Friday, July 27, 2007

i feel like i havent seen my parents in the longest time.
i wake up to an empty house in the morning,
and i return to a quiet and dark house at night.
all we do, is leave notes for each other on the dining table.

i received two postcards from them in the mail yesterday,
left so deliberately there for me to find, like treasure,
all other mail taken home to be sorted.
from their secret china trip while i was in melbourne,
(i was wondering when they were planning to tell me)
"you should know where we are when you receive this card"
hurhurhur.

aiya, i wish it wasnt like that.


halfway through this entry,
wen just came on my itunes,
with a happy birthday song she recorded for me years ago.
i cant believe i put her on my itunes hahaha.
its heartwarming (:

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:33

Thursday, July 26, 2007

everyone please go check out,
www.myspace.com/elanastoneband

very very good,
they were the band that played at the jazzbar that night in melbourne. wah, i want to buy their album, and its been a LONG time since i bought any album at all.


now the ice caps are melting,
and the world is growing thin.
and people cant decide
whether to sink and drown
or swim.

you're the only lifeboat
in this great big world of sin
but i'm a fool.

and is it written in the sound,
or etched inside my mind?
will the winds of change
stir up the words,
and leave no trace behind?

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 05:15

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

tragic by choice,
yes thats what you would call it.


A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
And we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

this used to be one of my favourite songs.
but these songs dont make me happy the way they used to anymore. they used to make me believe.


"pam.. (pats her own shoulder) dont be sad!"
(: you people make things okay.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 02:17

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

we had awesome dance class today :D :D
xinyi is a very happy girl because today we were taught awesome choreography at dance and it feels very good. and now im very motivated to blow seventy bucks on dance shoes!

today's been one of the happiest days since ive been back, i think, despite the tears and the need for hugs from favourite people. at least favourite people were there to listen and lean on for support.

plus,
chunky monkey + fudge brownie milkshake
with whipcream on top
is such sweet indulgence.
along with some new sorbetsplash that the RCgirls let me try because theyre still experimenting with the flavours but its really good!

we walked past Donut Factory
and could smell the donuts metres away,
but HEY, who needs them when we've got KrispyKremes!

AND
earlier in the day
i went back to the florist and bought pretty flowers,
had tazochai with the sistars,
bought an LD (how ancient is that) called footloose,
talked to my favourite baristas at starbucks,
and sue let me fill up something for a birthday surprise!
also, shes keeping the barista job offer open for me so i can go for it anytime i want :D


simple pleasures.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 05:17

Saturday, July 21, 2007

my feet have been perpetually aching for the past four days, screaming at me when i step off the bed every morning :( i feel like chopping them off, i need new feet! the paranoid me is afraid that its more than just standing too long or walking long distances, OHNO what if somethings wrong with me :(

i feel like its time i say something about gorgeous melbourne, and relive the ten days that i was there as i type this entry. i still wish i havent come back, as i talk to donald at work about all the places ive been to, and then he asks with incredulity how could you not have been to this place and that etc etc, making me feel like theres so much more to melbourne ive missed out on. but its true, a month wouldnt even be enough to do all the things we wanted to do, ambitious people that we were.. too many desires, too little time!

on the second last day, at the chinese restaurant,
kwanie asked, what are the things you really wanted to do, but didnt get to do on this trip? and what about the unexpected?
well there were PLENTY of things we had planned on our itinerary, which we had to give a miss because we were either too caught up with gorgeous scenery that we didnt keep to the time, or we were too lazy to get out of bed early enough in the morning hurhur. but lets not remember the regrets, shall we. and lets talk about all the pleasant surprises that popped up along the way.

TRAMPOLINES, were the biggest surprise i think. driving along great ocean road, and suddenly AHH trampolines! when i saw the big green sign that said playground and trampolines, and waking everyone that was sleeping in the backseat. so we paid for 10minutes (which is absolutely pathetic compared to our 4hour long trainings) and while we jumped kwanie went triggerhappy on the side. and i dared to do my houzhi which really sent me over the moon because its been MONTHS! and some adorable little girl asked us, are you guys superstar gymnasts or something? my my, what a major ego boost. and those few minutes on the trampoline just completely made my day, it felt like ive recovered something that i have lost, relived those glory days. its like ive forgotten how happy gym makes me, ive been working so hard for the past few months that ive shelved gym into some corner of my mind, when it once took centrestage in my life.

and then all the hidden special places that kwanie brought us to, which were really what i needed, instead of all those touristy places flooded with asians holding SLRs hahaha touristy factor 9.9?

