of the day. hahax! :p anyway, we all stayed at this far east shop until 10.30pm! because we were all trying clothes there and spent more than an hour there i think! the other shops were closed le, and we were the last few customers in far east plaza la! haha. rare sia. so we took photos at the entrance of the empty shop and the empty shopping centre! I love my gal friends! =)

Serena @ 2:13 AM

+♥♥♥+


Thursday, May 25, 2006

I'm back from Genting with Ice, her mum and her grandma! damn fun la! haha, lazy to elaborate now but it's so cool tat we two share a hotel room so we could take LOTS of stupid photos in our own privacy! =) and we stay up till like 3+/4+ am on both nights and quickly wake up early the nx day to play again! our eyes were so tired tat our eyes look slpy in the 2nd and 3rd day photos...such tat we had to FORCE our eyes to keep open. haha! oh anyway, i reached home at 11+pm last nite...then this morn, i suddenly got a call from rulang pri to do relief teaching! wah, had to wake up early when i needed slp badly! haha. but i did so miss the kids there! the classes i took today were those i had taken months before! and tat time when i stopped relief teaching, it was like early march? now it's 2 months plus away and the kids in ALL the classes i took today still rmb me! one gal even said she knows i cycle to sch one. because she saw me cycle before last time(i din cycle today though)! haha. another class whom i took chi lesson today and intro myself as 'he lao shi' called me 'ms ho' because the last time i took eng for them! haha! and today was quite slack because their exams are over then they just play throughout. so i join them play! haha! they taught me some games then as i play, they were saying i'm like a xiao3 hai2 zi3! wahaha! so funny la! and one gal actually came to tell me tat 'lao3 shi1, ni2 hen3 piao4 liang4'! (tat was during chi lesson so it was in chi) haha! i was damn amused but of course flattered la! attract small gal leh. geez :p and guess wat? i met my 2 rv frens doing relief teaching there too! well, rvians all live in the west u see! so cool la...one is my lower sec fren, the other is upper sec. haha! and after relief teaching, i went for tuition! tiring day in all, but i do miss relief teaching man! cute kids :p

Serena @ 11:55 PM

+♥♥♥+


Saturday, May 13, 2006

recently i've been hearing alot of stories about couples and relationships...obviously the most common ones involve the guy being in army. last time when i hear such stories, i always tout couples break up in army because the gal finds new guys in uni and dumps her bf. at least tat's like 99.9% of the break-up cases according to my coach's 10+ yrs of experience.(not his own exp, but observations of student couples. haha) then now i realise probs do arise even before the gal goes to uni, but they're diff kinds of probs.

basically, the guy has only about 1-2 free days per wk. free time is precious and there's just so much to do. the gal waits one whole wk just for tat wkend when she can finally meet him, and gets overly excited or request to meet him during most of his precious bk out time, to the extent tat it gets demanding. the guy feels tat he needs some time to himself and to do other things too: after all, the gal isn't his whole life. the gal can't understand y he doesn't seem as concerned about her as before, or doesn't get as excited to meet her as she is to meet him. the gal feels neglected, becomes sad and accuses/complains. the guy feels irritated/sian/at a loss or hopes the gal will understand him better. probs arise.

it took me months till now to slowly see the picture and understand how it's like for the guys...and trust me, i still dun understand fully although there's some improvement. i keep hearing stories about how other gfs demand alot from their bfs, usually unreasonably, and i feel tat they're too demanding too. but then when i look at it from the gal's perspective, amidst the unreasonable demands were cries for attention and love...or perhaps care and concern. such desires when too strong can drive even the most understanding and reasonable gal to behaviours beyond imagination. if gals are expected to understand how guys simply won't have as much time left for them when in army, shouldn't guys try to understand how gals still need to feel loved and pampered instead of receiving an indifferent attitude from the guy every wkend? more often than not, when the gal is unhappy, it just takes some pampering from the guy to make her happy again. it's not tat big a prob rite? it's just a call for attention. y dun guys just learn tat?

on an objective note, i would feel irritated being a guy who has a whinny gf who cries at the least thing and make ridiculously unreasonable demands tat i can barely fulfil. yes, gals shld learn to understand tat guys need their personal time too. anyway, u gals wouldn't wan a bf who spends too much time with u that he has no time to handle his own life well, or think about his future plans rite? give the guy time to himself if he wants it. it's no use forcing him to spend time with u when there's so much on his mind tat his heart and mind is not with u even if his presence is there. perhaps when they've settled the other stuff in their life and have had enough personal time to space out, spending time together will be much more voluntary, enjoyable and less prone to quarrels.

