Some infinities are bigger than other infinities

Wayyy overdue photos from Shirlyn's 21st half a month ago at a chalet her parents booked. Was so great just hanging around eating and doing absolutely nothing with a bunch of people I've not seen in ages/never talked to. Just thinking about the pork belly in the steamboat is making me hungry now too goodness.

Finally caught The Fault in Our Stars yesterday and now I'm finally a normal teenager who's seen it. The book > movie by waaaaay more. Not that it didn't leave me crying throughout the movie or anything, it just didn't portray the love story as well as the book did. And even though I'm getting mighty irritated by everyone posting the bloody quote on infinities on Facebook/Instagram, I'm mighty in love with it too :')

Also finally tried Tim Ho Wan yesterday with all its Michelin star amazingness and whatnot ('cos Kenryu and I are both complete laggards when it comes to stuff like that) aaaaand I'm not impressed. My mother makes better carrot cake.

Kenryu casually slipped it in that he had Coco while in Urumqi and how it was the best milk tea ever, leading to 5 mins of ''I TOLDJOO ABOUT IT FIRST HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME I'VE NOT HAD IT IN FOREVER I TOLD YOU IT WAS AMAZING WHAT THE HELL'' And that led me to searching up their stores to see if they would have any in Malaysia or somewhere near by.......... and it turns out they have a store in Chinatown. I basically lived 2 years here craving Coco day in and day out when it's been within an hour's MRT ride from my house. Not quite sure if I should be mad at myself for not having this thought kick in earlier or if I should just be absolutely glad I've found it. But anyway tracking it down yesterday made both our days even though I don't exactly remember the price and it seems to be something about twice the price of what it is in China.

Emiry's coming over today for 2 weeks and then I'll be headed up to KL for the weekend for some girl time :') Life is indeed looking up.

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“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”

- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Life as a poor human

Finally got round to sending my film (courtesy of Kenryu hehehehe) for processing and I'm pretty proud of myself for not screwing up as much as I thought I would. Definitely deserve a pat on the back for that.

Internship has been as shitty as possible but last night with the Accounting 2 people made the whole week so much better. Even though the week has only just started but yeah. The whole 3 hours felt like we were back in class again laughing at the most ridiculous things with the exception of me being ridiculously late and falling asleep. Also turns out that the normal part of the group got the same grade even though I only turned up for about ¾ of the classes. Again, pat on the back.

With my mom spending all her free time scrolling through the Groupon site and me rushing to get my license before leaving for Spain, I've got my schedules for the next 2 weeks all set, which I'm really looking forward to.

Also 1 more thing to be thankful for: that most of my friends aren't turning 21 anymore/yet. I'm so broke I might need to sell my dog.

"You were so easy to fall in love with.

But

So hard to stay in love with."

Could have beens

Headed down to Gardens by the Bay with this cutie on Wednesday to see the War of the Roses exhibition 'cos I'm crazy about roses. They were reaaaaaal pretty. But there wasn't enough. Did not leave the exhibit as a satisfied human. Half the photos Irene and I took weren't even of roses haahahahahahahahaahahah.





 

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Also feeling real blessed right now 'cos momma came in with a tupperware of cold grapes for me + wants to take me to the market tomorrow to shoot photos + thankful for parents who're so supportive of me going on exchange, helping me with stuff like insurance and not questioning how much more of a hole I'm going to burn in their pockets. Even though all I really do is spend their money and go into crazy mood swings and demand for new clothes.

+ Had a really good time with Shirlyn last night giving each other massages (while grunting), then plopping on face masks and taking a 20 min nap before getting up to peel them off. Hall life is gooood.

 

 

But I guess all this still doesn't change the fact that I need to leave.

I think we can choose who we want to love. That you don't just fall in love like in movies, but at some point you say this is someone I want to love and gradually you fall deeper into it and do the little and the big things for them. 

But I want one that's wild young passionate and free.

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The days have been passing really quickly it's actually pretty scary. Week 11 of school now aaaaaaand things are definitely piling up. Which gets me really excited really cos I can't wait to throw myself into all this work. But I'm having some serious issues focusing, especially with all the planning for exchange. It's more or less confirmed now and I'm glad I know at least some of the other 5 who are going + they all seem like pretty cool people so that's great. Sliiiightly worried about finding accommodation that's gonna suit everyone and planning trips that everyone will be okay with though. I can't even settle on a list of top 5 places to go to. It's more like top 20 for me. 

- Planning for my internship is also getting frustrating. There's always this thing about interning for a small company where I ^think I can learn quite a bit vs. interning for a big brand like Conrad. 

