Darah Up!

And so I have abandoned my plans to hide in cafe in order to minimize costs, instead opting to have a lazy day at home. Seeing how last night’s family gathering ended way past midnight thanks to a private screening of Night at the Museum 2, I was enjoying a cozy sleep in (it was 1pm) in bed when suddenly a thunderous roar of motorcycle engines woke me from my slumber.

Apparently the wedding downstairs must be one between a Mat Minah motor, judging from the rounds of revving engines, tuneless honking, and the shouts of “EH AH EH AH!” that came with the entourage of tattoo decorated Mats on their bikes. Now, sounds like the Gamelan, Dikir Barat or even off pitch karaokeing from weddings I can tolerate (and even appreciate), but what these mats are creating is simply called NOISE. Bising lah begok, aku nak tido kau faham? Kalau handsome and motor lawar takpe jugak… Ni motor setotet-let, kau nak step buat wheelie ke ape ah. Cis!

Lucky the Gamelan cum Kuda Kepang group came along just in time to chill my darah yang sedang membara. Ok back to sleep hehe.

Pulau Ubin.

Recalling that the last time I went to Pulau Ubin was around one and a half years back with The Totots, I asked Kal if he would like to pop his cherry with regards to the island, as well as accompany me in my quest to take pictures using the LG Viewty Smart (thus all the photos in this entry has been captured using that phone).

Always being the supportive boyfriend (and who can resist a free pass to Ubin kan? haha!), we donned vibrant colors and headed towards the ferry terminal next to Changi Village after spending a bomb at Daiso stocking up on props for the ‘photoshoot’ (chey macam faham wakakaka).

So we hopped aboard the bumboat at the cost of S$2 (one way), after waiting for 12 other passengers who would share the journey with us. Yup, the bumboats at the terminal does not have a specific time interval. Rather, the Ahpeks will wait until the headcount is 12, and then head off. So if it’s a slow day, I’d reckon you have to wait there for 30 minutes as compared to 5 minutes on another day.

Grabbing a mountain bike each ($2 – $10 per day, depending on the make), we headed off into the hot blistering day towards Che Jawa. As we were there on a weekday, the roads were rather empty and many of the shops that were usually manned were closed. Also, the last time I went to Ubin with the Totots, we headed the other way and did not even end up anywhere near Che Jawa, so I thought of breaking new ground :P

After cycling around in circles (tak bedek.. serious salah jalan kwa kwa kwa), we finally reached Che Jawa after 30 minutes or so. Left our bikes at the bicycle park (don’t forget to ask for a lock from the rental shop!), and walked around the whole area of Che Jawa, from the Seaside Boardwalk, to the Mangrove Walk and to the Visitors’ Center area.

At the seaside boardwalk, we chanced upon a group of English tourists and noticing that they have a super duper cute toddler amongst them, I sneakily took out my bubble blower (Daiso!) and created bubbles in the air, automatically attracting the child wakakakaka pandainye aku.

Unfortunately I did not really like how the photos turned out, so… well, at least I made a new friend hehe!

From the Seaside Boardwalk, we made a turn to the connecting Mangrove Walk, where we chanced upon dozens of flora and fauna (wow so long since I last used this phrase! haha!). At the viewing tower (sadly rather badly vandalized but silly adolescents), we even chanced the above praying mantis looking for a cool shade from the burning day :)

Spot the Ancient Native! (Yeah see what one day in the sun does to my skin?)

Our last stop, the Visitor’s Centre, was rather pathetic in the sense that the exhibits don’t work. A quick check with my mom showed that they have in fact, not been working since last year. Hmmmm? Hello Singapore (Ubin? Haha!) Tourism Board, not nice you know you have things like that?

Suffice to say at this point, half the day has passed and we were so damn exhausted. However, I really wanted Haikal to try out the Mountain Biking Trail (which was at the other end of the Ubin hehe) and despite his hints to go home, we perservered and finally reached the location.

Sadly, I had a bad fall 10 minutes after we started (fell sideways off a slope, landing on thorny bushes which cut the back of my elbows, legs, tore my favourite pink pants and twisted my ankle, all the while whilst the bike was on me, so I have bruises on the front too! har har), and from then on we just cycled quietly throughout the rest of the trail with me trying not to grimace too much as I stubbornly showed Haikal where the Totots and I went the last time round.

