Ohgosh. so much is happening all at one time.
Merabok is amazing. Lazing in hammocks and reading. Swimming in waterfalls. Testing my surefooted-ness (not at all) Disappearing from the world and just listening to running water. Falling asleep holding hands. Natural fish spas. I didnt even use my ipod because I didn't want to cancel out the natural sounds surrounding us. The Bongs were right, it was indescribable. I had like a picture spam post about it, but Im just so swamped.

Christmas was lovely.

Christmas Eve: Mum, Sissy and I went back to the old neighborhood. I love it so much, its completely different from staying in a HBD flat. All the neighbours still remember me as a 11 year old kid. After that I did somemore wrapping and rushed down by cab to meet up with the Northeasterners. I miss when we had a group big enough to do this, when Christmas meant dressing up all pretty and attending midnight mass together, oh how we've grown.

Christmas: Was a mad rush. I got up at 9am for 930am mass. Then i knocked up until my mum woke me to tell me lunch was ready. I really dont know what I've done to deserve a mother like her. She did all the food prep by herself even though we were supposed to help. After lunch, I knocked out again (yes, what a pig) then I woke up in time for Bong's family dinner which was amazing as usual. The peppermint bark was quite a hit, Thank God. Then Mon Lupine and I split ways and I went to Jon's place. It was nice seeing the old boys.

Boxing Day: Tested my patience working at IKEA, you'd think people would GIVE IT A REST with the furniture buying. BUT NO, they didnt. FML

27th Dec: Dinner at Berns! I was about to head to school when i got the world's best phone call from Debbie, class was cancelled! YESYESYES! went down to town to run some errands then headed home to hang out with mum. Bern's is a master cook. She made leg of lamb, pasta, soup, nectrine crumble..there was wine which Justine and I pretty much monopolized.

If all goes well *crosses fingers*, we will be crossing the border this Saturday. I dont know where I'm going to find time to study for that 4 chapter test and to write my 2000 word essay. WISH ME LUCK. =\

Finally got the girls (minus 2) together for dinner/supper/dessert. Nothing exciting, we eventually settled on Cafe Cartel.
The ribs are HUGE by the way and bad-ass cheap. Mon Lupine and I are still nursing the flu (Fuckourlives) so we just drank cream of chicken soup and drank tea. The pictures are as dodgy as hell cause I fucked up the editing cause I was watching Glee and I'm too lazy to go and
change it now because I want to watch One Tree Hill and stare at the beauty of Sophia Bush (I'm so creepy) 







Berns and Abby started fighting with each other, and Abby was Triple A-ed by Berns (annoyed by affective affection). She ended up trying to build a barrier between the both of them with an empty chair.


Berns explaining why she has to keep hitting Abby. "ITS CAUSE I HAVENT SEE YOU FOR AGES!!!"


Abby trashing the defence "SO?! DOES THAT MEAN YOU CAN HIT ME !?!" and Berns trying to plead with puppy eyes.


The barrier didnt work by the way. Berns just started kicking instead.





We tried to make plans as to which days to take leave from work so we can spend more time with our returning friend. (Do you feel honored?) And possibly to take a trip overseas in August!!! Berns and I also tried to play nutritionist but failed rather badly. We also (I) also cornered berns into letting us have dinner at her house again for Christmas. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA. Im the queen of the con. 

I bought everyone's presents online but if they don't come in on time, everyone is just getting one big IOU.
School hasnt been too bad, suprisingly I'm enjoying my law lectures so far. My lecturer is a funny guy and even though its a morning class it isnt THAT hard to keep awake. Next week I'm heading to Malaysia, I dont know how I'm going to fare at the holiday, Bong says we are just supposed to do nothing.

the one tall cup of peppermint mocha, 1 pot of hot peach tea and 1 tea-o did not chase sleep away for long, but it did bring quite strange dreams. I think?

I dreamt I was on an island holiday (Bali, Phuket, Bintan, Bandung...who knows) with a group of friends and for some reason one ran away out of a window I believe, so the rest of us went on an adventure to find her. Halfway through, another friend died. Not in a gory way, he just died trying to jump out of hole. We left him there and went back to the resort because it was time to go home.

Suddenly I freak out and ask everyone "what the hell are we going to tell their parents?" and then there's a dusty artist at the door with both my friends and he (even though we are clearly in an Asian island resort) notes that, "You guys obviously didnt try hard enough". He is an orphan and my 1st friend was at the home he lived in. I asked him if he needed help with his art because I knew people that could help. (i went back into the dream to figure out how come our dead friend wasn't dead, but I really don't know because I think I altered the memory of it, fucking lucid dreaming) He said it was okay to call on him the next time we were here. We went home. I picked up the newspaper some time in the future, he had passed away. I was upset. I woke up.

A couple of days, I dreamt I was in India, I was walking on the street and suddenly there was a boat gliding on the road, like a car. Or more like one of those floats they have during parades. It was bright and gaudy. It turned a corner and slot perfectly into the side of a building, the building was named "The Boat Temple", they motioned me in, I smiled, waved and said "Another time". Then I woke up.

SERIOUSLY? WHAT THE FUCK IS MY BRAIN TRIPPING ON?

