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15 July 2009 @ 10:02 pm

.

New layout yeahhhh. So, I've been busy! I've started work at nparks. I'd say the place is okay, and I'm always doing powerpoints. I had my first major meeting today, with all the ~high ranking people~. It was an important meeting, naturally it was a bit nerve-wrecking, and considering the fact that it's only my 3rd day there. Ah, I'm really worried that I cannot handle all the things to follow-up after yijie leaves. omgomgomg I'm so bad at being the 'secretary', I suck at organising in general, I'm going to suck so bad on the job boohoohoo :( I'm not having enough sleep! Hahaha, I know technically sleeping from 11-6 is generally normal and more than enough, but ahhh, I can't make do with such little sleep! Hahaha, I still have 5 1/2 more months to go.. Shit.

Anywho, lol what, I just received an email from Leeds saying 'Preparing your arrival in Leeds'...

Tags: job

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01 July 2009 @ 12:38 am

EPIC CAMBODIA POST 1

AH I'M BACK FROM CAMBODIA, almost more than a week ago. I am so glad that I went for the trip, I still remember wanting to give excuses like there's H1N1 and I've another 'new job' lol taking temperatures at the airport and so on. But wow, I DO NOT REGRET IT AT ALL. NOT A SINGLE BIT :) I love Pom Chan, our lovely church compound/hut, Tola, Prey Kong Peng, the caretaker's family, and the kids! Lol, and Wan Yuan's favorite Didi (Tola's kid). Most of all, I loved the awesome awesome team! :D

The reason behind this late entry is not that I'm lazy (maybe a little), but mostly because I don't really know how to arrange this whole entry, whether I should do a picture spam that I usually do, or a really wordy essay (with a lot of grammatical errors) because I'm great at rattling on and on and on and on and on, you get what I mean.

Haha, that's Tola and Didi! Tola was our super nice driver who bought us very special food like, lotus pod?, fried crickets and fried tarantulas, spondias with chilli powder, and drove us everywhere! He picked us up from Phnom Penh, to Prey Veng, and to our village, and back to Phnom Penh for the weekend, and back to the village, before hitting Siem Reap (which is a freaking 7 hours ride away). And we take his van everyday out of the village to go to the town market, where we also eat damn awesome and oily breakfast, soup noodle, fried noodle and ICE COFFEE MILK, ANGKOR COFFEE RULES.

Before going to our village, Tola drove us to the town market to show us what's it like there. To be quite honest, I had the most terrible culture shock. Inside the market, it was dark and kind of musty.. And outside, there was a whole pile of rotting vegetable, poultry, fish, whatever, everything. Very putrid-smelling. But I kind of got used to it after a day or two hahaha. Lol, for the whole time we stayed there, we only ate vegetables and pork, didn't touch fish or chickens at all, because it was kind of gory hahahaha. Oh the chickens at the market are actually quite cute! They just sit in these huge metal basins, very obediently, and cluck all day.

The sugarcane stall. VERY NICE. But we got cheated the first time. The original price was 1000 riels per pack, equivalent to a quarter, but she charged us 4000 riels per pack, which is a dollar! Lol but nevermind, the drink was very satisfying!

The first photo I took at the village of the kids. See that two adults there (cha zhe yao de), that's Channa (striped shirt) and Routana (yellow shirt). And the many many many kids.

Unflattering photo of him, but let me introduce to you our homeboy, CIM! :D Super cute! I love him hahaha and he always calls me Mud! He's so cute la, he even tried to pull him back to his home while walking back from the school. EEEEEEE I LOVE HIM!

And these two are my super camwhores hahaha. Everywhere I go they would ask me to take photos with them. I have like 23049871340987 photos of them, seriously hahahaha.

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In the paddy fields. Ahhh! The place was so beautiful, though there were red ants all over and cow dung hahaha, the paddy fields so green, and the sky so blue.

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Hahaha, they really do love the camera.

