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Happiness is an understatement. I've also never gotten 8 straight As in my life but...

I'm super duper happy! My hard work paid off! My GPA is 4.0/4.0, not once, but twice in a row! 

Dean's list FTW!!! Whee!! (':

#toohappy

Last

I'm unofficially done with school! I ended classes last week. I felt extremely uplifted when I ended my very last class, being the last presenter of the last presentation of the semester. This also happened to be my very very last presentation in SMU so I concluded the presentation with "With this, I end our presentation and I end my final presentation in SMU". Those words felt so awesome to say out loud!

Anyway, I'm not officially done with school yet. The commencement ceremony has yet to come and I also have 3 reports due and final exams to take. So much for "last day of school". -.-

Ate lunch at Nam Nam with Joey on Thursday and then we proceeded to take pictures! We tried our best to include Rachel in our photos using the tablet but with little luck.

Here's Joey and I! She was my very first friend in SMU. We were coincidentally in the same Freshmen Teambuilding Camp (FTB) group and Bondue Camp (Business School) group. It was awesome knowing her throughout these 4 years even though we distanced a little as we eventually declared different majors and couldn't bid together as often anymore. Nevertheless, <3 <3 <3!

Trying to incorporate a life-sized Rachel face which failed... In the end we just left the screen black for Joey to photoshop.

Jumpshot!

Also, because 5 of us divers were in the same Ethics class together, we took some shots before leaving school too!
Jesslyn, Che'rie, Me, Teck and Luxuan

School is finally "over"! Sort of at least. Still got to meet these deadlines even though I already feel kind of burnt out right now. Tata... to a good night's sleep and a new day tomorrow!

Fab Feb

It's mid-Feb! And what can I say? The semester passed so fast. Less than 2 months more and I'm a graduate! This semester has been somewhat of a rollercoaster ride for me, I've been running on short bursts of energy, been kind of physically and psychologically drained but other than that I think I'm fine!

Today was a pretty eventful day, considering it's my first and last formal lesson of the week before Chinese New Year holidays. My 2nd class tomorrow is just proposal presentations from each group. Woke up early and left house early today. My first agenda of the day was to meet Joey for lunch and I was late because the train broke down! The electricity died on us in the middle of the tracks between two stations. This was my first time experiencing this in Singapore so at first I thought - oh no biggie, and continued reading my notes. After only 5 minutes, I realised how hot and stuffy it got and found that it was harder to breathe after about 10 minutes. (The curse of no ventilation). After 20 minutes, I think something pulled the train to the nearest station and the train driver manually opened the first door for everyone to get out. Called for a cab because of the extremely long taxi queue that formed and cabbed to town with mum. 

Met Joey for lunch, we had noodles, was not bad! Then I went for a manicure! Yay to pretty neat nails! We walked around aimlessly for a bit and then I made my way to Miramar Hotel to pack some Chingay goodie bags. 

Left around 4.30pm and headed to an imaginary career fair - it never existed! Turns out I mixed up the dates with the 2014 emailer (omg how could I!) Sigh. Anyway, I headed to school, ate my dinner, rested awhile and then went to class. Today's lesson was pretty chill and halfway into lesson, fireworks from afar started exploding outside the classroom window - was some CNY event. Prof decided to turn off all the lights so that we could enjoy the fireworks as it lasted! Guess today wasn't so bad after all!

Had a couple of ups and downs recently and I guess I just have to remember how very fortunate I am and to not take things for granted. (:

My January

It's the start of Week 4 and I feel my readings starting to pick up. My longest readings are from my Ethics textbook where one chapter is at least 50 pages. Not to mention, Prof is ahead of schedule these days and so I have to read in advance for chapters planned for the next week. So many readings! That being said, I have 2 essays to do which are quite flexible in terms of deciding the topics for ourselves and researching. I'm glad I have the freedom to write things that are interesting!

Spent the last few weekends balancing both work and play. Went to 2 concerts - Jayesslee and Michael Bublé. We managed to catch a close up of Michael towards the end of the concert when he sang on the second stage nearer to the audience seated at the back!

I also attended the wedding lunch of Sam's friend and it was a pretty fun occasion! (: I shall let pictures speak the words!

