already i'm so lonesome i could die

...MY ASS LA I'M FREAKING EGGCITED PLEASE.
though i guess the eggcitement and anticipation is tempered with a slight nostalgia already, as i stare lovingly at my bed. i mean, i'm really going to miss that bed. and i'm really going to miss singapore food. stuffed myself with char kway teow and pig organ soup yesterday (: also currently stuffing tons of entertainment into my laptop because i am pirate.com/tiff and i don't think the UK takes kindly to piracy so i'm storing Gossip Girl Season 3 on my laptop now hahaha.

it's just such a strange feeling to have wanted something for so long and when you finally get it, i guess you treasure it all the more. but stil, it feels really...unreal. like, it's finally here. the moment is here. all that whining and friends' sendoffs at the airport and watching people go off for local uni...that's over and done. and my time is here. it's like, woah. amidst all the whining, it finally came! :D

but again, despite the happiness and deep satisfaction i feel at finally going, i guess it's also important to look at what/who exactly i'll be leaving behind. like, my poor parents haha. and my poor brother who now has no one to massage him. mother has been loading advice and stuff on me a lot lately, and i guess it was really nice of her to let me sleep in til 3pm today (: my body is honestly very attuned to UK timing already, i slept at 6am last night/this morning which is like 11pm UK time.

so, see you later, Singapore. i'll come back eventually, don't worry. and til then, the whole of Europe awaits! <3 and of course, thanks to the people coming tonight to send me off. honestly, it makes me feel really really loved and really realy special to know you all will be there. just please, don't cry haha.

every place i go, i'll think of you
every song i sing, i'll sing for you

funtimez with THE ORIGINAL NIAMSAI (aka stick aka joyce) and paul on saturday afternoon at mah crib (: we collectively skyped with hwee for like 3 hours argh it was insaneee hahaha and then had a mass bitching/gossiping session. stick is honestly the best person in the world to bitch to. and i guess i've sort of missed being a bitchy girl hahaha (: like it's quite cathartic, sometimes, to just say what you've always wanted to say deeeeep down inside (but were afraid to, because it "sounds mean/wrong/bad" or whatever) to someone whom you know won't mind, and even better, RECIPROCATES THE SAME FEELING. teehee >_<

oh, it's sunday. LAST NIGHT EVER SLEEPING IN MY OWN BED. god i'll miss my bed. ate char kway teow and pig organ soup today, will miss those too (: also hung out with the mother/father/brother today, will miss them too. aw shucks hahahaaaa. but on the other end, i am really psyched to go! and there are tons of people whose birthdays are today, it's crazy. wallwriting commences like maddd whee shiz.

have also lightened my luggage from 62kg to 48kg. it was a sheer miracle, i swear.

and when you smile the whole world stops and stares for a while
cuz girl boy you're amazing, just the way you are.
♥♥♥

went out for a facial today, came back with a whole brand new skincare regime o_O i am officially old. like, seriously. i don't do much other than wash and clean my face a few times a day and it's always looked somewhat okay, but all of a sudden i have all this newfangled stuff which is likely to sit on my (hugeass) table in my room at warwick so i don't forget to use them.

the thing about facials is that there is always extraction. and after extraction, your face looks damn gross and ugly cuz you're all red and blotchy. of course, one or two days after, you look way better than you did before, but of course you have to get through the grossness first. so on my way back home from city hall i was sort of praying i didn't run into anyone i knew or else i would've been mortified. thank goodness i didn't. heh (:

haha my skincare regime might be able to beat the number of creams rcb has now! >:)
oh, i wonder if i can find 10 pound shirts in the UK. if not possible, then i will feel much happier about those two tops i bought yesterday for SGD 19.90 each. whoohoo. now time to stuff more shiz into my luggage >_>

paul chuan is coming over to my house tomorrow. if he is late, i will rip him a new one. paul, if you're reading this: IF YOU ARE LATE I WILL RIP YOU A NEW ONE. (and my momma will be pissed. teehee.)

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But, in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

well, in the wake of the awesome GEP outing i had with suat and wynne where we semi celebrated midautumn festival but really just cuddled up on the couch and vegged out in front of the ps3, i dug up my GEP 20th anniversary blue shirt! :D and realised that GEP's 30th anniversary will be in 2014 which is coincidentally when i graduate with masters (hopefully) and come back to singapore to serve my bond.

looking at the worn, faded, muchly loved and adored blue shirt, i couldn't help but think of the years from 2001 to 2005 where i spent my time in the GEP. then i remembered meeting a few old friends; first at ion orchard and then at an SMU welcome session, where we discussed where everyone else from the class of '03 was. and really, we're spread out all over the world (though obviously concentrated in US/UK/s'pore, with a few unique kids in canada/aussie/etc), and some of us have accomplished some really amazing things. i can say that i'm proud of having been part of this group.

and it's funny, cuz on facebook, the 'don't hate me because i'm gifted' group has had plans to create a new GEP shirt (apart from the 10th and 20th anniversary shirts) since well, over a year ago. and everyone loves the idea. but in true GEP fashion, we're all just procrastinating on it (; oh god i miss GEP very muchly ): we were like family, man.

well, second post of the day. people who know me well enough know that i do follow MSN celebrity gossip. and i do read other MSN articles, whether they're about the world or society or whatever. i just prefer reading news online sometimes. anyway, ran by this today!

Another Failed NFL Romance for Kim Kardashian

yes click ittt. was never really a fan of the kardashians or anything, but argh. TOTALLY MIRRORS MY LIFE THANKS. hahahaaaa.

woke up in the morning (kinda, just before 12, anyway) feeling like p.diddy myself / grab my glasses i'm out the door i'm gonna hit this city!

well. now that i'm done jiving to ke$ha, yes i did hit town today to meet guozhong and we ate at taka imperial treasure. had to talk him out of ordering the SGD 88 set menu for 2 because that's a ridiculous amount to pay for lunch. in the end he settled for a SGD 52 set, and we hunkered down to some yummy frog legs and fish and soup and fried rice and pork and etc. it's actually tastier than my description gives it credit for, actually >_> he has this weird phobia when it comes to fish bones so i had to carefully dig fish flesh out for him, though admittedly i think fishes just hate him because he had tons of fish bones anyway. the fish flesh i got for myself didn't have a single bone in it. >:)

then the silly guy decided he needed to go buy a jacket. so we farmed isetan for a jacket, and eventually found this lovely grey jacket from springfield which had 10% off regular items so it turned out to be a pretty good buy. of course, i had to put up with the vainpot primping in front of the mirror for a while ahahahaaaa (:

then we decided to go watch a movie, so due to timing issues, we settled eventually on resident evil: afterlife in 3D. i'm a gamer, though i have never watched the first THREE films of resident evil (yes, they're sure milking it aren't they) so GZ had to bring me up to speed to the recent developments from this fourth resident evil. made like a girl and squealed/cringed/flinched/hid face in his shoulder (poor boy) at the right moments. i mean, seriously. i'm not a fan of horror, though this is supposed to be an action movie and all. turned out to be a pretty decent movie, if not for the freakazoid zombies popping out at the most random moments.

then afterwards trotted off to meet chrys at city hall where we nom-ed some xlbs at din tai fung. damn i'm gonna miss xlbs (: we talked for ages, and then went to gwee's house to pick up some stuff, before we traveled back together. all in all, because the wait for the bus took so long, we managed to get in a lot of girl time (: yaaay.

back home and happy now. what a great way to kick off my last week in singapore! thanks guys for such an awesome time <3

in light of what happened today, went back to my blog archives and looked at a certain post that i had written in March '10. as i read it, all i could think about was, 'aiyoh, so dramatic'. perhaps i'm a little more worn down, a little more apathetic, but this time i guess it wasn't so much of a surprise, or as much of an 'emotional upheaval', as i had put it last time. perhaps it's because university is coming, and i'll be too wrapped up to think about it much (if at all). or maybe it's because i'm, honestly, sick of caring. why bother when it's not reciprocated? why fight for someone who won't fight for you? (a line oft repeated by myself, tbh.)

life goes on, tomorrow's a new day. lunch with guozhong (he's one of my fave rafflesians really, and i'm glad he'll be in the uk with me, albeit an hour's train ride away) and dinner with chrys. it's time to draw a line between my life in singapore, and my life overseas. after all, isn't this what i've been striving for these few years in acjc? and as paul kindly texted (text is slightly truncated), 'look on the bright side, british boys :)'

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

had such a lovely day with paul and joe today. we ate so much crap it was disgusting, and despite the gender difference i honestly have never felt so at home. i will miss them so so so much when i'm in the UK ): joe's my lil' brother and paul's my plant. HAHAHAHA <3

EEEEE LURBLEY WEEK!
monday: swensens with the njc peeps jonny samarth shuyi nush cheryl aud! i ate so much it was disgusting. including dessert which turned out to be these two huge mudpies haha (:

tuesday: soup spoon + coffee club with feli! i missed her so much since we both collectively left our job in may so it was a bit weird not to see her every weekday. she's definitely one of the most good hearted people i know (:

wednesday: dessert with jessica and nikki, my warwick mentor and fellow mentee (respectively). sat down and talked mostly about school and getting to know each other. honestly the dessert shop was awesome, i remember going there before but i had forgotten where it was. then in the evening, THE BEST FEW HOURS EVER with suat, we went to the shisha place and got entertained by this cute and charming professional magician (: had one of the best conversations lately with her; wrt religion/homosexuality/sex/society, it was quite eyeopening and one of the few times in my life where i felt i could be truly open with someone. we've known each other since sec 1, but really. it was like rediscovering a really good, old friend again.

thursday: lunch with pak at ion imperial treasure! crazy good food there, the xlbs and soups were insanely good. pak tried to reteach me to hold my chopsticks properly >_> i'm trying, i'm tryingggg! then i spent the evening by myself, just trawling singapore. did things i don't normally do with company, felt free and happy. time flew by pretty fast without the need for useless/unnecessary/pedantic conversation. that's why i think the mark of a true good close friend is not someone whom you can talk to the most, it's the ones whom you can sit there and not talk with (: and still feel like it's comfortable, and that it's one of the best non-conversations you've ever had. i rarely get that anymore.

fri: out with paul and joe tonight! eggciteee. my two baby boys hahaha~ (i know you're reading this, paul! don't you cringe at me!)

/edit: rcb flies today at noon ): he'll be off trawling europe and having the time of his life. haha no matter, i'll see him in school soon enough anyway (: HAVE FUN!

i was going to blog about my great day out today, but this just amused me to no end (: rcb is quite lame. no bak kwa for you then you know! >=)

an old friend poked me on skype, and asked 'which tiffany are you?' because apparently he knows seven. after providing him with my surname and school and whatnot, he still couldn't guess which one i was. in a fit of slight annoyance, i said 'the one you used to sing to on msn!' and then he finally got it. then he started remembering where i lived, and that i owed him a coffee. (lol.) old friends, old happenings, i miss that sometimes. he did have a lovely voice, and i'm someone who doesn't usually like being serenaded.

and oh, i think i'm being spied upon. you can't even go to the US/UK version of MSN.com without being questioned, urgh. evidence is below.

have to cover two good days this week! and some other random stuff.
thursday night was greeeeat. we hit zouk for some ukbound event, where there were bands and a pageant. however, as i sipped happily on my apple vodka, i must admit that i spent more time beign a social butterfly as compared to actually watching the performances. whoops! haha but i think it was quite worth it. saw the usual bunch of dsta/mindef/saf people, along with quite a few acsians/njcians, so it was really quite a good life reunion hahaha! was fun to sit there and chillax and talk to people. though admittedly it was quite noisy so sometimes you had to yell.

friday was hari raya! so i plopped at home and slacked til it was time to meet the Sixy people (my warwick OG for the less informed) at mount faber safra. well, most of them were late -.- so i sat at the massage chair area waiting for quite a while. we ended up playing pool, which was a bit scary at first cuz i hadn't played since i was 16 (and that time when i was 16? it was my first time playing. yes uh huuuh) but surprisingly i guess trajectories and laws of physics don't change just cuz you haven't been playing for a while. we teamed up guy-girl (since there were three guys and three girls at first) and marcus and i wiped the competition away...twice (; wheee!

the best news is, with two weeks left til liftoff, my packing is DONE DONE DONE! of course there is the usual rearranging for stuff i'm using now and need to be put in (like my alarm clock) but basically all my clothes and other stuff are in and ready. so whoever is going out with me for the next two weeks, my apologies in advance because my fashion sense will be a bit cui. all my good clothes/dresses/shorts are in the luggages! plus my going out schedule is quite packed next week so... heh ^_^

finally enrolled as a warwick student on friday! enrollment only opens on monday so i was surprised when i tried my luck on friday and i was able to get in. kiasu s'porean ftw! so now, i have my warwick email & with that i have joined the warwick network on fb yay. and i have also gained access to the 'current students' tab on the warwick website. again giving me access to my modules and whatnot. flipped through a few past year exam papers and got really scared hahaha. please ask me for examples of questions i need to answer for my exams, i assure you: YOU WILL BE SCARED.

excellent week ahead! can't wait (:

WARNING: SUPER LONG POST AHEAD. I'M SERIOUS.

