It Happens Almost Every Day

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, but since it's an almost daily occurrence I thought I'd pen it down again.

My routine every morning is pretty simple. Alarm clock rings at 7am, and again and again every 10 minutes for the next hour. In between snoozes, I whatsapp my sister, check facebook, email, and surf the net for a bit. By the time it's 8am or so, I roll out of bed, wash up, get dressed and leave the house by 8.10am.

I usually yell out "Bye Maaaaaaaa!" as I'm putting on my shoes, and she comes out of the room to give me a hug before I go.

The thing about my mom, though, is that it's very important that one leaves the house look all spiffy and... proper. I'm pretty sure it bugs her to no end that her daughter is happy to step out the door sometimes looking like a hobo.

Ma: I comb your hair?
Me: It's combed! *runs fingers through my hair* See?
Ma: But you will look so pretty if people can see your face...
Me: *runs out the door* Buh byeeee!

And she keeps trying. Every single time she can. Lol. Gotta love her la.

When Having A Lobotomy Seems Like A Viable Solution

Bah. Been having a headache for the past couple of hours, the kind where it feels like the muscles around your neck are so tight and there's a constant throbbing in your skull.

Three aspirins later, and I'm nowhere near feeling any better. And my powerful painkillers are in the office. Woe is me.

I'd say having a headache is one of the most annoying (common) ailments one could suffer from. Moments like this really makes me wish I could remove my brain and replace it with... ugh it hurts to think.

Alright, think I better end and get some rest. Zzz.

On Dating

I don't think anyone really goes out to meet people with the mindset "oh I shall go dating". Or maybe they do, I don't know, but I know I certainly don't.

Perhaps it's me being jaded, perhaps it's me being happy with the way things were going in my life, but I never really felt any strong urge to DATE in the past year or so.

LGG and other concerned friends would ask me to go out, meet men, go dating. And while I understand the logic of having to meet new people in order to increase the pool of potentials, it never really bothered me enough to go out and do something about it.

I figured that I might as well enjoy myself now, and if and when I start to feel lonely/horny/bored/the need to procreate (uhm why do people date again?) then I'd start to put in some effort in meeting new people. No point forcing myself to do something I didn't feel compelled to. It will happen when it happens.

Of course, the universe had other plans and I gotta give the universe credit for letting things fall into place with no effort on my part (universe knows me best hur hur).

Who woulda thunk that I'd end up dating my movie and makan kaki aka couch landlord aka artist formerly known as ACG?

It makes sense though. We usually have a blast hanging out, and he is one of the only people I know who finds it hilarious to do bo liao things like photobombing tourist pictures. There is a high level of comfort when we are together and I guess it just felt like the natural next step.

So, happy days! It's still too early to tell but I guess we'll take it a day at a time and just enjoy the ride. Wheee!

Because I Have Been Lazy To Update

This will probably be a rather lengthy post, hehe. Unless I get lazy and stop halfway. *grin*

-Bekok
Heading back to Bekok for Ah Leong's funeral with SF and cousinE was honestly quite fun. We managed to coordinate our plans to head up really quickly, and I enjoyed catching up with both of them, and getting up to speed on family gossip.

It was also nice to just stroll around the town. CousinE showed me the temple that she did her meditation at, and the buddha statue that used to belong to her dad.

The funeral itself was a rather interesting experience. We found out that the neighbours actually take turns to "set up" for the wake, since it's such a small town.

-The Best Plans = Having No Plans
Realised this after having a couple of epic days out. The few really awesome days also happened to be days where everything was just impromptu and unplanned. We just went with the flow and enjoyed what comes.

I reckon this is also an extension of that saying about how you cannot get lost if you does not know where you're going. Hehe.

- Church Hopping!
A perfect example of how having no plans leads to an amazing day. We started the day with breakfast at Chye Seng Huat Hardware Store. Finally, after talking about it for months, we decided to haul our asses there and check out the place.

Coffee and food was good, and the place had a really nice vibe. *strikes CSHH off list of coffee places to go to*

Decided to check out the Jalan Besar trail from the National Heritage Board but gave up when I realised that 1.the information boards for the trail weren't that easy to find 2. too much to read and not that interesting (that's why I failed history in school) 3. it wasn't written by CH anyway.

Abandoning the trail, we walked randonly along Jalan Besar, checked out some really old shops at Syed Alwi Road, traipsed on down to Rochor Road where we bought some stuff from the mamak shop in the old HDB estate.

Spotted an old church next to the Queen Street bus terminal and decided to pop in. I don't know why I felt compelled to go in, but I'm glad we did. There is something so peaceful about stepping in a church, and it was nice to sit there, pray and thank God for the blessings in my life.

