Cookout!

From Left to Right: David, Ash, me, Jono and Ezra!

Today was fun. The best RSVP team on the planet finally got together for the first time since the 21st of March. God knows, I missed them! We had so much of fun, what with lunches and daily ogling sessions at Decanter, making silly jokes, discussing our various relationships (mainly Ezra's :P) or the lack, thereof.. It felt like we'd known each other for years, instead of just for 3 weeks.

Anyway, we finally had the cook-out we've been wanting to have for the past couple of weeks or so. God, we made so much of food for 5 people, it was unbelievable! Haha.. 2 types of spaghetti (arrabbiatta and my own "experiment" with dried prawn chilli paste), grilled chicken ala Ezra, fresh garden salad and ice cream with Hersheys chocolate sauce for dessert.

Woooh!

Talk about an endorphin-releasing meal :P Anyhow, it all turned out pretty darn well.. Although it's a shame.. I forgot to remind Jon to take pictures of the feast we whipped up. Sigh... Oh well. There'll be a next time!

It really was awesome to just lepak with the gang again. Hopefully we'll see more of 'em.

I think I really will invite myself over for tea at Ash's next week :)

Of Stress-related Silliness, and Cuteness

This is what folks do when they're stressed senseless :P

We went to see Mr. Bean's Holiday last Thursday. God, it felt good to laugh my head off after a month of little sleep and plenty of stress. I absolutely loved the opera scene. Rowan Atkinson at his best, methinks! :)

I started this one night when I absolutely could NOT sleep (methinks it was remnants from the "an hour of sleep is sufficient" days.. lol). Me and Jono finished this 1000 piece jigsaw in 13 hours. We is proud of us, we is! :D

This is Cutie #1 - Ryan. He's the eldest of 4, and a real smarty-pants. Gotta wear glasses though, poor kid.. This is what too much PS2 and computer games does to you.. :P

Brandon! Cutie #2! The Burposaurus! Haha.. That bit's my fault, actually. I told them a story about a kid who kept burping so much he turned into a Burposaurus at Christmas, and til now Brandon-da-man can't stop acting like one. Sigh.

Ooh! This is my little darling Ethan a.ka. Datuk a.k.a Cutie #3! Boy, does this kid have a mouth on him! He'll cheek you no end if you let him.. And more even if you don't! Haha.. He still loves messing up my hair. Naughty boy! He's got one thing in common with his brothers, though - they're all typical Fernandez men: totally NOT morning people! :D

This little rascal is Ashley (Cutie # 4). Or better known as Mak Cik (aunty). She is the master of staring down her nose at someone, and she's not even 3! But when she warms up to you, she's lots of fun to play with AND to talk to, coz you just never know what'll come out of her mouth next! :)

Ah yes. Mak Cik also likes looking at pictures of herself. Which is why there're more of her than of the 3 :)

And finally for the cutie of the week.. *drumroll* Cosmos the Chihuahua (I think my aunt has a sense of humour when it comes to doggie names :P) He's also known as Cos, Cossy, and "thilly dog" :) He's a real scaredy cat (sorry, Cos, I meant dog..) but he's the cutest thing ever! And he loves cuddles and pets. I just love the little tongue sticking out like that.. makes him look even cuter! :)

The Past Month...

These pics kinda sum up what's been going on in my life for the past month or so..

At the Jetty.. We didn't spend as much time as we would've liked this year, but it was til worth every second spent there! One of the best places in the world to be, I guarantee!

Finished off our last CNY in Malacca with our once-annual trip to the Renaissance hotel. This is a bit of yee sang tossing - for good luck, apparently :) Don't believe all that, but I gotta admit, it's quite a fun dish, that - if a little sweet.

After CNY it was off to work for Aunty J and Uncle F. Wooh. And I thought that work would be easy.. From the above pic, I think you can see it wasn't! Hell, I'm working in Coffee Bean! How much more out of sync can life get? *shudders*

This pic was taken in Decanter.. a restaurant that's on the floor below where we work. If the office was our second home of sorts, Decanter was surely the third! And not just coz of the food either! ;) With waiters like Abu and Floppy, it was worth every extravagant cent.. Hehe *grins wickedly*

The culmination of our 3 weeks of late LATE nights and hard work.. See what we get as a reward? *sighs* Terry called it a "hideous curtain". I guess that says it all! (A low budget airline wouldn't hire us in this!!!)