got woken up early by the parents today to start our yearly "purging" session. usually this happens around CNY, where my mom goes bonkers and starts throwing away books/notes/papers/clothes that we don't need anymore. however, because i'm leaving pretty soon, she decided to start purging the old books and notes and papers that we don't need anymore. thankfully though, this time she left my clothes alone so i don't have to defend to the death the zillions of AC shirts that my brother and i still own (:

which reminds me, that brother of mine tried to steal my AC pullover today. thankfully i'd already packed it into my luggage so he couldn't get his paws on it. i then reminded him that he had a perfectly good armani exchange pullover which he hardly ever wears. in fact, i prolly wore it more times than he did during the A Levels. taking long exams in the sports complex is horribly cold; it's like a freaking meat locker in there sometimes, especially if you're sitting near the back.

but anyway, back to the main point. we started throwing away tons and tons of stuff. like i even found some dunman high and njc ip stuff which somehow surfaced after many years. DHS GEP was pretty into making us do reflections, so i'd read what i wrote/typed from five years ago and well it turned out to be pretty interesting. i wrote exactly the way i talked (a habit which was only cured in JC by that dear subject GP) and i had a habit of interspersing song lyrics between paragraphs. generally i suppose my writing style in all its honesty and bluntness might not have been accepted in the mainstream, but i had very understanding teachers in DHS GEP (:

i even threw away many of my ACJC notes. out of respect for the countless hours i spent poring over the papers though, i kept my Geog and Econs notes. (but threw all the tutorials and TYS away.) and out of love, i kept my Lit notes. i flipped them open and the first poem i saw was Siegfried Sassoon's Suicide In The Trenches. it remains one of my favourite war poems til today (along with Dulce et Decorum Est) and the ending is so impactful: You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye / Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/ Sneak home and pray you'll never know / The hell where youth and laughter go.

the next poem i flipped to was something by Edna St Vincent Millay, and that was the time where i decided that i just couldn't throw the file away (: i did, however, trash everything to do with math (horrid subject) and GP (flipped file open, saw my horrid essays, winced, and dumped it). it was cathartic in a way, yet sort of painful in another.

OKAY THE REASON FOR WHY I AM POSTING THIS IS HERE. (so you can start reading from here if you're a lazy schlob.)
you know, while you flip through all this stuff, and decide what to throw and what to keep, it's pretty amazing to see what you come by. i discovered a few old love notes, and some other reminders of people gone by. you also read reflections penned by your younger self, and discover how much (or how little, in other cases) you've changed. now i am going to go into specifics, and be as uncryptic as possible, which is quite rare for this blog ahaha (:

one thing that pleased me was that i found the note that ryan wrote me after CAP '06, which i thought i'd lost a few years ago but somehow mysteriously resurfaced amidst all the files of yore. we're both different people now; he just entered law school, and i'm embarking on my own new adventure. and we're not canoeists anymore (; but when i read through it, it just took me back to how our friendship started, and how i'm glad we've managed to remain friends for such a long time. perhaps not the closest of friends, but all the same i can always rely on him to be there for a short conversation or a cup of coffee.

other things that sent a jolt through me (positive/negative/indescribable?) was well, i found a photo note (note written on the back of a photo) from 2008 from youknowwho. i reread it, and wondered how the boy in the photograph turned from someone whom i knew the best, to a complete and utter stranger (whom i really don't want to know now at all either, anyway). also discovered a postcard from him in the caverns of my drawer, and promptly reburied it.

unfortunately, i am someone who is unable to throw away sentimental stuff like this, even after things have turned to shite. i don't know why. i'm pretty sure i still have the first gift a boy ever gave me somewhere in my drawer: a nice shiny green marble from primary 3. i tend to just bury stuff like that in my drawer, because Out Of Sight = Out Of Mind. for me, at least.

moving on...
while flipping through files and throwing away papers, i ran across a certain file from May 2008. recognised it immediately, opened it to relive the memories of the awesome people in my group and wonder where they are right now. (and also to laugh at their misspelling of isaac's name...issac indeed hahaha!) and that's when i ran across Your name. it popped up right in the middle of nowhere, almost innocuously, and i swear a jolt rushed through me. it was much like the same jolt that i had when i thought i saw You walk by HMV a month ago.

to clarify, it's not the kind of jolt you get when you see a long lost love or anything like that. so no, i'm not romanticising it or any of that tripe. it's the kind of jolt you get when you drink really gassy Coke after two years of abstaining from soft drinks. i don't know how else to describe it. and i can't say if it was positive or negative. it just...was. (yes and i found Your xmas card in the depths of my drawer too. You were never very verbose, but the few sentences You scrawled on the slightly cliche Hallmark card were a good memory.)

silly me, i'd forgotten that was the event where we'd met, and then later reconnected a year later and then ya dee ya dee da, we know how the story goes. i don't know what i'd do if i saw You again, neither do i know what i'd say. it'd just be pretty strange and awkward, i suppose. and really, while some part of me wishes You'd talk to me again, or that i had the courage to talk to You again, the rest of me tells me the way it is, is currently for the best. and no, i don't hate You. it's just more of a mind blinding apathy. You were a short, ephemeral dream, and in retrospect, i'm glad that i woke up.