like docklands, which was completely deserted at night, an abandoned warehouse standing alone and an empty carpark. we were doing handstands and pirouettes and then sat by the dock in the dark, looking at the lcd screen in the distance and all the citylights. then we walked further, past the helicopter pad and all the way till the end where Boltes bridge loomed up above us. perhaps my favourite part of the night was us linking arms and crashcoursing like drunken idiots and then racing each other all the way back to the car. ive never run like that in a long time.

the ferris wheel, with the psychedelic lights, and then the kiddy carousel. haha it felt like being a kid again, picking our favourite horse i want this one! its so pretty! and getting really excited as the thing spun round and round. but it was odd because it had no silly happy music to bob along to, and the horses jerked up and down till our butts hurt. i think the guy was pretty amused by us, overaged kids cum silly tourists.

mornington, having a picnic on the cliff, overlooking the sea as the gulls flocked around eyeing our food. clambering over the rocks to get to the furthest one possible without falling into the chilly water, getting squeamish over the wormy barnacles that clung to the rocks. the sky was gorgeous that day i remember, the sun rays peeking through the grey clouds, distinct beams of sunlight, and reflecting on the water surface in the horizon. and we were so caught up with our little adventure on the rocks, that we couldnt go horseback riding rah :( but it turned out good anyway because in exchange we earned a gorgeous sunset on arthur's seat, driving up the windy road to murray's point where we did what old people do, sat in the car mostly in silence with john mayer playing watching the sun dip lower in the sky, falling asleep, chilling out. and when it got dark, we went to a playground along the coast and just lay there for ages, gazing up at the starfilled sky after playing with swings and strolling along the beach.

LOTS OF RAINBOWS! yes there were plenty, three i think. in a span of ten days which is awesome since in singapore you could go a year without seeing one.

the entire great ocean road trip was awesome, though it was really windy and people got carsick, every turn of the road presented us with more gorgeous skies and beach. and there was the little house we rented that overlooked the beach (if you ignore the bit of construction going on in front of the house). the house was really pretty, two storeys with a hightech fireplace and a veranda with deckchairs so we could sit there and stargaze or look out at the sea. doesnt it sound good already, wait till i get the pictures. and then at night we would light up tealights and place them around, put on some chillout music on the stereo and play boardgames hahaha. BOHNANZA! i want your coffee bean for your garden bean heheh insane. cooking spaghetti for the parents, all of us chipping in in the kitchen, dicing the impossible carrots and frying the icky mushrooms. but the whole independence, i-can-cook thing felt pretty good.

and in the day we'd drive further along great ocean road, my favourite part of it was gibson's steps. partly because of christl and i playing tag along the beach, running around on the wet sand with our feet sinking in almost like quicksand, and when we could run no further we just stood there and watched the tide come and go. then this gigantic tide came, causing us to scurry back hahahahah that was funny, christl wetting her jeans and me dropping my camera in the process. and then when the rest were down we continued standing there, testing the tide, running back and forth whenever a huge one came in. i think gibson's steps was a lot more special than the twelve apostles, that have been turned into some tourist place with some tourist centre a walkway springing up in the middle of wilderness, robbing it of some of its natural beauty. and then the blowhole and thundercave, which was SO GORGEOUS i felt like dying from awe. we learnt about these all in those geography textbooks and marianne chong, but pictures and the real thing is.. incomparable. it was so majestic, when the waves crashed against the side, throwing up a spray of water. but it was dark, and people were hurrying to leave, which left me sad because i felt like just standing there and soaking up the gorgeousness of it all. we almost had to miss the thundercave, if not for kwanie, lost in the large expanse of wilderness before us and we ran and ran, yelling out his name and then finding him at the lookout.

the secret garden that ella and i discovered near the lighthouse, a hidden path shrouded by bush that we would have not found if we had not broken away from the group and gotten lost. curiosity got the better of us, just a quick five minutes and then we come back, but we found nothing much on the other side but a cute tree hurhur. then running back to christl as if our lives depended on it because HEY its snake season okay! we were just paranoid, but what if!

we went to a jazz bar on bennetts lane, tucked away at the end of the alley. everytime after dance class we'd walk past jazz@southbridge at clarkequay and now we've finally been to a jazzbar! it was a damn good first time, i must say. live music is seriously awesome, plus it was a good band that night so xinyi was a very happy girl. sydney talent, they were. i felt like going to some record store to buy their album after that. and its just so comfortable watching them play, because of how well they work and gel together as a band, the knowing smiles and glances at one another. yay now im excited and i want to check out jazzbars in singapore too, i just hope i wont be disappointed by what we have here :\

plus, meeting people! in those ten days i was there, i met two friends from singapore! what are the odds right? melbourne is so huge compared to singapore, fancy meeting them there. first was huiyi, twice in fact, kindergarten friend helloo. haha we've known each other for a long long time. and then tristan, whom i noticed in the crowd when the both of us were watching a busker's performance. what are the odds, seriously!

our last sunset, on st.kilda's pier. emoshots and boyband shots, plus dont fall into the water! under a purple sky, christl's favourite i know.

and one of the funniest, most memorable moments of the trip, was the four of us girls sitting on four square sheets of cloth on the cold floor, squished in the tiny laundry room in our great ocean road house, staring at the washing machine and its contents swishing about inside at 4am. and trying, but to no avail, to work the stupid dryer without washing our clothes for the fourth time already. and then laundry that took five hours what the hell, so we tried to shorten it to an hour and all promised to set alarms and wake up to check on it in an hour. yet, all of us slept right through the alarms, and instead kwanie was the one that woke first in the morning, stepped into the laundry room to see the four sheets of cloth on the floor in utter randomness and seeing wet laundry which was needed on that very day. it amuses me still, just thinking about it.

im very glad for the people that ive been spending every waking hour with for the past ten days. they are some of the funniest people i know, seriously, and this trip wouldnt have been the same without them man.

ellar,
with whom i have before-we-fall-asleep conversations,
who steals all my blankets in the middle of the night hurhur,
and tries to buttshove me into old fireplaces.

christl,
JINX! double, triple, quadruple,
and then erupting into laughter,
having a standoff on the beach,
and then playing tag until we bent over panting,
who gave me a seashell and in return got a bird feather.

jeannette,
who buys an impractical hat she cant use in smu,
and then seconds after paying, peers at her hat and asks,
why do i have a hat! why do i have a hat! hahaha

kwanie,
triggerhappy,
with his Nikon slung over his shoulder,
taking 253 pictures in those ten minutes that we were on the trampoline.


it's been one helluva trip (:

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 01:50

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

i'm going to try
and delete you from my life from this point on.
i just cant wrap my head around it,
i cant believe i was so naive.
so this is goodbye.



because afterall,
words are cheap.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 03:45

Friday, July 06, 2007

xinyi's leaving the country!
email me stuff you guys want me to buy back alright!

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 06:07

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

university is creeping closer and closer and its really freaking me out quite a bit. like when i went to nus to do the stupid medical checkup that day and saw all these enthusiastic people running around for sports camp i just felt so out of the whole uni thing. ive been going around whining that im going to be friendless in uni and despite everyone telling me youre going to be okay because youre you and varied forms of that, its the whole functioning as an individual unit, not really part of class, or cca or anything cos im just so caught up with the rest of my life to be pro-active about uni right now. and then i wonder how much i really care because i guess i could live through uni being BFF-less because really, how many of the people im really going to meet are the ones that are going to carry me through life, right? hurhur feeling pretty jaded about friendships now you can tell. after all theres all these other awesome people outside of nus that make life so much better (:

but also i was reading ella's blog and how shes begun preparing for her leaving, flying to gorgeous london for the next three years :( :( and all these other people that ive really grown so emotionally dependent on because they are the first-to-call people when something drastic happens, the people i know i can always turn to. but not quite so when theyre miles and miles away. i wonder how much this distance can change friendships, but i also have much faith that these past seven years of friendship count for so much more than that.

im going to melbourne *jumps around excitedly. okay everyone knows this by now but its in.. TWO DAYS! and xinyi hasnt packed. every day at work donald throws me all these names of good places to go in melbourne hahahaha. the way he talks about it you'd think he spent half his life there or something. this melbourne trip would be a really good break from work, much needed thank you very much. im very glad for the times ive planned my trips this holiday, its just when im on the brink of burnout and yay im getting flown away from this tiny island and my singapore life. but then i think about returning on the sixteenth, and then gym comps and class chalets and meeting up with people for the last time and BOOM hello university student life :( so i really need to work less and meet people more. hurhur its funny how sam and i are trying to find time to schedule some dinner with the skaters before i fly off which is really quite amusing considering how im going away for only ten days. "we wont be meeting if you cant make it since youre the one thats going off." the way it seems its as if im going away for years or something hahaha. and him contemplating sending me off at the airport at 5am in the morning. see, thats what almostbestfriends are for :D

its annie's last day tomorrow and she gave us all little pouches with teddybears on the front hahaha. alot of funny things happened today but weetiong does so many funny things ive already lost track. after work we went to the bar opposite where we've made new friends so we were sitting with them and drinking stuff, all of them with beer in their hands and me with my mango juice or something. i still cant get over how interesting this new friends new colleagues thing is. "hanging out with people who are like.. thirty two with kids and weetiong is like a hundred years old" hahahaha. its kinda my last night working with pam :( till she starts working again, but we've pinkypromised to go back to the bar to drink and watch soccer. DEAL AH.