And that is all I have to share for now. Oh, one more thing... I finally filed for graduation!!! Yay!!! :D

Good night!

November

It's the 1st of November! Since I last blogged, I wrote a few time-sensitive posts that are outdated now. Too lazy to go through with publishing them because they were just ramblings and nothing much.

Decided to blog today because I haven't had a proper outlet from all the stress I've accumulated in school. I don't have any final exams this semester and that is why, all my assignments and projects play a big part in deciding my grades, with 70% of my grades dependent on my performance during my last 3 weeks of school. I have about 2 weeks to go!

Going to be blogging about my October this year! Did a few things last month including ice skating, watching a dance concert, attending Pokemon Day and visiting Google Singapore as part of a class excursion!

I went ice skating with SMUX skating team during recess week. It was one of the rare days where I did not touch any form of school or project work.

With Sam!

Hehe riding for free!

SMUX Skating Team booked the whole rink for our event Frolic on Ice and we were split into groups to play some games. Our group came in 2nd but didn't win anything. Oh well! It was fun anyway! :D

Group picture!

Then I went for NUS's Shut Up and Dance before my recess week ended.

Bumped into Apple!

Picture with the BFF. (: You were awesome!!

The girls from Council. (:

Think we kind of went mad because of How Sun's kickass performance. Haha!

Probably the only normal picture we took that night

28th Council! (:

Then I went for Pokemon Day at Jalan Besar Stadium some time ago which happened to coincide with a soccer match between Singapore's Home United and Japan's Albirex Niigata. Bro asked Sam and I along using Pokemon Day as a pretext so we definitely weren't expecting a soccer match! First soccer match I've watched in Singapore!

Waited so long to take pic with this guy

Happy bro got what he came for!

Finally, at the end of October, I paid a visit to Google on the eve of Halloween as part of a class excursion. Now everyone wants to bid for this class next semester. Hahaha.

My groupmates and I! Spirits were all very high that day and we all became kids again.

Our class. (:

It was a really fun day we spent at Google, learning what they do in the Singapore office and of course, taking a tour around the area. The mood was so fun! I guess I ended my October on an awesome note! Time to get back to work! :D

Sam's graduation

I spent last Monday morning watching the World Cup finals with Sam. 

I managed to catch some shut-eye before joining him so he looks so much sleepier than me!

I was so bored for the first two hours because there was no goal. But was kinda relieved that Götze scored the goal after that - means that I could finally go to sleep and prepare for work! Haha! He's 22 and he scored a winning World Cup goal. I'm 22 and what am I doing?

On Tuesday, I attended Sam's graduation after lunch. I was telling him all he needed was a wand! Haha. It would be super cool if I had a wand for my own graduation haha!

First picture we took after Sam put on his gown.

I was slouching a little hence the awkward body posture ><

When we entered the Suntec carpark, the gantry barrier had directions for us to park in the blue zone. At the lift in the blue zone, they had a big board giving us directions too. At the buffet dinner, the food plates looked real, cutlery looked like metal even though it was plastic and the glasses had silver rims - so classy. I was telling Sam "Now we know where all our money goes too" and was appreciating the meticulous effort and professionalism that SMU put in place for all graduands and their families. *Clap hands*

At the school ceremony. 

Seeing all the graduands made me feel like I was graduating too but nah, not yet!

Happy graduation baby! I know you'll read this. Glad to be with you every step of the way. (:

Home

I think people have different concepts of what home is and where their home should be. Living in Iceland for half a year has made me realise a lot about what I call home in Singapore. This is something I expected to learn on exchange but maybe not to such an extent.

Being overseas, managing everything by yourselves including the groceries, your laundry, your meals, your homework without your family beside you can really be a very challenging thing. Coming from a generation of youths who grew up in the 90s, I believe we have been extremely fortunate to have been able to grow up in Singapore.

Firstly, every meal we eat at home comes with at least 2 - 3 dishes, complementing rice. This is something that I find rare in the meals of other exchange students. In order to save money, some of them simply eat pasta with sauce, with no ingredients or just bread for a meal. Of course, they do have extravagant meals too but I'm just saying that we have seen them eating simple meals a lot.