Today is great tea weather. It feels foreign, I like foreign, I feel like I need some foreign now. I'm looking forward to going away for the weekend in a couple of weeks. I've also started to seriously consider an Asia Trip once I'm done with school. I'm been thinking about this, I end school in 7 months. After 1.5 years and $25k, I'll officially be a university graduate. Sometimes I wonder if I even needed to go to school, am I really so unsure of my personal abilities that I have to rely on a piece of expensive paper to back myself up? I don't know.

The one problem I find with myself is that I am constantly dancing with interests and issues. I could be well-read but I'm not because I don't particularly enjoy reading any specific type of book. I could be well cultured but I don't have the interest to sustain watching classical performances. I enjoy music, but music is just music to me; I like listening to it, I like discovering new music, music that I can relate to but I don't have it turned on constantly. I like the news, I like welfare, I like the idea of equality, I like the idea of giving back to the community, I subscribe to 101 beliefs that I can/cannot defend depending on how eloquent I find myself on that day.  I hate some things I have to do like waiting tables and providing customer service but I can't imagine giving it up because I feel responsible for earning extra money. I find myself irritatingly irrational and sometimes I lose interest in finishing up what I have to say mid-sentence. Sometimes I feel like I can help my family beat everything we've got against us, sometimes I just want to give up and be frivolous. I don't indulge enough and I indulge too much.

Simply typing out the past paragraph annoyed the hell out of me. It is like I have no personality or too many bits and pieces, sometimes I feel like I'm incomplete. I guess its true because in a sense we are always incomplete. We grow as time passes and pick up things as we evolve, but sometimes I wish I knew enough because it feels like I know nothing and I don't like feeling this way.

Either way, once I'm done with school; what's next? There is so much in my life I need/want to do. Travel being the ultimate goal. Can I put traveling off or will I end up old and bored and with the wish that "I traveled when I had the time" To what point does commitment become a lifetime issue or has it already become so.

I always assume that I'm working toward the ultimate goal of finally having enough to take a break without putting my family at risk. But what if one day is NEVER. When there is more money, there are more needs. I saw this quite clearly when I got lucky and found a high-paying job for 4 months.

How will I know if one day is too late? While I have to say that I've never really had to give up anything really important to me such as my friends or partying, I do wish I had more of that and less of rushing around after work and turning down friends since I started at two jobs in 2008. Its not like I max out ALL of my time working and I could work more if I wanted to, I'm not saying I'm in a situation where I have no choice but to juggle around 1 day job and night job + school, I'm aware that things could be worse. I am aware there are issues larger and harder than what I have to face but as a person I'm kinda exhausted and I'm kind of wondering how you know when its time to take a break.

Any smart answers?

Oh! Anyways, by the way Ale! I'm still thinking about "not all who wander are lost" so i googled it and I found that its a quote most commonly (possibly originally) quoted in this form.

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”

--JRR Tolkien

Upon additional googling and going through numerous Lord of the Rings fan-sites and forums. I've come upon a pretty good conclusion on why one can wander and not be lost. Because as you wander, you gain certain things ; such as knowledge, experience and a wider view of the world and thus you should not be said to be lost but in fact you are finding things that if you did not wander would otherwise miss out on. Therefore! Wandering does not always equal being lost but simply being in the process of constant learning.

(Of course this was like linked to theories about how the characters in Lord of the Rings are either WANDERERS or EMBRACERS) but seriously, I have NOT read a single Lord of the Rings book nor have I watched any of the movies so I couldn't really relate to that at all, too lazy)

I now end my caffeine and conversation fueled typing to indulge in something mindless or maybe sleep since its 420am and perfect weather.
G'night yall.

Life has been kind of strangely relaxing recently. Not that any of it has been documented because for some reason while I bring my camera out, I always fail to use it.

School just started up and i'm approaching it with enthusiasm that is likely to last 3 weeks tops.Even so, I now know the basics of Australian Law Even with an insane 7 hr break in between, school is only 2 days a week. Which means that this week, I've actually had more off-days than I can count. I can actually sit down and contemplate what I want to do, make plans, write lists.  None of which I have been very successful with. My problem is my attention span of like 2 minutes. The internet does not help at all either.

(while typing this, i gave up cause my mum came back then I went to nap)

Yesterday, the Bongs celebrated their wedding anniversary. They met at the old NIE, so they bought the entire family ( + graciously invited me) to Black Angus @ NUS Bukit Timah campus (the old NIE). The campus is beautiful. I wish I went to school there instead of my dodgy campus at Balestier. The steak was really good, everything was really good. After that we went to Island Creamery and everyone shared a banana spilt because we were all so stuffed from dinner. Must be nice/hard to stay married for so many years.

We met Joey and Leon at Gardens after dinner, 2 glasses of wine and 1 piece of Garlic Naan later, we finally headed back to get some sleep. I don't think I even did anything besides shower before my eyes closed.

Fulfilling. I'm off to church now, last time I went was like 3 weeks ago? Maybe 4 weeks, I'm such a bad catholic even if Eve seems to believe i allude some 'Catholic' aura.

Now, what does Saturday evening hold?