This crazy life

what up livejournal

so reading my previous post on the things that i had planned to do for sem 2, i realised i haven't done much of them. hahaha

the weak excuse would be that i don't have a car, but it's a valid weak excuse, public transport here is pretty..... poo.

not yet the level of shit, just poo.

the buses are good, they are clean. the problem is their fares and their schedule.

very tempting to discuss getting a car with mummy but... against principles and all that shit. even if i didn't drive it often, i would still have to pay regio (registration in aus slang).

so i've been away from home for almost a year. living the life of a uni student. the education level where we learn things that we are going to use to make a difference in the world. what i always imagined that would come some day but never believed it would, because growing up always seemed so far away.

the poor uni student... i'm living the dream! hahahaha

and dumpster diving has made it even more real. YES, for eating food out of the trash. YES for being deviants of society!

korkor is going on exchange for a year next year, i'm studying overseas, blackie's dead... is this real? home will be lonely for mummy.. hopefully korean dramas are enough to keep her entertained.. feels kinda sad that everyone's gonna be living away from one another.

in australia, or at least in western society, it's so common to move out of your parents home when you are 16/17/18? individualism is quite valued here. the aussies find it weird that that we live with our parents till we are married and some even move in with their parents, haha. both have their pros and cons.

sometimes individualism is valued too highly here, everyone one's to move out. be independent, live with their pets. pets are their best friends. one can argue that there is a lack of family togetherness sort of thing.. but actually i always feel that western society is much open and expressive, yet the other day in the car on the way to volunteer at the farm, the aussie lady who worked with refugee teens said that they told her "you are very lucky to be born in a country where there are no wars, but you are also not lucky because it's sad that people here regard animals/pets as their very close friends" not in the sense that having a close relationship to pets is bad, but that that is one of the few relationships some people have? i think in poorer countries there is very strong sense of community where the entire family lives together. so i guess that living with your family is good too, but perhaps in singapore, we do live together, but we don't express our love to family easily and of course not to strangers... is singapore lacking a sense of community? i think so.

it was weird making decisions for myself, but i'm getting used to it. i remember how when i had a problem and needed to call someone, i would dial the number and pass the phone to mummy to speak for me. when she tried to get me to speak for myself i would freak out, "nonononO!NO! you talk!!"

haha ok time for ecology tutorial, yay i did questions! peaceee~

*everyone runs outside, raises the palms to face the heavens*

"it's raining! its raining!"

everyone runs back in.

10 minutes later, the scene replays.

in other words, the weather here is cold enough to snow but, and maybe particularly, yesterday, it wasn't cold enough for the snow to last.

it's monday, monday, gotta start school on monday...

its a new sem and this sem feels... like it's gonna be good. i don't know..

i was at changi airport just with mummy. and when we said goodbye, it felt normal. it wasn't a big deal, that was good.

so my monday's timetable is pretty awesome, just 1 lecture at 1pm. buttt it's gonna be thought by the eccentric prof. the guy mumbles to himself and cracks up randomly. i wish i understood him! i'm just trying to decode the words coming from him. gotta get past all that slurring.

i caught a bigger than the normal singaporean spider in my room. poor guy/girl is still stuck in my container.

went to K-mart for the first time last night with couple of peeps and bought new shoes and a mini blender/chopper/grinder IT'S FREAKING MAGIC! :D

my room's in a semi mess. i wish the accommodation services could provide a mini fridge and not a bar fridge. i don't want any more clutter!

it's awesome emily it's joining "the crew" as shah puts it. at least someone else is gonna learn with me :)

and i was thinking of baking a thank you cup cake for shah today, cause he lent his textbook for bio of plants and his notes did help.

i just woke up at 6.20am this morning to bodyrock. bodyrocking is a home workout movement. i started it in singapore for 2 weeks and i'm happy i did it this morning. i aim for it to be a habit. hopefully i can keep it up. i had a bit of a struggle getting up in the morning because of the cold. and it's so hard to break a sweat here.

so my goals for this sem is to be more productive!

bushwalking
gymnastic
longboarding
bodyrocking
more active in the community
capoeira!
snack only when hungry - esp in this cold weather.
more ukulele
more bongos
more JAMMIN' (the way bob marley says it)
more consistency in learning, up till now i still can't stick to a method of revising that suits me. i don't know which!
more cooking
get that composting started.. if possible
plant my herbs..

