A Tan

Vanilla fountain bath bomb,
Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds bubble bar,
Woosh shower jelly, and
March of the Honey Bees's soap.

Stuff I got from LUSH after picking up my two rolls of film. <3

( dream shoes )

Placed an order for them. I hope my feet fit!

Peacock blue to match 'em peacock BBF, and rastafarian Mexico 66s to match my rastafarian headphones and Timbuk2. I accessorize in odd ways. Early christmas present from Mum. I haven't bought a single pair of footwear (slippers included) for around 4 years!

( CAMPUS! )

:D CAMPUS O'ER LOAD! I think I went just slightly a little crazy on the CAMPUS notebooks/binders... But! Quality!!

( Botanical Gardens picnic! )

It's late, so I'll let the above pictuers do the talking. T04 girls went to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic! And then headed to VivoCity for some retail therapy! Anyway, I only had 3 hours of sleep last night so I need to sleep now.

DUDE. WTF. Just when they ship my order out, Threadless has a sale. =A=;;

I'm a tee-shirt and jeans kind of girl, so I forsee me geting at least another 5 shirts to top off the 3 I'm getting with my brother.

Oh one thing I love about my brother? He has nearly the same tastes as me so I can just buy one shirt but the two of us wear it. :D How's that for Singaporeaness?

EDIT:
I'm sorry but I really want the N76. It's beautiful. It's red. I like red. And green (but a neon green phone would look rather iffy...)

EDIT:

I'm writing another short story right now. It's about strawberry shortcake and finding the Other. I'm a little crazy I know. But that passage from Norwegian Wood is one of my favourites and if I could incorporate it into the story...

Hur. I don't have work today (tomorrow too!) so I'll just spend my time talking about yesterday - which was stupendous.

We started off with cash-register training, which I picked up rather easily and perhaps too zealously. Haha, I think I can almost nearly handle anything with a keyboard in two. We'll just have to see what happens when I go 'live' on the kiosk's cash-register soon. Other than that, we had an awesome time at the info counter. God, it was exhausting running around looking for books, but it definitely was fulfilling when you (I quote from Josephine) "place the book in the hands of the customer".

I've been quite lucky to have been getting extremely understanding and friendly customers. My first one was this ang-moh guy who was looking for "How to Read Like Writers". I chatted to him a bit and to my surprise, he joked about how stern I looked - to which I replied that I was friggin' nervous as this was the first time I was doing this. XD I couldn't find his books even after raiding the overstock room so I was a little disappointed. He was terribly understanding though!

My second most memorable customer was this lady who was looking for Freakonomics and a Pokemon book. What are the chances of that happening to me?! I was trying to hide my joy and led her to the different sections where the things she was looking for were. I couldn't find the Pokemon pokedex book, so I enlisted the help of one of my seniors - I think his name was Hafiz or... haha, I forgot his name - and he went charging off to find the pokemon book. I however, after many tries at the overstock room for other customers, finally managed to dig up a copy of Freakonomics for the lady customer! :D I say finally because she was probably the fifth or sixth person I was serving, I had botched attempts with the others (including a man looking for a map), and one of the first few people I managed to successfully serve. Oh happy day.

Now before I burst out in song and dance, I need to record down this other memorable customer by the name of Bonita. I love her name. It's very very chic. Haha. Apparently she was so happy with me that she asked for my name (actually I jest, it was probably just a proper gesture). Anyway, I outdid myself by personally searching for the Led Zeppelin book she wanted to get for her friend.

Other memorable customers including one looking for books on Tibet (her husband is going there), the map guy, and a girl looking for Japanese dictionaries.

At the info counter, I made friends (I hate how cheesy that sentence sounds) with a few more people, including the very cool Zheng Han. Actually I also forgot his name - shows you how forgetful I am - in addition to the various other staff. :D() Heh.

A rather embarrassing event happened. :D() To summarise the whole fiasco rather simple: my subconscious, as Freud would say (in more sophisticated terms, of course), is screwed up. I dreamt of a few people including: Rachel Koh, Clare, Derek Chia, Gomes, Kurtz, Michelle (hahaha power ranger), and I think Team Man/Men so that probably already clued me in to how fucked up my nightmare was. So anyway, there was a prom/party/frou-frou incident at my primary school and er, I did this whole drunken love confession to an above person. =A= I woke up, told Rachel Koh about it and she told the person about it. HAHAHAHAHAH. x///////x 超恥ずかしい～

Pray tell I don't estrange all my friends from my over-jewelled mind. Snerk.