okay going to sleep now. 5am, quite early la right. hahaha.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:28

Monday, July 02, 2007

my shirt is full of chocolate splotches all over the front, i look like ive just been through war with a bulk of chocolate fudge brownie and lost. and when you talk about work all the time, you know ure working too much :\ today sales hit a record HIGH it was crazy. hello neverending queue to the door, when will you stop growing? we didnt have dinner until like 11plus when we hid in our haven which is bob's side of the serving area munching on our hamburgers. bob makes fantastic hamburgers :D :D it made me very happy, along with the fact that we could finally close! and then we had all these cakes that we could pack home so we all had little white boxes in hand when we left the place. pebbles wrote stuff on our boxes,

to which weetiong said, aiyo you draw heart shape afterwards i bring home my wife think my girlfriend give me wan ah!

we hung out while waiting for donald to finish his accounts stuff, pebbles lounging on the big armchair near the fireplace, stefanie and i lying on the couch with our feet propped up as the chefs and mr.bartender were playing with the music. wah we were blasting loud noisy music, which is like a first time at dempsey. hurhur its funny having friends who are like thirty and married with kids. and the way they act around us its like theyre not much older. pam's right, edwin is indeed secretly funny. "come, let me teach you about the bartools. this is called a Collins glass, not CUP. and this is called a Rock glass, not CUP." cos everytime we take water or coke or something we'd be like help me get cup! it must have been secretly annoying him all this time hahaha. and then when we left the three of us scoopies insisted on squeezing in the front of bob's van and we were SO squished and laughing hysterically i have no idea why. and then halfway down, the aircon just switched off by itself :\ so it was getting all stuffy and bob insists that it was OUR fault. "thanks for the aircon ah" when he dropped us off hahaha.

and the other day the gwc scoopies went to sentosa! but we were dillydallying and hanging out at the bnjs at sentosa that we hardly got any darker at all :( playing i have never but it was pretty pointless since we were all lying down and forfeits were pretty pointless so we just traded secrets (:


chipbeng! we are such freaks arent we haha.


lavinia, pam, and the nanas














pam and i spoil photos alot.


chermaine!


greatworld love.


BYEBYE.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 03:51

Sunday, July 01, 2007

i FINALLY watched pirates today and it really made me very happy (: even though i had to wake up at 10am to catch the 11am show all the way at vivo, and we had to take the front seat, and i watched it with my mom who was too impatient to wait for the credits to finish rolling (i have this immense pet peeve about finishing the credits so when you watch movies with me please let me finish my credits okay). yay i heard people say it was disappointing etc etc and it wasnt too good but i really liked it still (perhaps cos i dont have much expectations of movies or because johnny depp was awesome everything else didnt matter hurhur), liked it enough to have to find someone to call after the movie to rant about it.

tomorrow's my last day at the florist and im working totally ALONE which really sucks :( what a way to end the short stint there right. ohwell. at least then i can play my music and slack a little hurhur. but im relieved too, that its finally all ending. because i dont think my stamina can carry me on any longer. pam and i looked in the mirror at forever21 that day, the two of us look like we havent slept in years. damn right.

i think i need to slow down.
somedays when we plan to just go out and chill, i feel like ive got this urgency to keep rushing off to places. like i cant sit still for long, and even though the conversation's great i feel like i need to keep moving, theres always some other place that i have to get to. and then the days just slip by like that, day after day. sigh, such meaningless existence :\ which is why im really looking forward to melbourne and sitting around sipping tea in quaint cafes in the chilly weather (:





Silent words are all I have to give to you
So no one listens, only you
Just reply me with an etch upon this stone we call a heart,
Saying you can only stay with me for just a little while
On my morning
And your night...

When I say...
I just need you to know that I think of you..
And I will only be gone for a while...
I want you to know that I'll miss you....
No matter how long I'm gone...

thankyou.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 02:27