Sunday, September 30, 2007

i havent been blogging much anymore, lately i feel like i cant quite put my thoughts down into words, and im having trouble pinpointing the lull in my emotions these days, the sudden void that i cant seem to fill. something's missing.

i just finished watching all the videos that we took earlier this year, of a certain special centrepoint gig, of a certain special song. the wonderful thing about my pc at home is all my photos, and all my memories. today they told me a story on the car on the way home, okay not really a story but just a little event, and warned me, i think you shouldn't listen, it would raise your expectations. haha but honestly, i dont think thats very possible anymore. okay i dont know why im still talking about this at all.

today i woke up from my afternoon nap in tears. it was a very scary, very vivid dream. i remember the people i saw in it, the little details in the surroundings, and i remember the stinging words that were said. even if i did look at that person today, and knew that never in a million years would those words be said, it still hurt. i guess maybe its because, consciously, ive thought about the possibility of things changing so much that it does indeed become like that.
my almost best friend tells me, you need to learn to let go faster, faster than you actually do. there's always a phase for everything in life.

like i said, some things dont make me happy the way it used to anymore.

and i think people read me like a book, even if i think im hiding it well. like on friday night, when chef jude suddenly asked me, are you okay? you seem quiet tonight. apparently he noticed, all the way from his pastry kitchen. and then gerard, anyway i hope you're ok! you dont sound ok! just randomly, after a five-line msn conversation. but i am generally okay, really.

but friday night really did see a much duller xinyi behind the dipcase. it wasnt a good day for work, for the early part of work anyway. but then later the uncles came back and they made things better. i was telling ivan at the coffee machine, the uncles of dempsey make me happy. and then weetiong walks by and mutters to himself and ivan and i burst out laughing. and its true, they are a a large part of the happy factor at dempsey haha. today uncle samuel cooked us nice home-cooked food! debbie and i felt so blessed, because hello we had quite a spread okay! porridge with peanuts and egg and veggie and sardines. even though most came out from cans and preheat, its like WAH finally not styrofoam boxes and wooden chopsticks. i remember janice was so insistent on bringing her ricecooker to dempsey cos she was getting so sick of bread, but now samuel's gone ahead and brought his own. and today weetiong met belinda lee again! i remember the big photo of him with her on the walls in the happy office, him beaming from ear to ear hahaha. he's seriously got some female celebrity obsession, always asking us to whip out our cameras for him when people like fiona xie come by. everyone loves hearing weetiong stories.

and this is one funny moment of edwin
i think i'll always remember,
i was steaming milk at the coffee machine, with my latte cup sitting there still empty. so edwin, mr asst. manager, walks by and in all seriousness, asks me what i was doing.
me: huh why?
edwin: what are you doing!
me: whats wrong? im doing a latte what..
and then he quickly proceeds to press the single espresso button and smiles and walks off, looking very pleased with himself. and i was just like ?!?! he does the most random things i swear.


people surprise me. im still getting to know alot of people in hall. and everyone's just so different, with such diverse backgrounds and interests. like that night i was in zhebin's room, checking out his music. his indie collection surprises and delights me, thus i kidnapped his ipod and ripped all his songs, and new music always makes me happy :D but while we were talking i found out about his backpacking and roadtrip adventures and his travelling plans and even though he says he's never really ventured out of southeast asia, i feel like he's seen alot more than i have. because of the way he travels, and the way my family does. backpacking lets you see alot more of the country for what it is, instead of simply the magnificent structures and attractions that glorify it. and tonight we did closing to john mayer on the speakers (: it surprised me that jianjian appreciates john mayer, and that his favourite is split screen sadness, now i see him in a new light.

and its time for some john mayer.

Something's Missing by John Mayer

I'm not alone, I wish I was.
Cause then I'd know, I was down because
I couldn't find, a friend around
To love me like, they do right now.
They do right now.

I'm dizzy from the shopping malls
I searched for joy, but I bought it all
It doesn't help the hunger pains
And a thirst I'd have to drown first to ever satiate

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
At all

When autumn comes, it doesnt ask.
It just walks in, where it left you last.
And you never know, when it starts
Until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart.

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
At all

I can't be sure that this state of mind, is not of my own design
I wish there was an over the counter test, for loneliness.
For loneliness like this.

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is

Something's different
And i don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is

Friends, check
Money, check
A well slept, check
Opposite sex, check
Guitar, check
Microphone, check
Messages waiting for me, when i come home, check

How come everything I think I need,
Always comes with batteries
What do you think it means

How come everything I think I need,
Always comes with batteries
What do you think it means

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:33

Friday, September 28, 2007

this is for ella,
because i was just overcome by this sudden bout of nostalgia after reading her blog archives and i miss the girl :( this was at the airport at 1am, the day of her leaving, so excuse the red noses and red eyes.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 14:16

kentridge hall, dinner&dance!

our table, pirates of the carribean!


my sixth floor darlings, huilin and joyciee.


zhebin!


deoo! he was the happiest character in the room that night i must say.


hughug buddy, laura!


neighbour across the corridor, yiling!


shiyun and godfather!


baozhuuuu! i miss her!


joel, my mortal!


daniel, my other mortal! (cum adopted angel hurhur)


johnny-whoosh!


peixun!


jaaaaa (:


tinkerbell deborah!


and jocelyn as wendy.


weliam! chong liang shui jiao hahaha.


sixth floor girls, faithie huilin and wendy.


turtle and shredder, xiaowei and kuanthye!


huilin, master!


the turtles, so cute right!


monster eating me.


pageant cblocker, emily!


left-dimple, right-dimple!


the main attraction at our table, jack sparrow!



yay so those were some hall bash photos. im going to go get more of the other blocks, like the best-dressed table! haha arent the costumes insane, lots of effort! yay okay more photos to come sooon.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:52

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

okay im getting too absorbed into hall life again.. even though its the recess week! ive missed a million calls from my almost-best-friend, and today i finally remembered to call him back. but hey, he always forgets to call me back anyway so that just makes us even, right? and im always disappearing halfway through msn conversations, im sorry people! because people come by the rooms and then i get distracted and run off. (and its partly cos of the wonderful stability of the internet we get here) aiyaa, this is not good for maintaining friendships :( i should make it a point to randomly call up someone everyday simply to catch up. and moving into hall sure has my phonebill skyrocketing within the first month already :(

poo left today, and i did the stupidest thing. but nevermind lets try and forget that. sigh, i feel like a terrible friend. we met up for the last time that day at dempsey, where we sat at my favourite cosy spot tucked away in a little corner, with the black chandelier and velvety curtains. it has been too long, since we last met up and had a proper conversation. its like we took a backseat in each other's lives for these last seven months, and it was just work and trying to fit in all the new things that post a-levels presented us with. i wish we made more effort though, i wish i tried harder. instead of just getting swept away in the novelty of work and school and new friends. im missing poo already, partly because there's so much that we havent said to each other yet. i still have the letter sealed up in the blue envelope in my bag, im going to have to get it to her some other way. at dempsey, halfway through our secrets and stories i had to start work, which kinda sucked (one of the rare times, believe me) because we could go on hours and hours catching up.

"so, its just the two of us now.."
hurhur this was christl and i hours after poo left, sitting at the airport starbucks, lamenting. but i guess we could take comfort in the fact that neither of us are alone where we are. but christl might leave, and for her own good, i hope she does.

at least i have hall to keep my spirits up! and work (: there's so much to say about hall, i dont know where to start. lots of things have been happening, the hall bash and the dinner&dance. im going to get the photos up soon, but its so much easier at home from a desktop. and just now we had an informal maf celebration on the rooftop with sparklers and lanterns and mooncakes, of course. and my room is really starting to take shape, feeling more and more comfortable in here, with new bedsheets and more photos taking over the empty surfaces. my sixth floor neighbours are the best (: i miss them much when they leave hall for home for a day or two, its just oddly quieter than usual. and laura is my hughug buddy from the fourth floor! shes gone the entire week though :( that day in the lounge, her phone started ringing and i thought it was mine. and that same expression came over our faces, how do you know that song?! yes, calendar girl, stay alive. oh what a pleasant surprise. now i know who can give me new songs i so desperately need on my mac.

and there's also cheer and dance, which im still trying to fit into. its like, for nine years of my life ive not ventured out of my comfort zone, which was gymnastics, and suddenly im thrown into something quite new, although similar, and there's that uncertainty and uneasiness. like when we were doing trustfalls off the stage that day during our first cheer practice.. and then the debrief by ja, which really did remind me so much of gym, how we work our asses off for a whole year just for that few seconds of glory. and for dance we had dance supper, which was interesting enough, the halloween costumes.. culture night is coming up, and its going to be the first dance performance if we decided to participate, and im feeling a little scared and unconfident (not like thats anything new). but this time, teammates are different, a new environment with new people to provide me with the kind of emotional support that ive grown so dependent on with my teammates. okay xinyi, be independent! its about time to anyway.