I'm having off-days today and tomorrow before I plunge back into work on Saturday (and I expect, Sunday), so mum brought us out for lunch at the newly opened Tampines IKEA. Bought a shitload of things, excluding the recliner that my mum attempted to buy. I say attempted because we realized that it wouldn't fit in the car. We had a too-filling lunch of potatoes, poached salmon, meatballs, chicken and the list goes on. I had fun talking and catching up with my grandmother, who's the most precocious and precious grandma in the whole wide world.

( IKEA shopping haul )

I think that's all? I hope so.

I was supposed to go to the MNG sale with my mum today but the fsking long queue at the IKEA restaurant took longer than usual. Hopefully I can pop down tomorrow with her to pick up a much needed pair of pants/jeans for the new job (so that I don't have to wear the SAME PAIR EVERY DAY). No really guys, I only have one pair of wearable jeans. By that I mean jeans comfortable enough to run around in like a crazy f00l - my other pair is not suitable for the vigorous customer service I have to undertake.

Okay. I deleted all 44 messages from that person already. It's not a load of my chest; I don't feel like a wreck - I feel normal. I've been wanting to delete the irrelevant things pertaining to my life for a long time already, not hold onto things... not to live in the past I'd cliched-ly say, and I finally got down to doing it.

Gack, it's already Friday. I have too many things to do. :\ This is where I should insert an apt philosophical quote, but ... nah.

Un friends-locked because Books Actually (125A Telok Ayer Street), is actually worth it! This is probably the best store in Singapore, and I'm not just saying that because I love books. The whole concept of the store is so endearing, and you sure as hell know that the store-owners know their stuff - and love it. Sure Books Actually is small, but here small is good. Shelves are chocked full with classics and obscure books that just send me into visual and literary orgams just looking through. I mean, wow. The attention paid to detail - the customer service!! - is impeccable. I mean, wow, the hordes of little toy soldiers around? You have to see it to understand what I mean. There's no doubt a healthy collection of Hughes and Nabokov, since both of the owners' favourite authors are those. I mean, wooooooooooooow. They're so friendly, and Kenny actually rememberd (albeit slightly wrongly) my name from the e-mail I sent asking whether they were open on Vesak Day! Kudos to great customer service.

I left there with my wallet $23 lighter - Joy Kogawa's Obasan, a cute little pin with a couple of my favourite writers on them, a Harry Potter bookmark (and by that I mean, it was made out of a page from a book!) and two book-cover matchboxes (Curious George and Tim Burton's Oyster Boy). Hell yeah, I am going to go ther at least once a month with Rachel and buy one book, and a whole lot of knick-knacks too! I think my next buy will be their kitschy postcards and maybe a moleskine notebook, in addition to whatever Random Read I find.

It was cute, the way I found Obasan. I'm probably going to go there for 26 consecutive times, each time trying to buy a book with an author of a different alphabet? <3

Hahah, Rachel and I became models for a day, posing for an art-exhibition. We got our portraits taken with This Side of Paradise (Rachel) and me with Lolita. We could pose with anything that represented us the most - I chose Lolita because haha, Nabokov's style is <3s and I am like Humbert Humbert. Though, no loli-con or shouta-con here!

They have a beautifully bound version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness for only $29!! I am so going to buy that and just slowly read it and enjoy the nice old papery smell.

EDIT:

OH HO. I FORGOT TO MENTION - Idiot Savant Tan strikes again? I got a 7/8 for my AQ. Hurrah? This bodes well for my SAT essay component. :D()()()

Unfortunately, I still have "tortured expression" for like, the short answer questions which I used to kick ass at. D: JTAAAAAAAAAN.

EDIT:

!!! Rachel reminded me! We boarded the wrong train 3 times! 2 Times on the same day! OMFG LAH. WE ARE RETARDS.

Brief note I want to put in before I forget:

O: All the videos I took in Marche are RETARDED. They mainly consist of Ketsu doing RETARDED things for the camera and me shouting IPOD VIDEOOO IPOD VIDEOOO when Imran and Yansheng were talking about iPods. XD Yarr. :\ Tsk. And Imran looks like some... brownie (the ELF-TROLL KIND) because the camera mutated him into the brick wall behind him. :\:\

So this morning was the big day for me? The TODAY Student Reporter Programme essay test. Thanks to Kevin and Amanda and GASP SIR for asking how it went. It was well, weird to say the least. Using a better word, unique. I met Mindy and Rachel Law at RafflesPlace where we spent a while looking for the venue. Firstly, of all people (thank GOD) to be our invigilator, they got Neil Humphreys. Not that seeing him was a sigh of relief, but the candidness and mock-seriousness did soothe the nerves a bit. More along the lines of, oh hey he's as crazy as I am.