and why can't i find a previous butter on my friends page? where's everyone on livejournal? WHERE R U GAISEE?!

livejournal! it's been so long since we last met, and i last wrote in you. it's like my life's changed or something. i used to spend my time watching tv shoes, downloading and writing lj entries... now i'm.. i dont know what the heck i'm doing in tassie...

what happened to unlimited broadband? crowds? cities? malls? cinemas? 

however, although my life did a 180 degree flip, it stuck the landing. i can't believe how different it is right now to the past 19 years of my life but i like it. it's different and foreign, i wouldn't say i don't miss home and i wouldn't say it's easy living alone, but i know it's a good learning experience. being independent was one of the goals to coming here anyway. all in all, everything's great here! 

here's a brief list of what i've been doing and have done.

bushwalking aka hiking trekking. i've seen some fucking amazing places. beautiful views i never would have imagine seeing just a few weeks into my stay here. absolutely incredible. camping is so fun, so fun.

diving - could be doing more but tassie's waters are cold as hell! wait that's an oxymoron. just mother cold ok. i definitely prefer tropical waters, but i need to get used to the cold if i wanna dive in antarctica.

rockclimbing - climbed some granite rocks. pretty awesome climbing real rocks.

barbies - aussie bbq is pretty standard. bread, sausages, tomato sauce (ketchup), veggie patties, beef patties, bacon and eggs. 

softball college team. - training, played finals as the pitcher. HAHAHA. i totally sucked, my pitches were faster than the others but as accurate as the first time a boy learns to pee - just every where but the strike zone. i'll stick w shortstop 

which reminds of unisex bathrooms here in college

it's not even a week yet and i'm surprisingly feeling like i've been here for a pretty long time. i feel like orientation has been going on for a while and though i've having fun, i'm excited to start learning and be all hardworking and shit.

i still haven't got my mobile yet, crap! 

anyway, i've started a blog somewhere else, which i focus on my time here in tassie, http://www.downinthewildsouth.tumblr.com

here's gonna be more personal, so i'm gonna start locking up my posts. 

i hope everyone's doing fine and i hope i will do fine in the days to come. 

i'm still racking my brains if i should do 2 biology subjects, biology in animals and biology in plants or switch the latter to new global politics. i have interests in both but of course doing an art subject gives me a lighter timetable and i always tend to run away from non-sciency subjects because of essays but i should man up right?! however, i mean how cool are PLANTS?! knowing how they function will give me greater knowledge on gardening.

haha! 

arghhh i think i might do the biology one. wow. i've made up my mind! blogging about things sure helps! i know i sound like a total retard right now. 

as days and nights past, i feel the reality of me finally embarking on my overseas journey drawing closer and becoming more true and more real; when that day comes, "this is it".

now blogging about this builds my anticipation and excitement, not without equal parts of nervousness.

It feels like I'll be stepping into the light bursting in from the door and on my final step, i'll turn my head around slightly, wave.. and ZOOP! holy shit.

then imagine, a week later i'll be here laughing at myself for being so melodramatic.

until then, bye world~ bye friends~ bye.....

siao ah

wwwwhattt

(why am i writing a dialogue..)


the first nus cap oei ra welcome tea/ training of 2011 last tuesday made my stomach contract and my heart sink a little more about leaving this place... my new found interest of capoeira will come to a premature end and that sucksssssss, not when there's gonna be more momentum in training with batizado coming and the change of the group's name. i enjoy listening to a li f tell stories and impart his knowledge of this beautiful art. i always feel so encouraged and motivated after.

i've yet to do a successful backflip.. gonna TRAIN HARD TMR! if al i f decides to teach us how do a XAN GO!

anyway, i do things at the wrong time. of all the times i can blog, i decide to blog when i have to leave the house.

i'm going back for tk's cca promotion today wanna hit some balls, yeeaaaa-yerrr~

the place is called tasmania, the locals call it "tassie", my mother calls it "taht-zi"

just like how she can call "churchill" as "kerchill"... but nvm, i forgive her or rather, i've grown to accept it and just, resist, the, urge, to, correct, her... "mummy, it's CHURchill."

Anyway, despite what people think, tasmania is not the backwater of australia so much anymore. It's something a little more than that. Haha, actually it's much more, although i don't exactly know what tasmania was like long before australians even remembered they got their own people living on an offshore island state, it's self sustainable and you can pretty much get everything you need there.

They do have malls or more like a mall in every city, but before you go "ONLY ONE?!", their mall isn't a building but a street of commercial shops and it's quaint yet classy, a nice difference from the usual skyscraper monster malls in singapore. There's a sort of friendly and cosy atmosphere, and walking around the city central in launceston you get the feel of how accessible and relatively small the place is from the mainland. You definitely cannot get lost in the central, or at least for long because everything's just a few blocks away from one another. Noticed i said "blocks"? because their infrastructure such that every block is the same length and the land area is the same size, so you can count them in blocks which makes walking around a block easy and exploring town organised. So in a sense, this limitation ensures that there's no excessively huge shopping centres like that of orchard central or ion orchard. Everytime bus 14 drives pass OC and i see people riding the escalator into the mouth of one of the monsters of consumerism, it just makes me shake my head and sigh at the irony of the consumers being consumed... I would never step into OC if not for capoeira training there.

We stayed in the 2nd largest city in tasmania, launceston up north. UTAS has campuses in launceston and hobart, like NUS's bukit timah and kent ridge except the distance between the two utas campuses is a 2 and a half hour drive away. I'm actually going to be studying in the capital city of tasmania, hobart down south but we stayed in launceston because i was going there initially but changed my course after everything was settled and so my campus changed too. 

we had to go through two transits to reach tasmania and it was ridiculous. sg to adelaide, adelaide to melbourne, which are right next to each other, and finally melbourne to tasmania. i think the next time be taking a ship from melbourne to tassie instead. However, upon flying into the land of tassie, i looked out the plane window and saw green, green, green, brown, blue, and more green. it truly is the natural state as said on many bumper stickers on the cars there. much of the land is unspoiled beauty, and everywhere you go is a another scenic view.

While driving from launceston to hobart and back, my eyes would unknowingly drift to the background and i occassionally turned my head to steal a glance at the side scenic view and mummy would go, "eh! eh! eh! sleeping ah?" as the car drift slight off the centre of the lane. SO annoying, as she isn't the perfect driver either. swear when her parking makes me feel nauseous and she drove in the middle of the road and she ran over a kerb there and then subsequently blamed the town for being too small and she panicked when she almost missed the turn.

we also drove past a few roadkill such as wallabies and gave a moment of silence for them. But yeah, things are different here like you see wild things hopping.. HOPPING.

mummy booked a day tour for us to check out cradle mountain one of the world heritage sites. the guide picked us up first and went on pick up the other travellers from other hostels. The guide's name was darcy and he was really cool. cool hair, cool hat.. haha and he was so friendly. The first thing about the first morning in launceston was the temperature. it was ridiculously cold for summer and i woke up many times because of it. Imagine winter.. :o so i piled layers of clothes on me for the day and thank goodness i did. once at the base of the mountain, the chilling winds was making me feel uncomfortable and the temperature was 6 degrees. I was starting to doubt if i had worn enough clothes to climb even higher as i still wanted to take the trail to the lookout instead of walking around the lake but knowing that my body would warm up once we get moving gave me confidence.

the tour group was split to two, those who walked around the lake and those who went up. the climb was moderately difficult as it was rocky and there were some parts that were steep such that there were ropes for you to pull yourself up. I took the risk and wore my vibrams to climb and it was a great experience. Although walking on the rocks hurt sometimes because of some sharp ones, it was wonderful to experience the elements almost barefeet. In any case, my vibrams were still the better choice than mummy's slip on loafer shoes.. and she was carrying a tote bag to climb while everyone else had proper attire and backpacks. needless to say she was always behind but at least i'm proud that she completed the entire trail, in that fashion. some people didnt take the trail up to the lookout because of the dark clouds and the light drizzle, which spoiled the scenic view at the top but those of us who went decided to take the chance and hope the weather would clear, which it did. the view was so beautiful and spectacular, and enjoying our lunch up there was such a great feeling.