Happy to report it was worth it, as I see Haikal going “weeee” up and down the slopes, and being very jakun at the correct places <3

As the clock struck 5, we slowly made our way back to the main Jetty so that we wouldn’t miss the closing time of 6pm. Had we been there a wee bit later, I think we would be in a bit of a trouble as by the time we reached the rental shop, the guy had everything closed and packed, and was just waiting for our bikes to reach. Phew!

Got on the bumboat (last boat is at 11:30pm I think, but don’t quote me haha) and weee!-ed all the way back to Singapore where we had our expected Changi Village feast :) Oh, much thanks to my cousin Anz who lent me her jeans because I couldn’t possibly go home with a gaping hole at the back of my pants hehe!

Awesome-st day in a long, long while! Thanks Bie for accompanying me in most, if not all, of my blog related events. Having you next to me and supporting me really makes everything worthwhile :)

School! School! School!

YAHOO! Opened my mailbox today to see my official “Welcome to NAFA” letter! Was expecting school to start in July, but it actually starts on 30th June! This month! Me! School! So exciting! And I’m writing with many exclamation marks because I cannot wait to start utilizing my brain again! Haha!

And I should be buying a notebook to help me with stuff! Heavily considering getting a Macbook Pro, and am now wondering if a 13″ will do fine, or if I should invest in a 15″. Got difference?

LALALALALA Alhamdulillah :)

Mohammad Nasir’s Wish Day!

Last Sunday, the Make-A-Wish kids and I were over at a McDonalds outlet somewhere in the east (east side ramai mat minah eh?) for Mohammad Nasir’s Wish Day. Wish Day is basically the day where the Wish Kid gets his wish granted, and will have the honour of having a party thrown especially for him.

And as for the Wish Granters, Wish Day is basically the day when all of our hard work gets paid off! For Filziee, who was the Wish Leader, all the time she spent organizing and liaising, giving orders to Helmy, myself and the other helpers, would finally be worth it when the party goes smoothly.

For myself, just seeing the poster and postcards that my brother and I designed together on display was a really thrilling experience, and even more so when I got a few compliments about it :) Makes me even more excited to start schooling at NAFA this coming July! Wee!

Oh, Oh! And I even have signed up for a course on PHP and HTML coding with Uncle Sha, to be held on Sunday mornings! Am feeling very excited that I am actually going to start learning things that actually interest me, as opposed to “2 to the power of n is the derivative of the equation of x squared multiplied by the root of the tree in front of your house”. HAHA. Doesn’t make sense right? Welcome to my world of getting F9s for Mathematics.

Anyway, we were kind of worried before the guests arrive as Nasir is a rather quiet kid and we were unsure that the guests (who were mostly adults as opposed to kids) would actually join in the games that Helmy had planned. But once they arrived, and we were greeted with whoops and hollerings, things went as smooth as my legs when shaved using Veet. HAHA!

The makcik on the left in the above picture was the best! She was so havoc with a striking wild streak of competitiveness and I daresay definitely made the party a whole lot livelier than we ever thought it could be. Pushing and pulling (not rough la) other contestants, laughing in a very contagious manner and even gamely wearing a bikini made of toilet rolls, she stole the show hands down :) Caya sama lu la, cik!

Personally, the funniest part of the day was when Nasir was made to open his gifts. His wish was to get a laptop, so when he opened the first red box only to see a soft toy and a drawing kit, the disappointment on his face was MAHA BESAR (super huge) hahaha!

Disappointment quickly evolved into pure happiness when the second box revealed a spanking new Toshiba laptop :) It might be worthwhile to note that facial expressions of the people around him to evolved to one of envy, including the face of yours truly wakakaka!

It was without doubt a really great experience, and it was good to know that Nasir is surrounded by family and friends who care alot for him and are a whole lot of fun! As we said our goodbyes, I could only pray for some form of miracle to happen, or for God to lessen the burden carried by himself and his family, Amin :)

As for me, I fell in love with someone new on that day (sorry Bie)…

CUTE KAN?! I SUKA BANGET!! HEHEHEHE *ketawa miang*

All pictures courtesy of Fiza!