The test itself was probably as crazy as Humphreys (no offence meant, just incase reporters are scouring the web :\) It was fairly informal, similar to having a Mafioso sitting in front of you and interrogating you. Or actually, come to think of it, a New York cop. "Here's lookin' at you, kid"-esque. Anyway, to keep it short and as UNREPORTERISH as possible, we had a few sections consisting of general knowledge questions (Who is the Prime Minister of Japan? "Koizumi Junichiro" I answered, being politically correct about Japanese names. What does FTA stand for? "... Food and Trade Association". I think Kevin said something like "Free Trade Agreement" when I came back for band and so on and so forth.), a questionair based on observance ("...there, there and here") a pick-a-scenario and tell us how you're going to approach it question and finally the ESSAY QUESTION. Which basically was to write a report on the whole even which I'm doing rather haphazardly now because I don't want to repeat it again. It was an interesting experience nonetheless and hopefully I left a mark? I made some cynical remarks about trees not being here anymore ("ah yes. good point." -humphreys)

And thus I arrived at band with half the time already gone. Time well spent I must say. Well anyway, SIR LIKES HARRY POTTER. Its so... absurdly... WEIRD for HIM to like HARRY POTTER. He should be liking Dungeons and Dragons or Warcraft, not HARRY POTTER. :\ Yah, so I arrived just on time for lunch (whee!) and then I sat with the usual bunch of WS, Wee Min and Kevin. Then Sir came to join us with the HarryPotter-fan ramblings. Haha, no Sir I will not be writing your three University essays. I'm good but not that good. :x

Band practice itself was alright. It was draggy for one thing. I didn't enjoy myself as I did the last two practices. To this Amanda would protest. SHH. KEEP QUIET. Everyone must think I had a lousy time. I sounded really harsh today, I think I need to rotate my reeds more and argh practice. A week more to proficiency test and I'm no where near memorizing all the sharps and flats of my scales. I am having TROUBLE. Help me! That was a rhetorical help me.

And so, after band the percussion section was supposed to go out and paint the town red. Okay, no but you get my point. I was sort of informally invited so I tagged along with Ketsu (oh darling Ketty) and Yansheng. Brinjal and Corn were the lucky J2s who got to enjoy the J1s' company. Hoho. They wanted to go to Starbucks or Coffeebean to relax and talk but the places were too crowded. We ended up at Marche of all places and Manda, Marc and Ho Yuet departed because well, home beckons.

MARCHE! I haven't been there for ages! I stuffed myself on crepe and calimari where the rest, for some inane reason ate rosti. Only like Ketsu and Angel ate something different (steak and roast chicken respectively). Yar Corn ate chicken but he ate rosti FIRST. Then we got to see Angel and Corn talk about alcohol. I LIKE THE WHITE WINE I HAVE FROM AUSTRALIA AND THAT'S THAT. My bottle is good. I like that bottle. Other than that... Ah. South African Wine is good.

After dinner, we walked around the Heeren because the guys (read: Corn and Brinjal) wanted to go shopping. Ketsu and Yansheng left halfway and left me and Angel trailing around and losing the two VEGETABLES. Annoying lah. They go off on worlds of their own. Apparently they were walking all around looking for things like WRISTBANDS (yah lah I call them wrist bands okay?). Angel and I kept on losing them. When we finally found them, we walked all the way back to Far East because Imran, I mean Brinjal, wanted to buy something. ...Walking back I was wearing my jacket because it was really hard to carry around and OMG CORN AND IMRAN KEPT PULLING MY HOOD UP! More of Corn I think but I couldn't SEE. >:O!!!! And wtf they're the 2nd and 3rd people/persons to make the Star Wars comment. Only I'm... I don't want to say now. Last time I was VADER. WTF.

Walked, popped into stores and lost them again and then we were brought to the Atticus store (Oh Yen! I visted the Atticus shop already! I'll go there another day with you okay? :Dfuahaha GMUFC outting But I'll probably get lost so you lead?) and found out that they didn't have what we came here for. HMM. The guys went off again looking for wristbands. Or did they do that first? I don't remember.

