He's Back

Oh yes he is.

September 27 :

Aberlyn and Joel presented to him the sweetest powerpoint. He then brought out 'the merchandise' from his huge as luggage.. DVDs, clothes, mooncakes?, medicine etc.

Midday:
The Asianness in us decided to go for some Asian food - YAM CHA, which is basically tim sum. It was authentic Hong Kong food. We quite liked it.



A happy family. Can I hear an 'awww' ?


Well, my dad's been bringing us shopping, taking us wherever we want and of course indulging us with good food (after 3 months.. he'd better :p). So you see why we're always so excited when he comes over. But he's going back, because he has to, not because he wants to.

Not to worry, he'll be back here very soon! Which means more 'merchandise' - I just love the word.

Miley Ng

What would I do without Miley? I would probably go insane is what.

Growing up with dogs my whole life, I'm just not used to not having a dog around. Which was why we decided to get a dog. We drove all the way to Towoomba, about two hours away from our place to take a look at the "Finnigan Farm Pups". There were three puppies for sale and we picked from among the lot a certain pup with a black patch on one eye. There was something about her that caught my attention. I took a single glance at Miley and immediately knew I found what I was looking for. It was love at first sight.

Miley, the Finnigan Farm Puppy:


We bought her, put her in a box and took her home along with her pink bed and some toys.
There was an intense debate of what name to give our new puppy. Aberlyn insisted on calling her Miley, simply because she's a fan of Miley Cyrus. Somehow, everyone agreed to that. Maybe because we were all ready to give up anyway.

Miley grew to be an intelligent little dog. She learnt tricks in no time.
She loves playing fetch.
She has a favourite toy, as adourable as that sounds.
She hates water and hates the warm blasts of air coming out of hairdryers even more.
She dreams at night. I know because she makes funny noises while sleeping. I'm guessing it's sleep-talking, in whatever language she speaks.

Miley taking a bath. She's so tiny, the sink is her bathtub.


A few days ago, Miley went for desexing. A needle, two stitches and she took it like a man.
She has to wear this orange cone-shaped thing around her neck to prevent her from licking her wounds. With that thing around her neck, all she can lick are her two hind legs.



So here's to Miley, the best dog an owner could ever wish for.

Our Story.

Just to reinforce what Rachel Ooi wrote briefly in her blog, I will tell the story of how Rachel and I became such close friends in greater detail.

Our story starts here.

In the beginning, God created a girl in her mother’s womb. When she was born, her parents named her Rachel. She was destined for great, great things. Even when she was a young girl, she liked to help out in any way she could, always the first to put up her hand and volunteer. She was everyone’s sweetheart.

4 years after Rachel was born, a little infant opened her eyes to see the world for the very first time. Abigail was her name, as was given to her by her parents who thought that name was the best choice for their firstborn. Hmmmm
Abigail tried her hardest to treat everyone nice.
She was a good girl. = )

...Fast forward...

Year 2006 -
It was time for Abigail to attend her first ISCA service. She was a bit scared but excited. The form ones entered Palm Springs for their welcome lunch hosted by the leaders of ISCA. Rachel was amongst them leaders. Abigail and her friend, Emma didn’t know anyone there. They didn’t want to talk to anyone else but to each other. Rachel, who noticed that came up to them and tried to be all friendly and nice. But she soon gave up because they weren’t being co-operative, giving only one-word responses like “yes” or “no” or “ok”.
Yes. Rachel and Abigail started off rough.

Abigail was then put in Rachel’s cg, Roti Batu. Every time they met in cg, they would only engage in small talk, like “how was your week?” or “why didn’t you come to cg last week?” They did talk and laugh together, go on cg trips together, but still there was no….. spark! Hahh

(Ok, I’m tired of writing in third-person.)

One fine Sunday morning, sometime in the month of August maybe…
Mere coincidence. Both our families decided to go out for some family bonding time/breakfast. My side of the story: Aberlyn wanted to go to McDonalds. We all agreed because we needed a break from the usual Arati Villas. So McDonalds it was. As we entered McDonalds, we saw familiar faces smiling at us. We said hi to Rachel’s family and talked to them for a bit. Then, it was this sudden decision that changed our lives as we'd known it. Our parents decided to sit together in one table. So Rachel, Carin, Aberlyn and I had to sit somewhere else. For some reason, Joel wasn't there. Rachel and I started talking so much. Both of us just had this “I have a million things to tell her” sort of feeling in us. A sudden outburst. There was not even a single moment of silence. It was intense! Carin and Aberlyn made some interesting contributions to our discussions as well. We laughed. And we laughed hard.

My parents enjoyed the company of Rachel’s parents. The same the other way round. So we often went out for dinner together. Rasa Sayang, Evergreen, Tanjong Bunga Seafood, Passions of Kerela… And of course, after dinner, we would have our photos-in-the-toilet time.

The following year was great. Eventually, I became good friends with Rachel Yeoh ! The sleepovers, shopping trips, photo sessions, Girl Power, the fav list.. BFFS for life!
Good times:

Rasa Sayang

PCC toilet

Mural

Cass' sweet 16

Kit Siong

But sadly, I had to leave to Brisbane, Australia. Rachel cried me a river. Oh yeah! A few months after, it was her turn to leave to Australia, but to Melbourne instead. Now we both are, like she said, so near, yet so far.

Our story doesn’t just end here.
I believe it will continue on and on.
Till death do we part.

Bananas, sticks, beijing, olympics, bread and honey, superspy.

English Assignments: designed to scare the skirts off little kids.

Tomorrow will be one of the most nerve-wrecking days of my life. I can tell. I will never be this nervous about something, ever.
Tomorrow, at about 11, my hour of doom, I will have to perform a speech from the play Romeo and Juliet. In Front Of My Class. I know, to some, the idea of performing in front of a crowd is nothing to get all scared about. But not to me, especially when we're expected to perform it full on dramatically with all the sighs and hand-on-the-forehead moves. And the worse part- we have to wear costumes!

All those who performed on Monday and Tuesday were so nervous. Most of them were shaking. My friend, Jess turned red when she performed. I laughed at her. But she offered me some sour cream and onion chips today, so I guess she's not mad. Jess was very good at her speech though. My other friend, Rachel who performed the same speech as mine did hers really really well.
The Pressure!!!

I chose probably one of the corniest speeches you can find in the whole script. I don't know why, but I chose it anyway. So, poor me. I have to get up there tomorrow, wearing a white dress, acting all head over heels and saying these lines:

O Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague
What's Montague?
It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face
nor any other part belonging to a man
O, be some other other name
What's in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd
Retain that dear perfection
which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name
And for thy name, which is no part of thee
Take all myself

And that's not all. After the speech, I have to give another 600-word speech, my rationale.
I know, I am terribly excited too!
I have to explain in my rationale why I chose to wear what I wore and how I attempted to convey the love theme etc etc..

I can't ruin the whole thing tomorrow. I worked way too hard to just ruin it. Or at least I thought I worked hard. So there was the process of learning my lines. Then, writing my rationale, which drove me insane by the way. I had to then find a white dress, pretty shoes, stress out, memorise my rationale, write dot points on a palm card and stress out some more. So yeah, I worked hard all right.

I'm nervous but I'll get over it. Soon. It brings me joy to know that I still have 2 more years of these kinds of assignments.
God, help me!