^_^

other nuggets of fun i found included notes and cards from friends over the years, and actual letters including alan's old xmas cards to me (: i miss that, a little. found a few polaroids of the AH kids in our new AC uniforms in JC1. all in all, it was an extremely good haul of things, an excellent recollection of memories. maybe that's why i keep them around, because even if friends drift apart and loves comes and go, the photo/note/letter/card still remains stagnant. it cements that the person cared enough to write this, at one point in time. and it makes for a good, if slightly bittersweet, memory.

(okay readers, don't expect such an uncryptic post ever again in the future hahaha!)

as asofterworld.com so succintly put it:

sooo, the warwick students' union has kindly come up with the freshers pass for freshers fortnight. freshers fortnight is the first two weeks of term, and the pass allows you entry into all fifteen parties going on at that time! all for fifty five pounds (like wow. that's quite a bit of cash) so i'm thinking of i should get it or not.

i mean, fifteen parties is a lot, and i don't know if i'll go for all. especially since i'm not really the crazy party sort. but then again, freshers fortnight only comes once in a lifetime. (you're only a fresher once right?) and the school-organised parties sort of die down quite a bit after freshers fortnight i think, you've to head to cov or leam to hit the clubs there if you want.

Freshers Passes cover the following events:

- 4th Oct: Manic Monday presents Massive Monday
- 5th Oct: Warwick Snow presents Avalanche feat. Scratch Perverts
- 6th Oct: Pop! Pyjama Party feat. Greg James
- 7th Oct: Young Guns live
- 7th Oct: Crash
- 8th Oct: O.M.G. feat. Zane Lowe’s DJ Hero 2 Tour
- 9th Oct: Pressure feat. Sub Focus live
- 10th Oct: Tony Lee XXX Comedy Hypnotist *
- 11th Oct: Manic Mondays present Massive Monday
- 12th Oct: Chiddy Bang live
- 13th Oct: Pop! Cash Cube Giveaway
- 14th Oct: Freshers Party
- 15th Oct: O.M.G. feat. Beat-a-Maxx
- 16th Oct: Skool Dayz
- 17th Oct: Crap Film Club presents Revenge of the Sith *

will ask the rest of the singaporeans what they're doing first, perhaps (: but one thing's for sure, i reeeeally can't wait to go to warwick!

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking.
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying

Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
That's the time you must keep on trying

Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you'll just smile.

okay i thought about it randomly, while reading through A Level Politics notes (hello people in my course have taken and scored As in this subject so i really need to have at least some rudimentary knowledge before i go in), and i have discovered WHY i hate/actively dislike/am apathetic towards ALL my exes. talk to me personally for details on my epiphany. hahaha.

most of my week has been spent running pre-departure errands. opened my UOB campus account, got my ISIC, went to the dentist, and stocked up on enough medicines at my local polyclinic to last me forever. got medicines for diarrhoea, running nose, throat inflammation, mouth ulcers etc. also got paracetemol, ibuprofen and six months of worth of my cramp pills. which i rely on like mad every single month. aaaand, a first aid pouch for cuts and whatnot. i am officially a pharmacy!

such errands also included mundane things like cleaning my room. i never noticed how dusty my mantelpiece was getting (along with how dusty my brother's mantelpiece was getting too) so i happily dettol-ed all the dust off. officially need to buy dettol in the UK, i refuse to live in a dusty dump.

it was nice, to take everything off my mantelpiece, wipe it off, and then slowly rearrange a lifetime worth of memories back on it again. there's the perfume area, which houses ferragamo/fragonard/kylie minogue perfume. each perfume has a story and place and memory behind it. then there's the gifts from friends; such as the photoframe from stick, and the paintings from jass and stella bee. and there's the tiffany train, my first gift from kenny. other random things include a candle (nj orientation gift from 2006), a carved hamster (courtesy of des, carved in lower sec), a bottle of black sand, a pufferfish that lights up and other knick knacks that were from my childhood.

it just struck me how much difficulty i'm going to have packing. which clothes/shoes do i decide to bring with me? which memories will be small enough/important enough for me to sneak in my carry on luggage? i guess, as a girl, i tend to be quite sentimental, so it'll be really difficult for me to choose which ones to leave behind.

as my new romcom watching partner & friend Kenneth said in one of our private facebook messages, "I dread packing though. How to pack my life into 2 luggages :(" how apt, indeed!