the initial part of climbing down was horrible, the winds were so strong, and because we stopped for a while, the cold started to set in. going downwards was more painful on my feet as well but i made effort to off trail and not on the rocks, which made it a bit better. As we went through the trail the terrian and scenery changes significantly. While up there it was all dark and gloomy with strong winds and cold.. once we dropped in elevation the scene was bright and colourful with calm weather.

i think that day was the best one as it was the most exiciting. i think i truly appreciate the outdoors and it's good to reaffirm that.

the rest of our time in tasmania was free and easy and we took a day to completely explore town in launceston. There are lots of coffee joints in australia and i didn't see a single starbucks in my stay in tasmania. tasmania's good on gourmet food and it's common to see bakeries and scrumptious looking pastries. However, there is the unhealthy fast food side, which is needless to say is found all over the world but more so in caucasian countries.. mummy kept wanting to buy domino's pizza because it was cheap and big but i refrained her, like why do you want to come here to eat domino's pizza? Unfortunately obesity is somewhat common in tasmania too and it's such a pity because most of australia's produce come from here. They got all these great ingredients but i'm not sure what they are eating.. or maybe they eat the good food and not exercise but thats a pity as well because they got all that awesome exciting outdoor activities to do. i just don't get it and you can see their problem of obesity reflected by the huge section of quick weigh loss solutions in the pharmacy.


A day was set aside to visit university of tasmania and the drive to hobart was exhilarating. it's a constant straight road and i just had the tendency to put the pedal to the metal but couldn't really do it with mummy harping at the side, "slow down! slow down!" and i was like "can you just go to sleep already?" "caannnottt" doh.

Just like NUS, UTAS, is slopes and slopes and slopes but more and steeper. it took us half an hour to climb up to my hostel but coming down we found there was a short cut. still, it's on a hill and when accommodations pick me up, they better bring us all the way up or i'll just enjoy a good welcome workout.

went to the cafe beside the hostel called Pepperz and there i see another espresso machine. As long you a place sells coffee, you can be damn sure they use an espresso machine. So no more yakun kopi.

Before UTAS, we didn't see much asians but that could be because the students went back home, but while going back down from the hostel, a big group of chinese people joined in from the side road and then a small group of indian students walked up to their car. upon seeing that i started to get this slight worrying feeling but i'll put that feeling on hold somewhere first till i officially start school there.


on our final day we went to visit the cataract gorge. unluckily, the weather was gloomy but the weather there can be erratic like singapore's so you can't really take it seriously, it might just change in 5 minutes. however, it didn't but at least the rain wasn't heavy and it couldn't make up its mind to stay or go. we first did a moderately challenging walk, combining a few trails together but she was too lazy to follow me on the hardest trail after our lunch break, which i totally didn't mind cause she would slow me down. hahaha, what? i have the need.. the need for speed.

so i did the walk on my own with just my camera and my now crappy phone. the sky was still dark and it was drizzling lightly so there weren't many or rather, any body doing that trail at that time. Thankfully, in the midst, an older lady appeared in front and i was happy to have some companion on this trail with me. However once we reached a sign which said, "to duck reach 45mins" and the rain became slightly heavier, she turned around and said "enjoy the walk :)" and headed back. whooaahh... now all on my own, i continued into wilder terrains as the foilage grew thicker and the trees taller. it was SO COOL! along the way i saw a family of wild wallabies... it was an animal planet moment as i tried to get close to them. Then as i went on and the rain coming down heavier but not too heavy, i drew on my hoodie and i was getting a bit worried about it and it was like man vesus wild time man. ahahaha, but whatever, i completed it faster than the stipulated time and came back safe and sound.

we left the gorge and on the way walking to town we stumbled upon GOURLAY'S SWEET FACTORY and went it to take a look. i like the excitement when i stumble across something unexpected. so we sat down in town to rest and waited for dinner time before walking to seaport for some mid range fine dining fish n chips. the food was good and it was a pleasant way to end our trip.

well so, i'm totally hyped and pumped again to get uni life started but still not without my doubts and fears. i mean, this trip was just me there as a visitor but things might change once i'm settled there to study for months, so we shall see...

everyone else in here is a pussy.


including me, for i cannot lie and rebel.

looks like the mother raised me well.

3am: i wanna blog but i can't stop moving to "teenage dream" by the dalton academy warblers (from glee). I'm gonna jump around in my room for the song. be right back.