dempsey's feeling a little different lately. there are new people, another new batch of scoopies. new people to train up and get used to. the other day a lady recognised me from greatworld, "oh you transferred here? youre from great world right?" which made my day (: but there are always the annoying ones still, like the guy that insisted that us charging service charge was against the law. but its nice to know that there's always people to shield you from these annoying people because bob immediately helped me call edwin out! and we had a dempsey outing on monday, im so glad our No Reservations outing eventually did materialise! even though people who were supposed to be there didnt turn up! like janice and edwin. hahaha janice didnt even dare to call me la. hurhur weetiong thought it was an R(A) film, i have no idea why. weetiong's everyone's favourite uncle on the block. the movie was alright, its like you notice more things that go on in the kitchen, because it happens in our own kitchen too! and after that we went for supper, but.. its too early for supper! because typically dempsey supper is at 2am instead of 11pm haha. then those without transport roamed the streets for awhile, before sharing a cab and going from west to east in one ride, resulting in a cab fare of 51bucks. thats a record, i reckon.

i kinda miss the earlier days of dempsey, when everyone wasnt this tired. and after closing and cleaning up, we'd just sprawl on the couches and blast music, just chilling together. now everyone's just anxious to leave. but i guess its bound to happen, as the dempsey crew keeps expanding, and people begin to come and go, the faces of dempsey ever-changing. it becomes a little less personal. inevitable, so just accept it and move along now would you please.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:45

Friday, September 14, 2007

ella's gone :( to the beautiful city of london.

how we cried so hard in our sec4 year, when comps were near and our nanyang gym careers were about over, our four years of being teammates drawing to an end. and how that seemed so tragic at that time, though we went on the next two years on the same island, in the same jc, still in the same sport. and now its taking it to a whole new level, a different country, a different continent. its been seven long years of good times and some bad, and its going to be odd, different, that she's gone for such extended periods of time :(

the car ride back from the airport was calming in some way, driving and driving for what seemed like forever, from changi to yishun to serangoon to bishan to outram and finally nus. i love cruising the roads at night, so smooth and unrestricted, so empty and hence somewhat comforting as youre left alone with your thoughts.

in the days leading up to her leaving, we've danced, and taken dance videos that were amusing. we were so surprised to see her at the dance studio, just hours before her flight, but at least that means shes finished packing which is an achievement i must say. christl and i made her a christl-and-xinyi obsessed diary, in which we wrote down the day and dates for the next 366 days (yes its a leap year next year, i noticed it when i wrote till the 31st of february) till the end of the one year since she's been gone. i hate how we're always so last-minute, we suck :( which led to our one hour hiding out in bk, trying desperately to complete the book, instead of spending those precious moments with her, sigh. her flight got delayed till 3am, and even with no car ride back and school the next morning, it just doesnt feel quite right saying goodbye and walking away. no closure, without the hugs and standing there as she walked through those glassdoors with a million backward glances and waves.

like when peibei left, even when the stress caused me to break down the night before, i still had to cab down the next morning, for that final farewell. somehow saying goodbye for the next six months (at least) at the holland v taxi stand doesnt feel proper and complete. people are leaving, uk-bound mostly. some of my closest friends, but i guess this is the point where we're all embarking on our various different paths, branching out in various directions, and yet what's going to pull us back and keep us together will be the glorious past we've shared (:

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 05:02

Monday, September 10, 2007

birthdays are only special because of the people that make it special. like for the past few years, i can remember all the little surprises that ive gotten, and all the people that made them happen. im really glad for all the people that ive had with me, especially for the past six years. this year, there has been so much change, so many new people ive met, from work and from hall.. and in the relatively short time ive known them, they've all become so dear (:

the first people that celebrated for me were my florist friends back at bpp! i didnt think theyd remember, after all ive "deserted" them for bnjs and "i dont want them anymore" (its not really like that okay!) but they still got me a cake and may specially printed the golden "Happy Birthday" sticker on the gerbera with much effort i can imagine. doing it on a single petal of the rose is difficult enough for me, let alone the gerbera where the words span so many petals! :\ and then they tricked me into doing a bouquet for an order, because its been so long since ive wrapped any and i DID want to do one. but lo and behold, today at bnjs when i was in the office debbie started shouting for me from the dipcase and TADA i see the bouquet that i wrapped myself! hahaha those sneaky people! so in the end i did a bouquet for myself, but they wrapped my favourite toy around the handle, the one we tried to keep in the store by recommending others to the customers everytime they lay eyes on him.