However, as a note of caution, guys shld be careful not to neglect their gfs too much just because their free time is too busily spent on other matters. if the gal tries to be understanding and give the guy more freedom and personal time, he shld not do tat too often tat there becomes a great lack of communication between them, or tat they're both too used to not meeting each other that their importance in each other's life is lost. so even if the guy doesn't wan his gf to keep buggin him to meet her during almost all of his free time(there must be a gd balance), he shld at least show some form of appreciation when she makes the effort to ask him out or shows interest in meeting him. u wldn't wan ur gf to feel unappreciated or rejected and not bother about u anymore rite. like one of my gal frens said, it makes her seem like she's now the 'clingy' one. and i noe she's not tat kind...it's more of the guy's reaction to her tat gives her tat unpleasant feeling. so well, time management is probably ever more impt in army when the guy has to manage personal life and relationships well given time constraints.

i believe the top criteria for couples to sustain is understanding...and well, being able to apply what u understand. it took me quite long to understand how the guy really feels/thinks, but being able to apply it is definitely not easy. i mean, it's like u understand the guy needs time without u, but u've just waited a whole wk to meet him and have kept ur day totally free for him, den u haf to tell him it's ok not to meet if he can't, when deep down u're dying to meet him. haha. so understanding goes beyond just knowing wat he wants...it's about understanding well enough to willingly let him make decisions and accept the way he wants things to be without hoping for a diff outcome; it's about understanding HOW MUCH he needs the free time in order to feel better or happier, such tat u'll feel happy doing it his way just to ensure he'll be happy. so sometimes when u say u understand, ask urself to wat degree is ur understanding. personally i've still a long way to go in this aspect.(but i've moved a long way too!)

i feel quite bad putting break-up ideas into my fren's mind after hearing how demanding his gf is. i realised sth...friends usually tell u the bad side of their relationships but hardly the gd side. well, tat's the purpose...to seek consolation from frens during bad relationship moments. so frens who just hear the bad part think the relationship is bad and that the couple shld just break up. but just think about it, how many times have u advised ur fren to break up and there's sth holding ur fren back? wat many pple dun realise is tat they can nv fully understand the gd side in their friends' relationships. my sis once told me tat her fren quarrelled with her bf and was complaining to her so badly tat my sis said just break up la. but right after tat, her fren refused, and replied 'u dun understand. it's just tat i nv tell u the gd things he does'. so u see, couples do have their probs, but friends shldn't encourage them to break up because there's alot more private meaning in the relationship to the couple themselves than outsiders can comprehend.

couples themselves shld noe when it's time to break up. i believe it's not so much how many probs the couples have tat makes them decide to break-up; it's more of how much they still value the relationship and see meaning in sustaining it. it's no pt spending months or yrs trying to solve probs with ur partner if u dun even see the pt of being together, or feel the desire to last. however, if both parties feel strongly for each other and despite the overwhelming probs between them, they still noe tat deep down, the other party is the only one for them, i guess they shldn't give up trying to understand each other better and improve the situation. simply because to them, there is still meaning in the relationship. =)
sometimes i'm really thankful to ice for always spurring me on and advising me on how to deal with probs, instead of encouraging me to break up because it sounds bad for tat moment. tat to me is alot more valuable, because i noe i belong to the latter type of couple tat i mentioned above who still sees meaning in the relationship. wat i wan is to seek improvements and greater understanding, not an escapist method(break-up) tat will hurt me much much greater. yeah, it doesn't really matter to me if others can't understand wat i see in the relationship or think it won't last...because at least to me, the meaning and value is clear. =)

partially quoting strider, "when the relationship is too steady, that itself is a prob". if that's true, couples shld be glad to have some quarrels occasionally too. not too much of course. haha