3:05am k, done.

one of the calluses on my feet tore again during capoeira training today, sigh. softball had my palms, now capoeira's got my feet... it's like, it's my destiny to play capoeira, just like how it was for me to play softball; always gotta choose the unique one.

i just peeled the skin of the callus off, it was 3cm in diameter and it was thick, rubbery and pretty tough with good resistance to stretching, which makes me think if it's possible to use this kind of skin as a material to make things... WHAT?! it's sustainble, biodegradable... and can be regenerated... just play capoeira. anyway what's so disgusting about it... it's similar to leather, snake skin, goat skin, whatever animal skin.

on the last training of the semester, we had a really long roda consisting of 3 birthday rodas and 2 farewell rodas, which were for MY and me. It was the longest time i was in the roda and finally i get to feel the pant from roda. I'll really miss this new family. oh why doesnt tasmania have capoeira! i just hope i'll meet someone who played it before, and we can ginga and practice together, learning from mestre YouTube.

That day 2 travelling backpackers who play capoeria too dropped by to join in on our training. Their names are Vanessa (from Canada) and Busi (i'm search i spelt it wrongly, anyway he's from france) and both of them speak french, which made charlotte excited as she finds it funny that she comes to singapore and so many people seem to know some french in one way or the other. I spoke to Vanessa and asked more about herself. She looks up capoeira schools in every place she visits and will request to join their trainings for a while. it's a like capoeirista's journey or it's like capoeira is the medium that allows her to meet people with the same passion. Imagine that, the first time you meet someone and learn about about the person is in the roda where you dance, fight and sing. that's pretty darn cool man. What's even cooler is that Vanessa and Busi met online, while in singapore, through capoeira and arranged to come for training together! I just find the way how 2 strangers can form a connection out of anything amazing. it's abit like that 6 degrees of separation theory. And when i shared with Vanessa about my feelings for going abroad to study for a long time and by myself for the first time. She understood that it was going to be a completely new phase in life for me, and said she felt excited and happy for me too and that i'll be fine there. Hearing that made me happy and slightly taken back because although it was a simple comment, it was said to someone she met the first time with sincerity and thoughtfulness. am I making something out of nothing? i don't know... i just feel that people elsewhere are so expressive and they just say what they wanna say without much thought. and seeing how effective that is makes me wanna learn to open up more. i'll try.

I've come to know more kinds of people through capoeira, or maybe uni in general. I see more types of personalities and have learnt more about the world. For instance, today, at supper. i learnt that bahia is in brazil ahahaha... okay i made a fool of myself and imane said she'll buy me a world map. I've also got to learn about some outside perspectives of singapore. Imane, who's french morrocan, commented to me that the fashion here is good, which i was surprised and happy to hear, although i think that statement would mean that she likes korean/taiwan fashion. and she also commented that the girls here are good looking and i said likewise to how we feel about the girls in the west too.

And i would always ask charlotte about paris/france like how i see it on tv and she would say, "no, it'z not like that. ahaha you watch too much tv, deh li ya" hahahaha, charlotte is so funny. she's one of the most animated people i've met.

there are just so many interesting people in capoeira. MY is one of them. he stood up and gave a farewell speech on the last training, which was a really good one. He's always full of surprises.

i also like the seniors who teach and guide us. they are always so willing to teach and share and they always make sure that we are doing it right. i always leave training learning something new, not just about capoeira but about anything.

at yk's 21st bday party, which had an AWESOME spread of peranakan food, omg, sooooo GOOOD, charlotte, soong ming and i were chatting about what would happen if we hadn't decided to go for that first capoeira traning/welcome "tea". one decision and it changes your life! imagine if we hadn't chose capoeira, and we didn't get to know one another. charlotte said on the night of her first training she was still considering if she should go or not because it was 7pm and she was feeling tired. That was the same for me too, especially since training was at 7pm! that's like dinner time with the family for me, which i knew would be a norm if i joined any cca but i went to nus with a thought in mind and that was to put myself out there, take action, take initiative and expose myself to opportunities.

ok i have um 2 hours to sleep now.. i wanna leave the house early to go somewhere to study but I still can't decide between NUS and changi airport. zzz

There's something significant about how I live now and that is school life is different from the previous 6 + 4 + 2 = 12 years. Life used to revolve around softball. Life used to resolve entirely around softball. I don't have to rush down for training after classes. I don't have a feeling of dreading trainings, and I don't have to be constantly alert and on my feet, reading coach's mood, reacting to her. Sometimes it feels like softball was so long ago, but when I think about it, it's only been about a year that I stopped training and only about half a year that I did not have school.