Went church hopping with the aim of visiting the churches that I grew up with- Cathedral of the Good Shephard and Church of St Bernadette. We passed by quite a number of other churches too, and spent some time in each, but my favourite was going back to my primary school and sitting there reminiscing. Sitting on the swings at Fort Canning was also insanely random yet another one of my favourite parts of the day.

Ended with a nice meal at home, watching TV while cooking shabu shabu.

-Enablers, We Are
Another random day led to a walk around the CBD over the weekend. The city feels so different once you take out the office crowd, and everything just feels so quiet and empty.

Walked along Club Street and at what was probably the third cafe that we plonked ourselves in for the day, we realised that ever since we started dating (yes, dating- more on that later), it's been almost a non stop stuffing face session.

Did we used to eat so much before? Apparently not. And then we concluded that we were such enablers of each other. Typical conversations actually sound like this:

Me (or him): Wanna have *insert food*?
Him (or me): Yeh!

Lol.

Somehow ended up heading to the Gardens by the Bay, because I'd not been there yet. And like all touristy places, we got into photobombing mode and immortalised ourselves in as many tourist photos as we could.

Gardens by the Bay is beautiful, but I think I've got to go back again and spend more time there. Saw a patch of grass and decided to lie on it for a while, and took some photos together too. (Plug for instagram: check out my photos there!)

I don't remember the last time I laid down on grass, and that just felt so simple and joyful.

-Food Challenge
23 days down, 8 more to go. Having successfully eaten 46 different meals, it's surprisingly not as hard as I thought it would be. There are still foods that I like that I've not yet eaten: laksa, empal penyet, instant noodles, beef hor fun, and probably more that I can't think of right now.

It's interesting to see the different types of food that other people are eating, and it makes you really mindful and aware about what you tend to eat. I think the one recurring comment I had for myself this month was that I needed to eat more greens. Lol.

-Knowing The Truth
Had to deal with a rather unpleasant situation of cutting someone out of a social group. I guess, sometimes it's hard to tell a person's true colours, and it can be shocking when you find out that you never really knew a person as well as you thought you did, if at all.

Nonetheless, sometimes hard decisions have to be made.

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Ok, I think this is a super long entry and I'm getting tired so shall end here for now. Lol.

Back In Bekok

We are back here again for Ah Leong's funeral. The last time I was here was more than 10 years ago, for my first uncle's funeral.

Nothing has changed. Well, the same faces are older, and a couple of houses now sport a fresh coat of paint, but everything else appear to be the same.

SF, cousinE and I took a taxi to JB Sentral and bought train tickets to come here. Interestingly, the Sultan of Johor was driving the train (no idea why). We arrived and Xiao Oh picked us up.

Dropped our stuff at his house and came over to the wake to spend the day. It's a sad occasion, Ah Leong left two very young children (3yo and 2yo!) behind.

Ah well. It's such a reminder of the fragility of life.

Pink Dot 2013

I better write about my experience at Pink Dot 2013 while it's still fresh in my mind. Hehe.

Caught a movie with ACG in the afternoon. There was a Despicable Me marathon, and if you bought the add-on package with the tickets, you'd be able to purchase a pair of minion goggles to watch the 3D movie with. Hur hur.

So we decided to go for the marathon (also to celebrate his one month of being smoke-free) and head down to Pink Dot after.

DM and DM2 were hilarious, of course. I think they've got a winning formula with the minions, and having played Minion Rush for the past few weeks just made everything that much more enjoyable because you recognised elements from the game.

Finished at about 6 and took the train down to Clarke Quay where we walked over to Hong Lim Park. CH had been texting me about how hot it was but I did not expect so many people to be there!

It was definitely really hot and muggy, but the atmosphere was contagious. Met quite a few people there, and missed some, but all in all, I really loved the vibe.

We got in time to chit chat for a bit and soon the announcements were made to form the dot. I thought it was so clever how they booked a room at the Furama Hotel and placed a lighted heart at the window so that everyone would know where to look (so that's how they do it hehe).

Speeches were made, songs were sung, and soon we were counting down. I'd manage to snag some pink cellophane while chatting with YF (apparently a pink screen is not bright enough, need to use flashlight function one).

21,000 people were there to form the dot, which was amazing. There was more music after and we hung around for a bit, but soon left to go to Lau Par Sat to stuff face with satay and sambal sting ray. Yummeh.

Eat July!

There's a new food challenge in town - to eat a different meal for dinner every day for the month of July. No repeats. 31 different meals. For those up to a super challenge, it's a different meal for lunch and dinner. 62 different meals. Lol.

We are using the #eatjuly and #eatdifferent hashtags on instagram, so that we can see who is taking part. Hehe. How fun!