Serena @ 2:24 AM

+♥♥♥+


Saturday, April 29, 2006

woohoo! went to watch the table tennis finals at tpy sports hall yest! oh man, i miss tat kind of enthu atmosphere! everybody cheering, hc pple from all classes there to support with councillors leading cheers, my teammates and i feeling all excited and scared while watching n cheering for the guys! it's true tat jc is the last time in ur life tat u'll ever experience such a big sports event...uni is small-scale one. =( anyway, i only realised yesterday tat 2 of my rvtt juniors(kimmin and wensi) are now my hctt juniors! geez :p but it was a pleasant surprise! haha. met other rv juniors like xuankai, weiquan and peiyu! so we all took photos together! the rvtt family! :P oh and i do miss my hctt juniors man! of course my teammates too, whom i just saw yest when we went to huijie's house to bake cookies for the juniors! haha.

anyway, my coach guowei treated the whole team to buffet at copthorne orchid hotel again! yeah, it's our annual tradition! :p miss the place! well, it was nice and fun, except that they changed the buffet style from cooked food to steam boat. which makes it more troublesome. haha. oh, forgot to mention tat this yr the gals team got 9 new juniors, which is alot! but some of them were not very nice according to my j2 juniors. alot of 'politics' internally. sadded! :( my yr and my junior's yr were so peaceful and united la! hahax. i love u guys! =)

now to some serious topics! received offer letters from nus, ntu and smu le! got all my first choices, and well, surprisingly, smu accepted my application into the double degree programme! shocked! esp after tat crappy interview. hahaha. well, when i first applied for tat, i tout i wldn't get in, so i told myself if i do get it, i'll definitely take it. but now i dun feel like le. hahaha. i like all my other choices(at nus and ntu) too! somemore ntu got new combined major in maths and econs. and nus got new major in quantitative finance...both of which are rather similar(so i can't decide bet them) and i like both! well, it's tough rejecting smu when pple keep telling me tat double degrees give me a competitive edge in future! but my coach told me it doesn't make much of a diff. who cares wat degrees u have. it's wat u do after getting the degrees tat matter. and i quote yiwen, "getting a degree is just a STEPPING STONE in ur career". haha. well yeah, quite true. =)

Serena @ 12:47 PM

+♥♥♥+


Saturday, April 22, 2006

haha it's quite funny how some of my frens who suddenly tried visiting my blog and discovered it's active again seem so surprised! but i'm even more surprised tat they still check back at my blog after such a long period of inactivity! =p and yarnz, if u're reading this, please leave ur blog add on my tag board or tell me on msn! i lost it the last time my com crashed! haha. oh anyway i just received the ntu acceptance letter for mathematical science. haha. i shall wait for the other unis to reply first then i see which one to choose! i do hope smu replies because i think the interview for business was quite crappy. it's like we're supposed to read this newspaper article and have an open discussion with 2 lecturers. and we must express our opinions in front of everybody if not they won't give us pts. geez. i think i was crapping. esp when the article was about scientific fraud. like hello? wat am i supposed to say bout it?! haha. and the essay was on consumerism, which i somehow tout it sounds like some past GP topic, but i still dunno wat's its exact defn, so i might have wrote out of pt! oh well. hahax.

it's quite worrying how my memory is failing me. my fren had to tell me exactly wat we did at my house the last time she came (because i cldn't rmb a single thing at all), and even after she told me, my memory wasn't refreshed! worst of all, i dun even rmb tat she came before! less to say wat we did. haha. and i was chatting to my god-bro and i realised i watched a movie with him at shaw house before! according to him, it was the Incredibles. ok great, as with the former case, i dun even rmb watching movie wif him b4! so of course what movie it was is totally erased from my memory. haha bleah. it's quite bad. besides just being a memory problem, it sounds bad because it's as though u dun appreciate the outing with ur frens since u can clean forget bout it! but that's not true! hope they dun feel offended in any way! hahaha.

Serena @ 11:22 PM

+♥♥♥+


Tuesday, April 18, 2006

haha so many events occur over the past wk. sam and aud came to visit me last wed...a last min suggestion by sam. then aud n i had initially planned to shop for sam's bd present tat day, so we had to keep it from her till she reached my house tat nite. and she actually discovered her present herself! it's a jigsaw puzzle of our photo together! hahax. oh yeah, aud agreed to play monopoly wif my bro...which lasted her for hrs? hahax. she was losing at first, then suddenly winning a lot, but well, in the end she was heavily in debt. hahax! =pPp and we took lots of stupid photos! tryign to make the photos blur by moving when the photo was being taken. aud started it by moving accidentally. Lazy to post the photos here though. hahax. i lurve u guys! =)

and then the class outing at wh's house on sat! so long nv have outing le...and ren tian came too! the gals mainly ate kfc while the guys had pizza. but greedy peiwen and i ate both. hahax. oh, the photo taking was funny! the gals sat on the chairs in front and the guys behind...then in the 1st photo, the guys were so far apart, but the nx one, they suddenly packed so close to each other. haha. must see the photos from daph!

Serena @ 11:59 AM

+♥♥♥+


Tuesday, April 11, 2006

haha, aud came with jun hong to visit me last sat! as usual, my bro made them play carrom board and cluedo with him!(he loves getting my frens to play with him because none of his dear sisters wanna play with him on normal days! haha!) well, we actually played pick-up sticks(aud's suggestion. haha) and chapteh too! yeah, tat was one of the chaptehs during sch days. haha. oh, jh says his unit only works on wkdays, so he can come out on fri nights and go back on sun nights! how lucky is tat! but it's so funny...he's free on wkends yet aud's working on both wkends! haha. i'm like so free...y can't kl go same unit as jh! haha.

anyway, i just resumed my tuition last night!(it's supposed to be on sun but got postponed) and i'm going for 2 more tuitions later. serena is a hardworking gal again! =) anyway, i was so free just now tat i started reflecting bout some things. and then the oft-repeated cliche, 'Pple nv treasure wat they have until they have lost it' suddenly seemed to be so true in many instances. well, not just for myself but also for my frens around me. mmm, shall not elaborate much on tat, but i guess i shall really treasure watever i have now before i regret it! =)

Serena @ 1:30 PM

+♥♥♥+


Thursday, April 6, 2006

gee, few days ago my periodic desire to do sth to my hair came back! and everytime i have an urge to cut my hair or change my hairstyle, i will keep thinking bout it till i finally do it! and so lo and behold! i went to rebond my hair yest! together with changing my parting, and cutting my fringe! ok, i think i look so weird and diff now! haha. my maid said i dun look like me anymore! haha, i can't believe i did so many changes to my hair at one go. before i rebonded, i went to iron my hair straight 2 days before to experiment. there wasn't much diff because my hair was already quite straight to begin with. so the rebonding didn't cause much difference. it was the fringe and parting! the last time i had short fringe was like in lower sec? haha. and i've had centre parting since i was born (with occasional changing to side-parting when i felt like it), but this time it's gonna be side-parting for as long as i decide to change my hairstyle again! geez. ;) oh anyway, i'm officially resuming my tuitions starting from this sun! relief teaching shall resume either end april or early may? haha. oh tat reminds me, i so regretted signing up for SAT! seriously it's of no practical use to me now. and the worst thing is i signed up not just for SAT reasoning test, but also SAT 2:subject tests! and i took 3 subs! geez. now i have to spend time studying for them because i have forgotten almost everything i learnt in sch! haha. the tests have no use, but still i wldn't wan to do poorly. it's like paying to take optional tests to prove how lousy i am! haha.

went kbox with ice and co yesterday (before i went to cut my hair). ks and fab are going into army soon! so we decided to go kbox e last time before they leave. haha. and kl came out of army last night for about 2-3hrs! luckily this time his camp site is near boon lay(and not at pasir ris like BMT), so i cld go meet him easily! =) anyway, aud said she's coming to visit me this sat! wheez! =)