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Anyway the kids. They are really really different from the kids in Singapore! They're really friendly, and fun-loving, seriously. They always come to our compounds to play with us, or just accompany us and nua together. Everytime we walk past their huts, they would wave very excitedly, they made me love them so much. Lol they have ridiculously high pain threshold also. I remember, on the first day, there was this baby, maybe a year old? He had cuts CUTS all over his body, very deep cuts, because he fell out of our hut, I don't know how but that's what the villagers said. We helped him to clean his wound. At first he was so scared and terrified, he didn't even dare come close to us because he knew we wanted to clean his wound. Siang Hwee cleaned his open wounds with an alcohol swab. WTFFFFF. He didn't even cry at all!!! Hahaha, we were super amazed. And wincing at the side because we know that should hurt like shit. Oh. I don't know if it's a tradition or anything, but the babies there wear nothing at all. Up till like they're 4 or 5? Then they will all roll around in the sand and have fun. That's probably how they have higher pain threshold?? I don't know. Hahaha.

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This is the crab that the kids caught at the paddy field! They love catching crabs and frogs there, and love to throw them at us too hahaha. They threw the crab into our hut lol. Omg and haha, we were quite traumatised by Kan who threw the frog onto the ground. It just landed with a loud splat. We got to walk in the paddy field also! Very squishy and hahahaha, comfortable. The kids will try to pull us into the paddy fields sometimes for fun, like that super clingy and naughty girl who likes to bite people. But they taught us to wash our feet in the field when there's red ants on our feet lol. We ventured out a bit on the first late afternoon, then the kids kind of stopped us from venturing further, saying KER-MY, KER-MY (that's how it's pronounced haha), which means ghosts lol. Their parents told them that there were ghosts so that they wouldn't venture too far out hahahaha.

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There's this duck farm in the middle of the paddy fields. They're so noisy! They just quack and quack and quack. It was quite funny because Aaron said 'SHHH' and they really did quieten down a little!

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We woke up on certain mornings to catch the sunrise. Hahaha, Hong Yu, Xiao Xian and Linh always forgo the sunrises for more sleep! We will never forget that Xiao Xian misses the sunrises in Cambodia hahaha ;) The 3 little pigs and Siang Hwee the da ye lang!

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(wichi)KAN! He's the kid that stays in the other hut on our compound, aka the caretaker's kid. Super cute also! :D

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Whenever it rains, we will all be in the hut, but all the kids still in the rain playing. Hahaha, Zhi Yuan and Julie will always be tempted to go play with them!

Anyway, after the rain, the ground would become like super muddy. I think these raining pictures were from the second day. After the rain stopped, team A left the hut to visit the school and Prey Kong Pang. It was soooooooo muddy. We borrowed Channa's motorbike loooool. AH I rode on the motorbike for the first time in my whole life! Shit it was damn scary! I probably like damaged Wilson's ears along the way or something. The roads were muddy, and full of holes, it was ridiculously bumpy! So we went up and down and bump here and there. AND THEN, we tried something even better! Driving the Cambodian way! Pin Qi, Wilson and I, all three of us on the bike. HAHAHAHAHAHA. We went into a few mud holes, even burnt the side of our calves on the exhaust. Of course, we were completely covered in mud. Hahaha. For the rest of the journey to the Prey Kong Pang (the other village), Pin Qi and I were barefooted, soon Aaron joined us. So unfair la, Wan Yuan was super clean, no mud at all. Not even on her slippers! Complete complimentary hahaha, I'm full of mud, she's clean of mud :)

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Ah Prad, can't remember this name, Kan and Jong Brum!

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Hahaha ok I love this photo, like freaking ass cute. Jong Brum jumping with us! :D

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asd;flkajskfjpoi cute cute cute cute cute.

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Oh this one is funny! Hahaha, reason behind why the two faces are blur is because the moment I took the photo, Ah Prad pushed the two of them to knock heads together! Hahaaha, but alas the shutterspeed..

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Lol, the Lion King sunset in real life. Chyeah.

But anyway, I don't have many photos from the first week because I got attacked by the kids because they wanted me to take their photos. It was literally like tug-of-war. Quite scary, but it's in their nature to be slightly more physical. Another reason would be that my camera was too bulky, very hard to bring out when doing the construction. Shall wait for the construction photos to stream in from others.

Ah so we built toilets and mend roads there. Hahaha, the first day of building toilets was full of lols. We were super unskilled, be it mixing cement or laying bricks. Only Ying En can build properly! Okay, so sadly, but being our first time, we only built the second layer out of the five layers haha. OH and we witnessed the two pigs at the villagers' hut been taken away to be sold in the market! GAH THE WAY THE PIGS SQUEALED SCARRED US FOR LIFE. Lol at first we thought they were only taking one of them away, we actually took a silly video with lame narration but anyway, they took both away :( The pigs were super duper 'bull-like', like, they could literally ram us to death with the energy they had :/ And they tied them to the back of the motorbike. After a while being tied on the motorbike, the pigs stopped squealing, kind of like ren ming already. I don't think team A will ever forget our longest 10 minutes in our lives! Hahahaha. We were standing/squatting there looking at the skilled workers do their thing (laying bricks), I asked for the time. It was 10 minutes. After drinking loads of water, helping Pin Qi find 'outlets' hahaha, mixing batches of cement, singing songs, I asked for the time again, thinking quite some time must have passed since we have done quite a lot... it was... TEN TEN. All of us almost went cra-cra-crazy. Hahahahaha. That was the longest 10-minutes in my whole entire life, trust me. (Linh just told me that the 'soursop' we had in Cambodia was not soursop at all. It was SWEETSOP. HOW CUTE IS THAT?!) Other than building toilets, we mended roads too! Hahaah the road that me, Wan Yuan, Siang Hwee, Adele and Ying En mended was quite successful! :D Got quite a few vehicles test test, no more holes leh! After that, some of them went to play with the children at the field. Wan Yuan, Aaron, Ying En and I decided that we didn't have enough physical energy to play with kids that we continued mending the other side of the road. SDFKLJAHISDFJHi they were all based on illusions lol. It's like MILO DINOSAUR. Think it's dry on top? NOPE ITS FREAKING MUD IF YOU STEP INTO IT! Then you will sink in like quicksand lalalala, and you covered in mud again! Hahaahaa, my whole nike shoe was covered in mud. But it's looking really clean now, and I didn't even wash it. The mud just dried and dropped. Oh also, the road that we mended went back to its original condition already, because it started pouring lol. Sighhhhhhhh. But it had its glorious hours!

One of the funniest/strangest incident at the village was my disappearing new slippers. After the first time walking in mud in my quiksilver slippers, heartache eh! My slippers started disintegrating and it felt like it was breaking. So the next day, Claudia went to the market to get me a new pair of slippers so I can preserve my quiksilver one. Too small. Okay. The next day, I went to the market to get myself a pair. VERY HAPPY OKAY. Wore it for about an hour around the village, before leaving for Prey Kong Pang to join team B to build toilets. So I changed into my nike shoes. I came back. MY NEW SLIPPERS WERE GONE :( :( :( Disappeared without a trace! The next day, they had to buy me another new pair of slippers hahahaha. SAD.

I'm like referring to my journal I wrote there, and there's this statement. AH I'm so amazed by Routana! She was wearing a top, long pants and jacket! And she didn't perspire! That is SICK. Lol. I'm impressed by their heat threshold tooooooooooooooo. MY IT WAS SWELTERING THERE. Which brings me to the topic of the intense heat in Cambodia. I literally felt like I was having a heatstroke 24/7. Almost. Even at night. Lol. Hhahahaha, anyway, Wanyuan, Ying En, Pin Qi and I are mat buddies in the hut. We're like the most interesting mat la, we even come up with sleeping formations to make sure that everyone's under the mosquito net so poop doesn't fall into our faces. (AH THAT GECKO SHITS SO MUCH, AND IT STINKS REAL BAD TOO) But anyway, I love you Ying En for fanning us to sleep every night in the village. SARANG HAE! HAHAHAHAHA omg I feel so bad la! But it's still funny to think about it. Everyone should know that I sleep-talk but anyway, I mumbled at night, I'm SO HOT!. Ying En woke up and started fanning me. Hahahaha. I'm so sorry! And I always toss and turn at night, wake up and find myself in very awkward positions, keep bumping into Wanyuan and Ying En at night. I'm so sorry for the sleepless nights my dears! This is why I sleep on a queen-sized bed at home, because I think I will roll off a single bed.

Let's move on to the bugs in Cambodia. They have the Air Force (mosquitoes, crickets) and Land Troopers (ants, cockroaches). Pretty usual, you would say. Dang, but this army is full of fierce fighters!!!!! Lol, Wanyuan counted. Just on her legs, she had 80++ bites! That's intense man. And the antssssssss. My goodness. We were starving one day, we decided to open my very nice pack of cookies. Eh, no holes or anything leh. Very nice and complete pack. We opened up. SHITLOAD OF ANTS INFESTED. There wasn't even any holes before that!!!!! Like they literally bit a hole in the cookie wrapper! SO FIERCE and they're just the ordinary black ants we see in Singapore. Like woah.

Okay, I still have a lot to say actually, but I'm kind of tired already, rattling so much. I shall talk about the bathing time the next time :D And, this marks part 1 of the Epic Cambodia Post, which is kind of the first 5 days in Pom Chan. Hahaha.

Tags: cambodia

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04 June 2009 @ 12:11 am

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Seeing these pictures make me smile :) Time really flew, didn't it?

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02 June 2009 @ 04:56 pm

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Supper at Lau Pa Sat last Saturday to celebrate Van and Ed's birthdays! Hahaha miss you guys so much :)

Anyway other thing, wtf, NTU has not replied regarding my application, and, acceptance period is obviously over lol. I called them up, they simply said I would receive it by this week. It's not the appeal letter that I'm waiting for, it's the 'acceptance or rejection' letter. I wonder if there's any other applicants in the same situation as me. Pei Li and Adeline both received already, and Charmaine said NTU has sent out the last batch of letters already so uh, I'm missing out obviously. But anyway, I've applied for ANU, and I'm probably going there! Which is kind of awesome too, because I might be able to do a double degree, arts and music, which is cool, though I'm still kind of apprehensive about the music part. Well we'll just see how it goes along, if all goes wrong, at least I'm still in their Arts programme.

EXACTLY ONE MORE WEEK TO CAMBODIA! Exciting!

Tags: uni app

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06 May 2009 @ 12:43 am

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Ha, what can I say.

Lol there's like some consistency now. Whenever it's something got to do with university apps, my icon is always dearest FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

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30 April 2009 @ 12:40 am

I'm gonna miss Centerstage

Totally. Libby and Imogen are really nice people. Like super nice. And oh man, the kids are freaking adorable, such darlings. I'm going to miss everyone one of them :( Can't believe it's the last day tomorrow!

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25 April 2009 @ 11:54 pm

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DON'T YOU THINK IT'S VERY WASTED TO GIVE UP MUSIC FOR PSYCHOLOGY??? WHY ARE YOU CHOOSING PSYCHOLOGY OVER MUSIC???

Lol I felt so emotional after the interview.

Tags: interviews

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23 April 2009 @ 11:10 pm

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I want to audition for the role of a Mascot in Universal Studios Singapore.

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20 April 2009 @ 06:05 pm

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Lol I'm going to stop that silly job in May, for sure. Either that or she's going to fire me before May comes. 'Are you still going to continue to work here?' THANK YOU, I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS CUE MY WHOLE LIFE, NOW I CAN QUIT EASILY THANK YOU THANK YOU. Of course I'm going to be jobless for a while, but I've got to find another by May. Which is tough too, firstly because of the Cambodia trip, I'd probably be taking a lot of days off, and I have piano on Thursdays. Then and again, it seems like it's a tad late to find a job after I come back from Cambodia. :/

The saturday morning job is coming to an end too. Best paying job ever. Love it. Sure hope I get to continue it next time!

I finally got an interview. Scared, but excited most definitely. Ahhh.

I still miss Korea. Hahaahahahaha. I do.

For some reason, I can't stand seeing my lj without any pictures or photos, very weird.

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03 April 2009 @ 09:00 pm

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I'm in Korea now! Yong Pyong Resort to be exact, lol, that's where they filmed Winter Sonata. Freaking ass cold!
Cute photographer is cute! And, everyone in Korea's like fashionable and all. Hahaha, so out of place.

Tags: korea

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