- The weather has been ridiculously hot so my eczema is going wiIiIiiIld. Please stop.

- Been to MBS twice in the past week with Irene to see iLight and War of the Roses. Walking through the hotel reaaallly makes me miss travelling and staying in a hotel. 

- Having new epiphanies everyday - like about how I feel about Europe/family/what went wrong/what I expect of myself/what I need to do

 

There are so many things to fix I don't even know where to start. 

Recess week is a lie

This is the last day of recess week, which of course is a huge lie fabricated by the universities because nothing has happened that has put the "recess" in recess week. For 4 out of the 9 glorious days of 'freedom', Noel and I took some kids from the Strisuksa School in Roi Et, Thailand out for a tour in Singapore. I have to admit that we couldn't stop questioning why we'd ever agree to do such a thing, especially on our recess week when we could be somewhere on a beach in Bali instead. But it turned out to be pretty worth it, with the highlight being the last day at the airport when things turned to becoming this major photo-taking session + we had a really good time with our other volunteers which we wouldn't made been able to do without. I guess we never really realised how much of an impact we could make on the kids - even though I'd yelled at them that very same morning about being overly tardy. So now I have about 30 Thai teenagers on Facebook being their usual teenage self, updating their statuses just about every 45 mins. It's rather heartening though when they put up photos of the trip, post statuses about how much they miss Singapore or drop us a message saying thanks and that they miss us. That said, Noel and I are still going to think twice before accepting anything like this again.



Anyway, ever since dance and this Thai tour, I've been moping around trying to tie up bits of my resume and cover letters to get sent out because the deadline iscoming up reaaaaaaal soon. It feels like I'm slowly losing track of time and any sense of direction at all again. I feel like I'm just working on mundane crap day in and day out - until I wake up one fine morning and realise I have school tomorrow. Slightly excited to develop my negatives though and see if I've captured anything this time hahahahahahahah.

Some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.

- Cora Carmack

About a week or so ago, I took the 4hour long bus from Singapore to Malacca where I stayed with Yinmin for 3 days. And boy, did I get fat.

After a whole ton of consideration (trust me, there was a lot.), I've decided to post up 10 most significant photos from the trip. Okay either most significant, or the ones I like the most. Same thing anyway.

The first night, we had seafood dinner at Portugese village. The food was so good I couldn't be bothered fiddling with the settings on my camera, and as such we have no photos of the food from that night. Yinmin and I set off a sky lantern after that with all our wishes for the next semester and... the rest of our lives. So it was stuff like good grades, health and prettier hair.



On the second day, we did tons of touristy stuff like visit heritage sites and eat tons. Pretty sure the eating part isn't really a touristy thing though. Anyways it was really nice walking around because Malacca's just too pretty. I loved this pattern on the floor that was right outside a church.



After that, we walked through  streets where the walls were this amazing red and came across a really cool art gallery. While it was tempting to grab a piece to decorate our dorm room, we figured it really wasn't too wise to blow 3000RM on a painting for a dorm room.



This was by the Malacca river which we planned on walking along. Until we met a bee and ran all the way back.



The temples there were beautiful and all had intricate designs on their walls. One thing I loved about Malacca (besides the food) was that there were so many patterns and little beautiful designs all around.



The little sculptures and figures along the roof tell a story, or so Yinmin says. It's pretty hard to imagine how meticulous the artists were.



At the A Famosa, a Portugese fortress.



To wrap up the second day, we had a really, really good dinner. Those who say that Malacca has great food is absolutely correct. I was a happy child that night. 

After this, Yinmin and I went for satay celup where you sit at a table with a boiling pot of satay sauce. You grab the sticks of raw food (mushrooms, fish tofu, sausages, fish maw, fishballs, crabstick, etc) bring it back and stick them into the pot for them to cook. Best. Ever.

Yinmin and I have decided on a challenge the next time I go to Malacca to see who eats the most sticks of food. That'll be interesting. Very interesting.

The next morning, we had the best Bak Kut Teh ever. It was so good I bought packs of the seasoning for their soup back. We also had pig trotters which were just.. amazing. Anyhoo this is the man who does most of the cooking of the Bak Kut Teh. Its also him before he got slightly unhappy with me for poking around his stuff with my camera.



We headed to Yinmin's grandmother's house which was in the kampung and had tons of stray dogs around. One really golden retriever was actually blinded by a snake ago and that got me all emotional.



 

It was so peaceful in the kampung though, a huge contrast from the bustling city life in Singapore. In fact, most of Malacca was like that. Little high-rise buildings, plenty of nature that isn't planted because of the government's orders and great street food.