In the end Imran got a black one ("Eh which one?" "Uh. Brown." "Okay I'll take black." WTF) and Corn got... WHAT DID CORN GET I THINK HE GOT A BLACK ONE TOO. All I remember was that it wasn't so thick. On second thoughts, I think it was brown. suspenders. get me suspenders for my birthday

OH! I saw my bag at 2cm! <3 But its considerably more expensive than online. Kinda weird if you ask me. Well, at least I know where to get it if my dear friends don't get it for me. We went to 7-Eleven to grab some booze for Corn and Angel (which I plead guilty to drinking ALOT) but they were disappointed because the one they got only had a measley 4% of alcohol. Hardly no alcoholic taste at all. Corn tried sunglasses at KOOLOOK haha. And I got my glasses tightened! Woo!

Angel noted that people whose birthdays are within 1 week apart are usually on the same wavelength or similar. In the context of Manda and me that would be quite correct. Except according to Angel, I'm louder than Amanda (XDXDXD convent girl syndrome perhaps) and we're more or less as emo as each other. Just that I'm a bit more emotional at times. HAHA I AM AN EMOKID. Rarr.

I'm too pale. I need to get back my old tan.:\

There's probably more, but I'm too tired to think. To sum it up in the most bimbotic way possible on the net (to me, of course) I am feeling (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((: many chinned happiness right now.

you're like single silver bullet, shot right through my heart</i

Scrabble is like the newest band obsession or something.

Arrived in school around an hour early and practiced In The Mood (WHICH WE WILL NOT BE PLAYING WTF) and went off for sectionals where we practiced that piece again and a bit of Moonlight Serenade. Nic was extremely late and he tried to perfect our rather rubbish Moonlight. I think the moon would have gone to the dark side if it heard us play. Okay, it wasn't that bad. Only three days left and we still haven't got the proper dynamics and emotion unlike Mr Nic Kwok :\. Ahhh weelll. I'll have to practice again on Monday/Tuesday. It was combined after sectionals and our uh, new conductor (Clarence) rehearsed a few pieces with us. Mainly Romanza, Jap Graf IV and Concerto D'Amore. I think I'm doing very well with a spoilt instrument. Uhh yeah. When Imran arrived I thus concluded that the person who will be sending my instrument for repairs will be the NEXT QM, so hah. Combined was alright I guess. The band was quieter than usual, probably because it wasn't Alvin conducting us.

The rehearals for the award/prize ceremony was um, like that. I'm dreading Wednesday as the days go by. Because I need to wear stockings. Kevin tried to get everyone to come up with ideas for the video, but we're left doing something which I didn't really catch. Aw man. The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory outting might not include the J2s afterall :(:(:( because they've got mocks coming up and they need to study for their A levels too. Argh. Hearing them reminds me of my Promos. I need so badly to get through. We dispersed after the rather (unsuccessful) discussion session and then had sectionals again, at least for my section. Ugh. My back hurts, my mouth hurts, my fingers hurt. I'm tired. When we all finished, I hung around in the store-room watching Imran, LB, Ming Fang, Sing Yi, Joy and Vignesh play Scrabble. I know there are more than four people there. Sing Yi, Joy and Vignesh teamed up. XD It was (excuse me) DAMN AMUSING. HAHA. Imran won in the end I think. With Team Sing Yi, Ming Fang and LB following up.


IKEA was uhhhmmm alright. Crowded. I hate crowds. I cabbed down to Queensway with Anne and Steph (the rest went to town). They met up with Ketsu, Marianne and Kevin and I went off to IKEA and bought a crapload of stuff. I have no time to sew anything this year so it's all store-bought with hand-written names and stuff. I went $20 over my stipulated budget because I saw something that I just had to get. It was shouting out that person's name. Oh well. I cabbed home because I had three bags of stuff to carry home and public transport isn't very friendly to people like me. And crowds again. Ugh

>__< I'm such a retard. I just realized (upon trying to assemble something) that it needs a hair-dryer to blow air into it. How am I supposed to bring a hair-dryer to school on that day? It'd be troublesome to bring the hulking thing to school in its assembled, blown up form too! Why didn't I think before I bought it. Argh. Maybe I'll get my mum to bring it for me.

I've finished writing the names of all the J2s on their gifts, well except the troublesome one but that's not important now. I'll have to get started on letters for some J2s (not that I'm biased, but I don't communicate much with them?) and then probably sew on the name for the troublesome present. Augh. I'm such a retard. My hand's pain.

I'm starving. I only at a biscuit for lunch. omfg thank you Sing Yi. I SMELL CHICKEN MACORONI NOW. BUT I KNOW THERE ISN'T ANY.