Finally.. A night out with the Malaysian er.. branch?.. of the Insanely Saners :) I can't believe I hadn't seen them in 3 months! Haha.. Their reaction to my hair was - "OMG Elaine - your hair!" Ya ya.. I know it's gone all strange and blonde-y. Don't have to look so shocked though..

This is us in the Laundry Bar at the Curve, after pigging out in Italiannies, right next door! Hehe.. I was lucky this time 'round - got me a Long Island Tea for free! :) Was great just chilling with the girls. We definitely should do this more often - and next time we'll dance for more than 5 minutes, thanks! ;)

Okay, that's it for now.. I gotta get back to work :)

Love y'all!

Listen...

Listen,
I am alone at a crossroads
I'm not at home, in my own home
And I tried and tried
To say whats on my mind
You should have known
Oh,
Now I'm done believin you
You don't know what I'm feelin
I'm more than what, you made of me
I followed the voice
you gave to me
But now I gotta find, my own..

I Can't Make You Love Me

Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don't patronize - don't patronize me

'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
Here in the dark, in these lonely hours
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no you won't
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

I'll close my eyes, then I won't see
The love you don't feel when you're holding me
Morning will come and I'll do what's right
Just give me till then to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight

'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
Here in the dark, in these lonely hours
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no you won't
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

Waterworks! :)

I've been such a sad case lately.. Lol.

You know what my latest phase is? Don't laugh...

I cry every time I see old couples who're still in love *looks sheepish*

I mean, it's just so touching! All around us, we see marriages breaking up after a couple of years..

Then this little old man comes along who's still so in love with his little old lady that his face practically glows when he talks about her, and the adoring look on her face as she gazes up at him... And you think, "what do they have that's so special, it's lasted through all the trials that come with marriage??"

I don't know, to me it's just a testament to the power of love. It can be done, folks.

So why do I cry, if there's hope in the longevity of love?

Probably coz in the deepest corner of my heart I know that someday, when I'm old and ugl(ier) and have pure white hair (if I have any left, that is!), what I would really want is to have the man I love look at me as the darling old man who received an Oscar just now looked at his wife as he thanked her for loving him all these years, just as he loved her.

*sighs dreamily*

All righty folks, I'm gonna go throw away these tissues and then I'll lie down and imagine for a bit that that sorta love will someday be a part of my life forever!

American Idol's Back!!!

It's official, folks. The girls are better than the guys by a MILE. And I love Simon Cowell, I do! Nice voice, he's got. Lol...

Oh, but I am officially a Nick Pedro groupie :) Haha.. Any man with a smile like that, who sings "Now and Forever" (Richard Marx) in such a sweet, sincere tone TOTALLY gets my vote! Haha..

Nicholas Pedro.. Wouldn't say he's my choice for American Idol, but whaddaheck! He's one darned adorable dude! :D I love that dimple!!! Makes him look cuter than ever..! :)

Nick Pedro again....Pity they don't have a pic of him smiling *sniffles*

Here's another cutie - Chris Richardson :) Funny, he was in my dream last night.. Huh. I have the strangest dreams, I think! :P

Heehee.. Again!

Hey peeps...

Er... this is another quiz. Lol. I'm sorry! I'm just real bored, is all!

So do it if ya can okay?

Thanks guys.. y'all rock! :D

http://www.quizyourfriends.com/quizpage.php?quizname=070225022701-420596&

Quizzie!

Hey people.. Do this quiz for me if you have the time :) I'm seriously lacking in entertainment right now so.. yeah. Thanks a bunch!

http://www03.quizyourfriends.com/quizpage.php?quizname=070222070201-223512

The Final Trip

The last Chinese New Year in Malacca is over.

*sobs*

I can't believe it ended so quickly. We'd been looking forward to it for ages, and now it's gone in not much more than a blink. There'll be no more after this. I don't think it has sunk in yet, but the next time we go to Malacca, we'll be nothing more than tourists. Gosh, that thought is so sad!!!!! :(

But we did have fun, this last year...

- Cleaning the house like crazy people... I don't think I've ever swept that much dust in my life! But oh well.. anything to make our favourite place in Malacca inhabitable!

- Baking 3 chocolate cakes all by ourselves! (Me, Yin and Ting :D) And it turned out almost as good as my mum's - which was an awesome achievement in itself :P We just need a little more practice to get it right. Whooppee!!