then after supper when we went back to hall, i unsuspectingly lingered outside the lounge with the supper people when heixinyi opened the lounge door to the sound of the Happy Birthday song! wah i really didnt see it coming at all okay. and then when the lights came on, 80% of cblock was in the lounge! (: then there was that silly strawberry game :\ that weliam is always very excited about hahaha. and balloons from my favourite sixth floor "aunties" :D :D (only because they call me the baby of the floor) then in my room i had a little treasure hunt to locate all the little notes that the sixth floor girls hid for me in my room! i could be sherlock holmes! i just couldnt find one of them which faithie hid underneath the mattress! please tell me who would look there hahaha. theyre all really sweet (:

and today, was supposed to be an uneventful day. sleep, and then work, and then home sweet home. but at 9am in the morning, very noisy intruders came into my room and in my semi-conscious state i found a bowl of pancakes on my bed and three hazy figures by my side. my teammates, my loves! they made me breakfast :D pancakes (enough to feed the whole of cblock i bet) with maple syrup and jam, baked beans, black pepper ham and scrambled eggs! wah what a spread right. i was so terribly sad on wednesday night, that i couldnt go to spend christl's birthday with her, and i thought this was the year when we were going to break tradition and not spend ANY of our birthdays together, but surprise surprise! they told me of their early morning adventures, waking up at 5am and making pancake batter and realising that christl's house does not have any butter (whose house doesnt have butter, tell me! hahaha) and then dabaoing everything to poo's house to continue with the cooking process. then getting lost in nus and trying to break down my room door hurhurhur. and poo drives! i walked them to the carpark so that she could send me 10metres back to my hall haha.

then i came to work! i figured it would be the best way to spend time with my dempsey darlings. maymay and nana charged in, LATE FOR WORK, with a bagful of orange roses and fragile things (: (: and because ive been a good girl, ivan gave me a birthday present! work was awesome, because most of my favourite dempsey people were working, and no matter how long the shuttle bus got, we could handle it! plus chipbeng specially came down with chipbee, ahh these longlost relatives. and then when it was time for closing, uncle samuel started playing his mambo jumbo soundtrack, much to everyone else's dismay because he has apparently been playing it every single night during closing. they should hide the cd in the microwave too, like what we did to francis' cd of sappy love songs. then he'd start getting high, start dancing, and telling customers things like "oh we have coffee, tea, but no me!" all of us immediately crumbled in laughter the last time he said it. xinjian (or should i say jianjian haha) is right, over here the uncles are more hip than us scoopies haha.

we toook ages to close up, and just when we were all packing up to go off for supper, the way we intended of chilling and celebrating, the lights went off and there was a cake! and not just any cake, but one specially crafted and designed with the manutd crest, credit to chef jude :D its funny, it seems in one day ive become manutd's most avid fan. i got three manutd shirts/jerseys, one mug and one cap! so when we were done with the cake, all of us squeezed into georgie, most of them crammed at the back like a bunch of illegal immigrants with no papers hahaha. food and conversation, interspersed with debbie and xinjian's not-so-subtle flirting with each other, its disgusting hahahaha, in the funniest way possible. they amuse me so. and it was past four, and three of the people at the table were doing opening the next day! such great schedule planners that we are.

so it was homebound, feeling very much loved. what did i ever do to deserve such great people around me (: my friends, you guys are awesome.

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 03:02

Sunday, September 09, 2007

i have the best friends in the entire world.
they made xinyi the happiest girl today (:

too many things have happened in the last 24 hours, i dont know where to begin. but i have opening at 11am tomorrow so i think this update shall wait but.. all you special people who spent my birthday with me today, and those who remembered and messaged, i love all of you!

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 04:55

Monday, September 03, 2007

IM SO SUNBURNT :(
and it hurts so bad, im so annoyed with myself.

i feel like ive disappeared from the real world, and ive just been living in this tiny bubble in nus-land. its really nice though, being surrounded by friends everyday, even when its 3am in the morning, running around to each others rooms. hall life is awesome. but im too tired to think straight so im going to bed now. but people im still alive hello xinyi hasnt disappeared yet. ah but i do miss all the other people outside of nus! please now that you are greatly missed okay (:

xinyi cartwheeled in the rain at 02:51