Family Day!

Before I begin this entry can I just whine about how that silly little fall I had at Pulau Ubin’s Mountain Bike Trail yesterday evening has been causing me much inconvenience? It was a small fall down one of the slopes (of which the bike ended up on me instead of the other way round), but somehow, I managed to get a sprained foot, a blue black mark on my thigh, countless cuts on both legs and even a tear on my favourite pink fisherman pants :’(

And because all that has left me with practically no mood to do anything but to sleep the pain away, this entry will just be a compilation of the pictures that whoever was holding my camera at that point of time took during the family day event for my Dad’s side last week!

Surprise birthday celebrations + an endless supply of good food + karaoke with the bestest aunts  and cousins in the world = Contented happy Faddy :D

Busy Busy Busy.

Barely had three hours of sleep before I realized that I am SO backlogged in my Make-A-Wish to-do list. Finally finished doing up the graphics for the poster and door gifts which is much better then the previous final draft, and I quite like it, but still has room for improvement :P

Now to send them to the printers, frame them up, get my room organized and prepare the other small stuff for tomorrow’s Wish Day. See lah, do last minute now I’m in a rush kekeke. Have a good weekend kids!

Forgetting Each Other.

This wonderful thing that I  share with Haikal has finally won the coveted title of “Longest Relationship Ever” :’) We will be reaching our second year anniversary this coming July (Insya-Allah), and even though back in Secondary School everyone would think that it is a big feat (even three months was considered a breakthrough!), at this age I know that two years is nothing and we still have many, many more challenging years ahead of us.

That being said, I am in no way belittling the past 23 months that I have him by my side. Every morning and night, he is still the first and last voice I hear, he is the one I seek for when I need companionship or a shoulder, and he is the only boy I know who will gamely break into a number when I request for a song at any single time of the day.

I still have the hots for him as much as the first day when I laid eyes on him at Vivo while I was queuing up for some free Ben&Jerry’s, and I still love him as much (more, even) as the time I received the sms where he was asking me to be his.

But sometimes, when we both get caught up with our own lives, like our work, our friends, our own self-aspirations or even succumbing to our laziness, we tend to forget and take the other person for granted. Haikal and I know this very well, and yet, because we’re human, we always overlook the subject at hand and create a mess between the both of us.

For some people, the solution could be going out for a nice dinner date, or having make up you-know-i-know, but for Haikal and I, we walk, talk and take photos.

Which was exactly what we did last Saturday :) The afternoon was spent watching Sinetron with his mum in the living room as the rain poured in torrents and when it finally subsided in the evening to reveal a perfect weather for walking, Kal and I waved our goodbyes and set out into the Sembawang sunshine.

It was a cheap, tiring day filled with walking around from one place to another, but zomg was it the perfect-est day ever! All the walking reminded me of the times Haikal and I used to prowl aimlessly around when we were dating, all the talking kept me updated about this boy that I have given my heart to and all the photo-taking gave us ample opportunities to capture the beautiful moment that we were sharing at that moment <3

I love you very much Bonpet :) Let’s make this last forever and ever and ever, let’s make this last forever!

Three Mats, a girl and a Man U match.

It has been MONTHS since I went out properly with Fitree, so it was a good surprise when Haikal turned up for our date last Saturday with Fitree in tow :) Stinky and sweaty from their soccer match in the morning, they had travelled down to the east side to pick me up from my Make-A-Wish meeting.

We spent the afternoon walking around Tampines to check out the Uniqlo jeans (unique meh? like same only. I still prefer Cheap (ironically not so cheap) Monday), and afterwhich just hung around for a while to see Anz in action at her flea market.

When evening beckoned, as with the other 1001 soccer fans, we headed down to the Singapore Flyer where Tiger was holding a live telecast of the match between Manchester United and Arsenal. Being the claustrophobic person that I can be, I felt quite disheartened for a moment when I saw throngs of mats and minahs with their motorbikes, as the Redbull Motocross event was happening there at the same time.

But after giggling when seeing Haikal looking so disappointed that he didn’t get his balls in the hole (see above pic, what were you thinking?) and making small talk with Fitree, the crowds dispersed from my mind and we joined everyone else under the big tent as the match begun.

