Christmas decorations are nearly up! So gorgeous at night especially. Except for the slightly creepy looking santa and skinny snowman figurines hehe. Tang Plaza had this band playing for about an hour, right at their entrance and there were actually couples dancing to their songs! Such a rare thing in singapore man :D and they weren't vellai/ang-mohs! :D definitely going there again in december to walk along the whole stretch (and take tons of pics hehe).

I forgot to mention the other day. At sentosa, we took a bus (we normally walk/tram) and caught a glimpse of the upcoming IR. AND ROLLERCOASTERS!!!!! Really large, proper, dangerous ones (NOT LIKE FAMILY COASTER @ ESCAPE)!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! 2010 COME QUICKLY!! Tho if it's as expensive as Universal Studios in Hollywood, I guess it won't make sense to keep on going there.

Also, Euro-Blog updated! Salzburg Day 1.

I'm on MC today, with a sore throat. The break is very welcome, though I've wasted the whole day rotting and now feel rather useless. Better get back on track. Though I admit I have been checking my office mail and answering everything promptly :P

Watched Midnight Bayou, my third Nora-Roberts-novel-made-into-movie and it was really good! A lot better than Blue Smoke and High Noon, coz in those, it seemed like they tried to fit too much of the story into the movie so it felt very abrupt. This one was nicely done, incorporating the past lives and ghosts thing very well. And it was a little creepy too. I didn't even remember that ghosts were involved. Sigh no more spookiness. Only kookiness! hehe. byee.

had an awesome day at sentosa! it seems to give an out-of-singapore experience, which is nice once in a while :) anyway, i mainly wanted to mention the halloween spook-tacular night which was on today and is also there on the 31st. when we were at imbiah lookout today, the front of Images of Singapore looked completely different, with a spooky-looking entrance and booths selling tickets to enter ($22 I think) and face-painting n stuff. all very nice to look at. but there were also these random people walking around, dressed to scare! zombies and other dead creatures. aaargh i was obviously completely freaked out. the ones posing for photos were harmless (since they were busy) but the others were bloody freaky (pun intended)! so if u're into this halloween stuff, i guess it'll be nice to check out imbiah area this sat! there's also something going on at night safari I think. can't even imagine, considering I get spooked even without the halloween features :P luckily I had an arm to clutch madly today hehe.

K so I'd written and published a looong blog post just now, eating into my dinnertime n stuff, and when I came back and re-read it, just got increasingly annoyed with myself and deleted it. omg how many times do I have to whine to the world to complain about sept?! sigh. It wasn't even THAT terrible, the way I'm making it out to be. But apart from those 5 reasons I'd written earlier, there were two more which made the month suckier - the AT totally busy at work with an absolutely MAD schedule, and getting increasingly closer to quarter-life crisis!

So a review of the month: I have to admit, the first day was indeed crappy. At work. Involving a meeting with the management committee and major embarrassment on my part. And that's when, with the help of others, I realised that if I continue to be this weak, there's no way I can survive in this cut-throat world. And this is just the beginning of adulthood. What happens when I do further studies, in addition to work, and then marriage and responsibilities, and then KIDS?! omg. So then I started thinking of myself as some spineless sap, with no purpose in life. As vidhu put it, an Existential Crisis. Dumb insecurities which creep into my mind and completely change the way I think and do stuff. Wasn't suicidal or anything, but just very blah about life. And again, made another realisation, that I have to start constructively contributing to the world. And improve myself as well. Today, I just randomly flipped to a page in 7 habits for the teenage soul, and the first thing I saw was:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

This immediately struck a chord. I keep saying the same stuff, but I dunno, it's some kind of temporary inspiration/realisation I guess which keeps coming and going. I'm the one who controls my life. If I want to see some kind of change in my life and lifestyle, I'm the main person who can make it happen. True that environment, bosses, family, etc play a very big part. But ultimately the choices are mine right? So I read that really optimistic post I wrote some time back about wanting to REALLY experience life and now feel much better. Also, it helps that Oct has been pretty great so far. Oh man I'm totally digressing and talking about a whole lot of things at once.

Right so the first day was bad. Navarathri was great - lotsa arguments and annoyances but the end-product was totally worth it! The concert - oh GOD. Voice totally died coz it was being drowned by the instruments, but others all say it's coz of my nervousness. I'm sure both played a part. I was definitely not confident for one of the songs, and that was the longest one. So I was pretty upset after it ended but the immense relief took over shortly and after that I didn't care too much :P anyway, that's another avenue that needs to be improved on.

Um oh and the fact that we only met ONCE the whole month was rather sad, and timings clashed so badly. But the birthday celebs were really sweet :) I was not at all looking forward to it actually, and was very busy with work on that day. But 13th, 14th and 15th was lovely with all the wishes, outings, surprises and catching up. Thanks you guys!

I think I've started blabbering. It's past 12.30 and I should be sleeping but I feel weird. Gah. Oh went to the library one day to get myself some chick lit and got six books of fluff (yes the limit's SIX books now wooooot!). Brainless feel-good chicklit is so awesome, and somehow inspires me heh. So did Gossip Girl wth. I felt I need to put in more effort in how I look, to feel better and more confident. Does that go into "shallow" territory? Anyway. First weekend which wasn't completely packed so I took time off to smell the roses (i.e. watch dumb tv shows and drink tea and read) and catch up with people. Watched The Time Traveller's Wife! Went without expectations and really liked the movie (after not really liking the 5 previous movies watched previously). It was a really rejuvenating weekend. Maybe that's why I'm still awake now. I feel high and drunk. Ok maybe diary-writing will help. I hope I don't end up deleting this post too. Goodnight.