Secondly, living with other people creates disagreements sometimes especially when some housemates don't clean the dishes properly or don't ask for permission when they take your food or when they just simply exclude themselves from cleaning the house. This is extremely annoying but we never have to worry about this back at home when someone else takes care of everything and everything is shared. Maybe this has taught me to clean dishes more properly so that I don't annoy others too! This has probably also taught me that maybe the next time I take out the vacuum cleaner at home, I will make it a point to vacuum the whole house while I'm at it.

Thirdly, laundry! In Singapore, whenever our clothes are dirty, we just throw everything into the washing machine, throw in some detergent, wait for everything to be washed and then simply hang them out to dry. In many countries such as Iceland, the washing machines are not cold wash and therefore everyone must make it a point to separate their light-coloured clothing from dark-coloured ones, EVEN if you have washed them a thousand times before. This was something I learned too late when we were trying to save money and time and wash everything in one load. Also, the dryer shrank my jacket. ):

Fourth, groceries! Every time we buy groceries in Singapore, most of the produce is fresh and we have so much variety, with so much convenience with at least one mama-shop in our estate! In Iceland, the cheapest supermarket is 30 minutes away. To get there, we have to drive. Secondly, we must always plan our shopping date because 22 exchange students share just one car. Furthermore, we need to ration our supplies and always make sure we buy the food with the furthest expiry date because we can't afford to go shopping all the time. This week, the school car broke down and so nobody could buy any groceries or go out on any day trips.

Lastly, the weather is extremely unpredictable! In Singapore, nobody bothers to check weather forecasts and some of us just bring small brollies out in our handbags. In Iceland, nature rules. We made the mistake of not checking the weather forecast for our weekend trip and 10 of us had to pay for damages to the car because we were involved in 2 sandstorms and extremely high-speed winds. We were also evacuated to a nearby kindergarten and we couldn't make it back on time to return the car because the roads were closed.

So I guess I can say I've learnt a lot from Iceland so far. Hopefully my road trip at the end of the semester will be safer yet more exciting! :D

Nails

   Happy Easter to all! I didn't do much today except the usual - staying in school till late.

A couple of weeks back before Chinese New Year, I found the determination (maybe with some persuasion from the bf - ok no, I mean a lot of persuasion) not to peel my nails anymore... a habit that I've had all my life. For once it's long enough to make distinct tapping sounds on the table - a new habit of mine since. I'm still trying to get used to my nails and have been attempting more gentle gestures with my hands to avoid cutting myself - quite a fail. I made my way to town after meeting today and found myself looking through a huge variety of nail polish colours and finally got the first 2 nail polishes in my life. So... I bought my favourite nude shade from O.P.I and a China glaze pastel purple - a recent favourite. Hehe. I shall try them out tonight!

So in order to continue with kicking this bad habit of mine, I saved some pictures of pretty manicures for inspiration that I will get done in the future! :D Some here:

Gah... Aren't they pretty? :D

School has been a little less taxing this semester and I find myself enjoying what I'm studying again! :D This semester has given me a little bit more time to figure out what I really want to do in life and though I still haven't found the specifics, I think I know what I'm good at and obviously what I don't really fit into. I guess I count myself really lucky to find some sort of direction in life after so long. (:

My cravings for many different foods has been overwhelming this month - judging from whatever I've been posting on Instagram! Hehe. Here are some:

The weather has also been extremely unkind these few weeks and I find myself relying on the aircon just to get myself in a comfortable position to sleep almost every night. ):

Oh well, exams are around the corner so I probably will disappear from this space for a longer time now (not that I had time to update it frequently in the first place). Hopefully I will kick this bad habit for good with my new nail polishes! Heh. ^^

Ta...

Happy hols

Spent these past few months doing some things besides crazy school days... at least I still have a life. Hehe.

Vanna's birthday

I went back to STC for a gathering and we saw how it changed since it was renovated after we graduated.

My first class! :D

Isabel house!

In the new lighthouse which can't be compared to the one we used to have!

Oschool Recital with How Sun! (:

Xmas with Yvonne

Xmas with Sammy too! (:

SMUX Annual General Meeting 2012

Nic's 21st birthday

That's all for now. Hehe. Happy holidays everyone! (: