technology

recently i've been toying with the idea of getting a smaller laptop, for a couple of reasons. the first being that i'm becoming rather annoyed at how noisy the fujitsu's fan is and second, it's becoming real troublesome to lug it around when i need to zip in and out of the office (which is becoming quite often). 

that said, i'm not sure how far i'll explore the idea although it is very attractive. a smaller and very much lighter lappy would save me from prematurely spoiling my body from the stuff that i carry (plus hubby2be would highly approve of it as well). the more affordable price of 'cute' lappies are definitely a plus, though i'd need to get a screen for my work desk so i wouldn't develop back aches from peering at the teeny screen in the office. ok, the screen's not so teeny. a colleague's hp lappy actually has quite a wide screen and enough finger space on its keyboard for comfortable and efficient typing. 

at the same time, i was marvelling at how in the span of 5 years (or even less), lappies have shrunk in size, modems, RAM and disk space have exceeded capacities over the space of months and the prices are falling faster than the release of the next generation of macbook. (haha.)

so while this ardent pc user is still contemplating a possible new 'toy' (technically, it's my work tool), maybe you might have a say if it's worth the trade (and the ergonomics). it definitely doesn't help that overtime, i develop an emotional attachment to my lappy. however much i complain about it. 

happy!

(: almost wanna jump around the room with joy after hearing from hubby2be how God provided for his S.F.'s trip in less than 2days!!

explored chinatown a bit and am very pleased with my new green shoulder bag and matching floral top.

tomorrow i can finally see the easter production that hubby2be has been working hard at. yes, he's acting in it! after i sabo-ed him for an audition :P his many late nights and long afternoons at rehearsals are finally going to be staged...

the week to come is yet another crazy week with dance pratices and a lot of other work. i'm looking forward to working on the wedding invites. heh. 

not so looking forward to hubby2be's departure on saturday, but i'm excited for him and the team. blessed easter everyone!

my crazy week ahead

today marks the beginning of a very busy week, (make that busy month). with the next 3 days filled with dance practices and meetings, i'm hoping i'll be sane enough and without dark circles around my eyes for friday's photo shoot. 

at the same time, hubby2be is so busy, i'm waiting to see how God will provide for our various needs (: speaking of which, very thankful for yesterday. after lunch with the worship team, our friend turned to hubby2be and offered us the use of his 2nd car (which is usually used by our friend's bro, who happened to be out of town). which was really cool, cuz it allowed us to go to ikea to check out furniture in the huge downpour, view a couple of flats and go around a few estates to suss out the 'feel' in our bid towards house hunting. 

we're gonna look for a 3-room flat now, instead of a 4, so that we can settle in our preferred estate. pray for us! (: hopeful, and feeling very blessed...

i am...

working outside in the morning and hoping the splitting headache i woke up with will go away. 

excited but nervous about the choreo session later in the afternoon. it's street jazz/hip hop, something i've always wanted to do but am not sure how it'll turn out (good i hope). at the same time, realising that my sneakers are now talking to me doesn't help. hopefully the ones on my feet now will make do for today. note to self: go shopping. 

stressed about work, the unforseen demands and expectations suddenly placed on me, which i'm finding a bit hard not to feel that it's unfair. 

wanting to go shopping but am afraid i'll splurge after having abstained from it for the past 3 months. 

wanting a good swim.

looking forward to wedding shoot next week.

wishing the new office email won't crank up on me again and give me a near heart-attack.

wanting to kidnap hubby2be from all his ministry commitments and disappear at some beach/park for an undisturbed picnic, to not think of anything and just enjoy each other's company. 

hoping there'll come a day i can eat chips and brownies and ice cream at leisure without ever getting fat. fat hope. 

in less than 24 hours

it's been almost a month since my last post. no particular reason i think, but the desire to write/blog evaded me somewhat...the times i did want to write, the lappy was in the office. :P

this morning i woke up to a sharp pain in my right lower abdomen. the pain became increasingly acute, i couldn't ignore it even though i tried to fall asleep several times after. unable to tahan after 2 hours, i woke my dad to bring me to the doc. it was 715am. i was afraid it would be appendicitis :(

what happened for the hours at nuh thereafter consisted of having my blood taken, being placed on a drip and in a freezing observation room. i had to wait till i could pee too, for the urine test. it was an interesting experience though...

i don't know how much blood was taken from me, but after that (and painkillers being administered to me), i was super giddy and light headed. during my time in the obs room, i saw a guy who had been beaten up pretty badly, an ah-ma who complained of spinal pain after falling at home a few days ago, a man who had possible kidney stones and an NS dude who had hyper-ventilated after doing push ups in camp. for a while, i almost felt like i was in a drama serial set in the hospital, without the make-up seen on most on-screen patients :P

while i was really relieved to be out of the freezing obs room, it was disappointing to not know what was the cause of the pain. 

"right now, it could be anything...your tests are normal (so it's not urinary tract infection). it might be very very early stages of appendicitis, but your body can't respond sufficiently yet. what we'll do is check that the pain is gone, and tomorrow you'll need to go to the polyclinic to double confirm that it's not there."

oh well, i'm just glad to be home, without a one-and-a-half inch needle stuck in my hand. 

the night before was rather eventful too! i went with k. to my trial make-up session and the first thing that struck me was the interior design of the studio. if i'm more into make-up, i think it would be quite the haven for such girls. so as it turned out, i marvelled at how make-up is really such an art (with the incredible palette of colors, brushing and blending techniques), requiring the fine skills of a steady hand like that of a surgeon. i was highly amused to see how i looked with so much make-up on (fake eyelashes!!) and with curls in my hair for the first time too! k. was similarly amused to see the dramatic change in how i look. though i was keen to find the best look that would suit me, i was also quite concerned i didn't end up looking older than the (also youthful looking) hubby2be. the make-up definitely made me look more my age. 

at this point, i'm wondering what kind of processes Queen Esther went through in her months of beauty treatment to up her already very fine looks. i was there for 3 hours and i became fidgety halfway through :P i guess there's always a first in everything (: 

a saturday at home

well, almost. i had to go out to buy ingredients for the cheesecake i was gonna make.

it was quite an eventful couple of hours out though. went to try on cheongsam at this shop in holland v. which left me wondering how much trouble i should go to in finding a suitable piece for tea ceremony. the colors and designs were too mature for me to carry off. anyone got lobang? (:

the rain prevented us from leaving phoon huat later though. was really grateful hubby2be braved the showers with my tiny umbrella to retrieve the van from holland v. carpark. his jeans were soaked through as a result. :P if there's one thing he dislikes, it's having his jeans/pants stick to his legs from the rain. so hubby2be if you're reading this, thank u again, for the sacrifice!

i was really excited to use the mixer d. so very kindly gave me. it definitely made making the cheese mixture much easier; i mixed it manually on my first attempt at the cake and boy, my arms had quite a workout! i tried an oreo version too, so hopefully it'll turn out good. am now waiting for the mixture to set. 

didn't quite know how to respond to grandma throughout the day when she increasingly became worried about my living arrangements after marriage, should we not get a flat before the big day. while i knew she was concerned, her unwarranted worries made me increasingly irritated :( *sigh* ok, maybe not all were unwarranted. but still...more than i could tahan...

anyhow, shall try to not let it get to me... thankful for the day spent at home. looking forward to tomorrow. 

desirables

thelittlehappyshop-it really has so many pretty pretty things...i only wish their prices are more affordable...

oh i absolutely love this bag!!

future

yesterday a colleague suddenly commented during a train ride, 'Wow.....you're getting married in 5 months'

ya...and...it feels weird. As in...there's no 1 word to collectively describe it...especially not when

• we haven't gotten a house yet and will only start hunting end of the month
• ministry is slowly but surely picking up and is starting to fill the calendar
• money is disgustingly something one cannot shy away from in a getting married
• i gush over friends' uber cute and adorable babies but don't want my own till 2years later cuz i'm selfish and want hubby2be for a while to myself (and the thought of becoming wider in the hips frighten me)
• the thought of walking down the aisle feels very very surreal
• it seemed not that long ago (yet not that recent either) that we were still figuring out if we liked each other

i almost wish i could stretch out the 5months to 8 months...just so i can really savor things without life rushing by me. 

5 more months of single-hood! *gasp* 'single' according to the law la...

XW: eh, let's plan to have babies around the same time. i'll have a girl, you have a boy (or whichever) then they can grow up together and marry each other next time ok? hee hee...bethrothing our kids before our own marriage! :P blame it on the hour of the night k? ;)

P.S. on a separate note, thank you all dear friends, for caring for me in different ways during this period while i grieved over grandpa. i'm better now... *smile*

facing the pain within

this morning i woke up feeling the worst i've felt since i got news about grandpa's passing. felt like i needed to bawl like mad, but i had to get ready to leave the house for planning retreat. felt so tight in my heart, like a dam was about to burst, if only a crack in its walls would appear. wasn't sure how i'd survive the entire day either, even though i only had to be there for the morning. 

so when P. said he felt it wasn't right that i'm there sitting for the meeting when i'm obviously hurting, i couldn't hold my tears back any longer. having had to blink back hot tears throughout my journey to the retreat had been hard enough, but i wasn't sure i could meet anyone's expectations to engage well in the meeting that lay ahead. so thankful i was graciously given the day off, and unloaded the first avalanche of tears as they prayed for me before i trooped off to spend time on my own. 

i didn't think i would be in a position of delayed grieving, but i suppose the mirade of activities and people during the wake and funeral stuff played its part in me stuffing away how i really felt: apply leave, take care of grandma, serve guests drinks...

i think i wasn't prepared for the pain grandpa's death would bring either. the late morning spent at east coast park journalling memories of him that came flooding in, dealing with the shock of pain and the wave of tears that accompanied it...it's quite a process i guess. the good, the bad, the wishes, the regrets. 

i miss him, even though he missed out on half of my life due to dementia. the first half of it more than makes up for it i guess, cuz even though he never said 'i love you' (being a man of few words), it is without a doubt that i was deeply loved, so deeply loved by my grandpa.

dealing with death

i'm sorry, but this is gonna be yet another post related to death. guess grandpa's passing has evoked a multitude of thoughts relating to the issue. even as i prepare to write this, i'm trying to decide if i feel guilty about not going to collect grandpa's ashes with the rest of the family later, just cuz i need the time alone. 

it was very surreal at the crematorium yesterday. just a couple of weeks back when the staff family was there for Uncle Sank's funeral, i had wondered how it'd be like when the time came to send my grandpa off. i wasn't aware how soon that would be, or that we would be using the same hall for the pre funeral service. 

to watch extended family members say their goodbyes was odd. i wonder at myself, as it seems like i'm rationalizing so much of it, or maybe even, to try to ensure i'm theologically correct in my grieving process. it could be the previous experiences during my late maternal grandparents' wakes that caused this. but it's interesting i must say, where the fine line is drawn between religious practice and chinese cultural (possibly religiously influenced) practices and beliefs. or it could just be how we cope differently with death. 

saying 'bye bye' to grandpa feels weird cuz he can't hear me, and his body's a shell; his soul is already with God. dad telling us to not tearfully linger so long before grandpa's coffin is covered, to "let him rest in peace" felt odd too, cuz honestly, don't think grandpa isn't at peace. he's at the most wonderful place there is! so much of it was our way of coping...even his niche that will be at the columbarium in FMC's basement...it'll be nice to visit it with such ease, but what does one do there? or think? 

maybe i'll be spared these questions if we had just followed biblical times of burying the dead in some cave and allowing the natural decomposition process to take place. now, do i want to go collect ashes or not? hmmm...maybe i don't want to feel all moody and teary anymore...