For the first half, we were unable to get any seats due to the fact that we arrived a few minutes after kick off. Standing behind the VIP area, it was rather irritating as people kept walking in front of us and blocking our line of sight etc. So when half time came, we made a move and…

…Bagged seats smack in the center, front row. Power kedegak! We could even see Jean Danker’s upskirt (k tu part bedek)! I am not much of a soccer person, in the sense that I still don’t understand how a person goes offside (True Story : “Bie, ape tu term tu, offline eh?“), but I am ok in the sense that I don’t fall asleep, I get excited in the moment, and I LOVE washing my eyes with all the gorgeous hunks running around in their short shorts.

On a sidenote, it being a Tiger event, of course Tiger Beer was sold in full flow throughout the whole area. Although it was hilarious seeing the AhPeks get drunk and with their red faces scolding the Tiger people when their drinks were not delivered fast enough, it was also quite depressing seeing people of my own dunking the drinks one after another without a care of the makcik-makcik tudungs standing next to them.

I know I myself am no angel, but erm ntah it’s just my pet peeve. Ok next!

When the soccer match ended (yahoo Glory Glory Man United! (kes terpaksa support diorang or risk getting bitch slapped by the boy)), the boys and I headed out to the Padang to get a taste of soccer ourselves.

In between running around chasing the ball and just strolling on the field, I managed to get some talk time with Fitree. I think it was the first time this year that he actually told me stuff about himself, and I daresay that 5 minutes of talk time reminded me so much of the few years back when we became online friends, gradually became close friends and to where we are now.

Dude. Gue kangen sama persahabatan kita. Gue rasa seperti udah lama gitu kita enggak berbicara tentang dunia. Gue dan Haikal, loe dan Sandy, kita keluar sama-sama secepat mungkin, bisa?

Be Thankful for what you’ve got.

My family’s in a bit of a financial pit right now, so I have decided to cancel my Jakarta trip in order to help them out. Can’t deny it was a reluctant decision (it was a self birthday present since the trip’s in August), but I guess I was being rather selfish splurging on holidays back to back, taking cabs around and patronizing restaurants ever so often when my parents are struggling to make ends meet.

I have always had this mindset that by giving my parents the allocated amount I have set aside for them monthly, I have every right to spend the remnants of what I have on whatever I chose. How wrong I was.

Simple maths tells me that my dad’s decreasing pay (no bonus, no increment, no overtime, forced leaves etc) coupled with younger brothers who now incur higher education costs and an unstable economy would equate to the family having less to spend. To add to that, mum’s rented shop has barely managed to cover overheads for the past few months ever since rental prices have been doubled and two other competitors sprouted up in the same area.

Until I had a talk with her the other day, I was blinded to the fact that the parents have much less to spend then what I initially thought. For the first time in 15 years, dad and her have now decided that they would need to downgrade to a four room flat from the current five room that we are living in. Knowing how much dad loves the flat and was unwilling to move out even though mum has been suggesting it the past couple of years, it became apparent to me how bad the situation we are in currently.

Feeling guilty at my own excessive, exorbitant spending and lack of attention to the family’s well-being, I decided that perhaps it was time to revise my financial planning. As the eldest and only employed child in the household, I feel that the responsibility lies in me to help them tide over this time of economic crisis until things get better.

To add on, while counting my savings, I realized that at the current rate I am going, I will not even have enough to cover the cost of an average Malay wedding (the current rate is $20 000. Twenty effing thousand. That’s another entry.) even after saving for 5 years. Don’t even get me started on how the hell I am to pay for the degree that I am planning to take.

Goodbye shopping sprees at Borders/Kinokuniya/PageOne/MBH, goodbye twitching cab drivers cursing at other vehicles when they themselves are in the wrong, goodbye dashing waiters serving good food and goodbye monthly short getaways. I will definitely miss all of you :’(

Nassy Baby.

A last minute ring up which led to an outpouring of stories which lasted well over two hours :) One-on-ones over a cup of coffee (or juice, for the lactose intolerant, like I am) are always the best when it comes to catching up, yes?

Thanks for the night, hun!