What's the purpose of life?

hah. and it started off with a horribly loud bang.

September starts in exactly 48 minutes. I'm (not fully, but okayishly) prepared for a tough month coz:

1. My colleague's leaving for her wedding for the whole month so I've got to cover her.
2. Dad won't be in Singapore = much more housework
3. Navarathri - as excited as I am, lots of work involved in preparation and during the festival for 10 days.
4. Paatu thingy which is right now very dead. Need to practise for an hour daily or I will be an embarrassment to the world :-/
5. My company's planning to bring in lots of new projects this month, and my part of the work is the preliminary stuff which means omgsigh.

Right now, work's VERY slack coz they're finishing existing projects. Calm before the storm man. But as I have been reminded by everyone, September also has one day when I celebrate my existence with loved ones :) That should keep me going for the next 30 days. Bring it onnn!

Trying to look for the best view of sunset in Singapore.

Exploring rocks :D

If loving you with all my heart's a crime, then I'm guilty

horrible weekend.

hello world.

1. Participated in my first Sporting competition yesterday. I'm not counting the New Paper Big Walk which was a really slow leisurely 10km walk with lots of yakking. This one was the OSIM Triathlon, where my company decided to take part in the Mini Triathlon Relay. So it's the easiest of the lot, and I took up the 10km cycling bit. I'd tried out 10km a coupla weeks back at ECP and took 40min. But I found out yesterday that we had to complete in about 20min! So ya I turned out to be one of the last ones, which was highly embarrassing. Coz everyone said how easy it was. And I even felt really dizzy after that and had about 4 glasses of 100 Plus before being able to stand up again. But my colleagues said the most important thing was finishing it, not how fast. So I got my first Finisher's medal (much to teenu's shock :P) and it's proudly hanging on my doorknob now :) Got to get my stamina up somehow!

2. Life's alright, really busy but there are days which end on time because I escape the office before my boss gets back from whichever site he's at. It's pretty unreasonable sometimes. But I really like the work I'm doing. If only the environment wasn't so DAILY-overtime-but-no-extra-compensation-fied.

3. Europe blog has been updated! Budapest is now complete. Coming up next: Salzburg :)

4. Had a lovely time with the tam bram gal pals yesterday plus 1 :D I really miss you all! And I miss you too, tho there were much longer periods of time before. But I won't say my social life is completely kaput coz I try to meet people on lunch dates when I'm at central sites in the city area hehe. Still. Really cannot wait for the National Day holiday!

k goodnight! 5 more months and this year is over!!! gosh.

Got to watch Half-Blood Prince on the opening day coz the loosu got free tickets (thank you MOHH!) but we disliked it SOOO MUCH!! People who want to discuss and rip it apart, pls talk to me. I don't want to post spoilers here or whatever. sigh. And the romance OH GOD. AND THE CLIMAX WAS ???!!?! sigh.

Work's REALLY busy now! It has its moments. So forgive me for not updating. Not that there's much going on in my life heh.


Happy Birthday! ♥

hiii. After months of group rehearsals for our first ever music concert as a separate music academy, the performance is finally over! It was alright I guess. I'd felt goosebumps when we sang the songs during the rehearsals, but felt kinda well, bored :P, on stage coz from where I was, it didn't even sound like one united voice as it did in the practice sessions. But apparently it sounded good from the audience. Anyway, I'm writing all this coz.. during these 4-5 months, I was definitely whining to everyone about the erratic timings, waiting for ages for the class to start, using up my individual classes for group classes, etc. And this morning, I was all set to start off my usual classes again, now that the programme's over. But my teacher told me to call the rest of the group too. And all of us were like ??! what on earth man. We've spent SO much time on practice already, what now, the next programme for sept? Or some competition?? And all my teacher said was that she wanted to congratulate all of us, in person, as feedback from the audience said that our group rocked the show! That's so awesome to hear (and nothing new :P) but still, I finally put my feet in teacher's chappals and realised how much effort she's put into this - choosing songs, writing out the words and notations, calling everyone for classes and organizing everything. And how much she wanted it to be a success. And all I did was grumble about the fact that I was wasting all my weekends on just classes and rehearsals. Sigh. Majorly guilt-ridden now. And today also I snapped at everyone for no reason coz I thought dammit one more class gone, when all she wanted to do was personally talk to us about the show. Siiiiigh. Sorry, to all victims.

Anyway, another thing that happened was. Last week, I went to office and saw an email that "Yesterday was xxx's last day of service" and that he was terminated due to poor responsibility, etc. I was really shocked man. This guy joined on the same day as me, and we both had absolutely no experience in this line. So we learnt everything together and in a way he was the first friend I made in this job. And I'd just seen him that afternoon and asked what he was doing at the site. He was obviously completely clueless about the firing. And what a shock he must've got when he returned to office and was told to pack up. omg. So I just had to ask the HR person what happened and she told me he didn't fit in there. So that's it. One evening he goes back to office, and in the snap of a finger, jobless. SO awful :( And I went home super emo and spoke to my parents and appa said "welcome to the working world, my dear girl". That about sums it up.