Serena @ 5:09 PM

+♥♥♥+


Saturday, March 25, 2006

i'm so freaking freaking freaking PISSED with SMU la! they have that stupid scholarship essay to write on why I need the scholarship. and they DID NOT state what is the word limit, unlike wat ALL other scholarships do. so i tout it was limitless(well, at least not too little), and spent SO MUCH time writing almost a 1000-word essay. and after all tat editing and stuff, and after copying and pasting my essay into the SMU box for essay, they say 'please do not exceed more than 1000 characters'! CHARACTERS! tat's like not even one-fifth of my essay la! and i spent so much time thinking of all the points because it's not tat essay an essay topic to write. now i have to cut down on them after i've so proudly came out with them! ARGH!!! it's really so irritating la! =( =( =(

Serena @ 11:19 AM

+♥♥♥+


Friday, March 24, 2006

sometimes i just can't understand the older generation's thinking! my poor grandma is sick for wks already, with a bad cough n phlegm. and my whole family has been persuading her to go see a doctor and my parents even asked her many times to let them bring her go, but she refuses n says dun waste money! $20 is alot of money! then said she can just drink 'Pi Pa Gao' and it'll get better. oh please, if it wld get better, it wld long ago! geez. what's tat little amount of money if it can save ur sufferings and cure u? i noe grandparents are very particular about saving and being thrifty. but tat's not the way to save! when u're sick for so long n it doesn't cure, u shld just go n see a doc! bleah. i just hope it'll recover by itself since she's very bent on not going to see doc. oh well.

Serena @ 11:26 AM

+♥♥♥+


Thursday, March 23, 2006

Geez, i'm back! kinda missed my blog and pple tagging at it! well, i went to print out all my past entries and it was at first 60+ pages in microsoft word! geez, i din noe i wrote tat much! haha. must be too long-winded. oh but i reduced the font size and spacing etc until it became 30+ pages. haha. like a nice little booklet to read about my past! cool huh. memories should never be lost! what's the pt of having a blog n it crashes some day, then everything's lost! so i shall keep them in paper nicely. =) oh and those uni applications! how can they ever expect youngsters like us to know wat we wanna be in future at this age! it's so hard to choose courses, esp the right ones! bleah. i'm just going to try for extremes at different unis, so that i can have more choices when they accept me(well, they better do! haha). so i've applied for science at nus and business at smu! ok it doesn't seem right to have such conflicting choices, but then again, if i change my mind in future, i still have two choices to pick from! haha. i can't believe i'm so smart! =pPp As for NTU, well...that shall wait. haha. oh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM! =D

Serena @ 4:30 PM

+♥♥♥+


Thursday, Sept 15, 2005

oh man, i just received this email from my mum: Severity: Informational Alert Health:Vietnam doctors report more than 700 cases of encephalitis including 37 deaths in last two weeks of August. Vaccine recommended for travel to rural areas. This alert affects Vietnam. This alert began 08 Sep 2005 16:20 GMT and is scheduled to expire 24 Oct 2005 23:59 GMT. Health authorities in Vietnam reported 721 cases of encephalitis - including 37 deaths - during the last two weeks of August. Although health authorities did not perform tests to determine the type of encephalitis in all cases, the majority of cases are likely due to Japanese encephalitis (JE). Doctors have reported the majority of cases from southern provinces. During May and June of this year, authorities reported an outbreak of JE in areas surrounding Hanoi. JE occurs in all provinces of Vietnam, with the highest rates seen in rural agricultural areas near Hanoi from April through October. In recent years, May and June have been the peak months for JE transmission. Local rates of infection may not accurately reflect the risk to travelers because most locals are immune to the disease. The risk is low to short-term travelers who remain in urban areas. The greatest risk is to those staying for prolonged periods in rural, agricultural areas, especially areas of rice culture and pig farming. Japanese encephalitis is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito and causes flu-like symptoms, including headache, fever and respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. The disease may progress to confusion, convulsions and death. It can kill up to 20 percent of afflicted children, and more than 50 percent of adults.

That's around the area which i went to last dec! the moment i read this email, i was picturing all the lovely and cute kids down there n the nice vietnamese there being faced with such dangers! =( gosh, i seriously hope none of them gets infected! and i miss my dear fave student there! =( she better be safe! *prays*