It's not that I still have a grudge against softball that I said "dread", no, it's nothing like that, it's just that I have to be truthful, I did dread training most of the times, I did have a burden being in softball, even though coach said, at times, that training should be an outlet to de-stress. In fact, only when she said that am I reminded that I'm playing a sport, and sports are fun, and training is indeed a way to de-stress. What happened to my primary school days when I always looked forward to training and always found training for 2 hours too short, it was like training was a priviledge, I loved training. (Netball and Track and Field)

But I've never denied the huge way softball and positively shaped me. I don't regret being in softball, I'll never regret being in softball. If I did, there would be a void in that 6 years of my life. My life's video reel would be blank, it would be a totally different story and I wouldn't be me. This shows how much softball was and still is inherently, a big part of me.

Now that I don't have softball anymore, I can sense something's different, the contrast between then and now is so meaningful that I have to stop and reflect how far I've come. It's like I've been branded by softball, or actually more like i've been branded by coach. I mean cause softball wouldn't mean anything if we didn't have coach to make it what it means to us. And now coach has set me free and I feel very grateful. I'm so glad I stepped through that door, I completed it and I feel that we are a special breed of people. Really, there's something special about us..

Haha! Now i'm reminded about one of wilfred owen's war poems, which was about the soldiers who come back from war speak a different language, they have become a different class of people and when they read the news about the war, they smile at one another; only they know.

I decided to write a post about this because now I'm free, i'm learning capoeira, life's kinda ladeeda, I feel in control of me and my life's in my own hands and it's a feeling that bugs me, it's not exacly a new feeling but it's uncommon, it's a rare feeling. And because of softball I appreciated it more and I have to dedicate a post to this. Another sign of a new phase in my life.

goi'mma bake apple piez sooon! i see apples going at 5 for $1.95 now... granny smiths and royal gala, apple apple apples! i love apples!

the semester is going to end soon, in about 3 weeks when the exam comes. as much as exams still make me quiver whenever they ambush my thoughts every now and then... they signify the beginning of the end

i keep thinking about tassie and my trip there in december.. and then next year... and me arriving on monday rather than sunday when most students arrive.. great, mummy makes me stick out on my first day at tassie by myself. wahhh super scared... but wait, maybe it's also better since i'll be even more lonely if i arrive with everyone else and they got their families with them... i think i'm gonna cry..

please please please! i hope i will be okay there, i hope i will work hard, i hope i'll enjoy myself, i hope i won't procrastinate, i hope i'll have the best years of my life, i hope i'll find my calling, i-i-i.. feel quite emotional because of my itunes playing appropriate songs right now.

how will my life change? how will i change? will i change? will i embrace change or shy away from it? will i be brave? will i survive on bananas everyday?

for one.. i know i will not get to enjoy the high speeds i have at home.. i don't know how i'll get my video and music fix.

i have walked through many doors since life in NUS started. I know my time there is short so I tried to push myself to take on new things. not just joining a different cca but walking around NUS to different faculties.. exploring the place, trying to find nice food, finding secret milo trucks... stopping to read and appreciate exhibitions. joining oms's press team as a photographer, signing up for shit,  going for many capoeira outings and taking up the uke

i went cycling with my capoeira friends at pulau ubin for the first time last week. saw monkeys and wild boars. To put things into perspective, somewhere in singapore, there are wild boars! pigs! i'd love a pet pig.

i visited chek jawa for the first time and learnt a bit more about singapore.

I also saw a side of singapore's youth scene i've never realised while on an oms assignment.

which reminds me, i still have no visited the asian civilisation museum and It's ALIVE! exhibition at downtown east. oh no!

i have to mention that i really love the capoeira family, yes really, family. everyone is so friendly, caring, real, and approachable. plus it is so diversed with many different ethnicity and international students. everything has been really cool with them.

not forgetting my chem buddies who provide my daily interaction and entertainment and companionionship.

that's all for my thoughts now. it's monday, again!?