- Celebrated our birthdays (Steph, Sharm and me) with cheese cake [thank GOD it wasn't a jelly cake with a big pink angel on it like last year!] and a couple of drinks at the Portugese settlement nearby. There was an awesome DJ playing there, but no one was dancing! We wanted to, but we were only allowed one drink each, so it wasn't enough to lose THAT much of our inhibitions..! :P

- Had a whole lot of Math tuition classes this year, with Steph and I "donating" most of our um, numbers, to the others until we finished 'em all. Poor us. Taught Sheryll how to count, and ended up donating almost all our numbers to her! How sad is that??

- We had 2 rounds of satay celup this year!!! We figured that since we don't know when we'll be coming to Malacca again, we might as well pig out to the best of our abilities... and we did! I felt like a giant pot of peanut sauce after we finished!

- The trips to the jetty this year were sadly few... But we managed to catch the sunset on the last day there... and it was absolutely beautiful as usual. [Only thing missing for me was this really hot dude, whom I happen to be totally in love with :)]

- We missed the sunrise this year, though... We actually woke up in time for it the first time, but had to leave before it was even bright coz it rained and there was lightning, and we were smack in the middle of the open sea! The second time, none of us managed to wake up in time... Sigh. That was SUCH a waste.

- We also had one last Chinese New Year meal at the Renaissance hotel for old times' sake. It always used to be a tradition for us when my grandparents were alive, but we haven't had it in awhile, so my aunt and uncle from Singapore decided to give as one last treat there... [Thanks Aunty Maureen and Uncle Richard! It meant a lot... Especially since we know that it wasn't a cheap treat by any means!]

I'll miss Malacca. I'm more than sure of it... We had a lot of fun, as we always do, much more than just the stuff I've listed above...

I don't know what else to say, other than I am truly sorry that this part of our history will now be nothing more than a very treasured memory.

:'(

LDRs are so hard.

I don't regret one day of it, but it's times like this when I can't help but wish that the distance wasn't quite THAT great.

From the shop I work in, I can see couples everywhere, walking around hand in hand - today much more so than usual. That IS expected, of course, but it just serves to make me even more aware of the fact that the man I love is so far away, lately in almost all ways.

I wish I wasn't such a sentimental fool. Then maybe I wouldn't be in danger of bursting into tears right here in my workplace, as the sounds of my colleague laughing on the phone with her boyfriend just barely reach me from the back of the shop.

I miss him so much it hurts.

What If...

I was reading something Sandy wrote on his Faceparty profile.. And it really struck a chord. This bit really made me think:

"Imagine how you would feel if your doctor today diagnosed you with a terminal illness and gave you say, two months to live. Abandoning all pretences, all facades, all the acts that we have perfected in our time, how would you really evaluate your life? What would you hold to be the things that were really important to you?"

How many people actually think about stuff like that? It's not something most people want to think about, let alone discuss - heck, for some members of the Chinese community, it's considered taboo to even tell someone how you want your funeral run!

But why are we so afraid to break our lives down to size? Is it because at this point where none of us know when the end is, we're afraid that facing whatever short-comings we have will either force us to change, or make us feel exceedingly guilty if we don't?

Or is it because it's easier to live life clinging to the bliss of ignorance, not only about the world outside our little cocoon, but of ourselves too as people? There's always a possibility we may not like what we see....

I thought about that and I found that what I would regret the most is not having the relationship with God that I most certainly have the capacity for, because I once had it, but now am just too lazy and caught up in my own life sometimes to even think about it. I think it's time for me to do something about that.. 20 is a good time as any to start again.

If I could change one thing, it'd the fact that my quick temper and sometimes caustic tongue has hurt probably more people than I'll ever know. I hate to admit it, but I know that I can be really mean sometimes, and more often than not, the people I love most are on the receiving end of it, and it's not something I'm proud of at all.

But that said, what I hold to be important has never, and hopefully will never, change. My life more or less revolves 'round the people I love - I suppose, this blog is a pretty good testament to that.

And I treasure them more than anything else I've ever had or known, even if I sometimes have a lousy way of showing it. My hope would be that I could, at the very least, say that the people I love know that I do. And to me, that's what counts the most.

When I die, I want to leave behind good memories - those are the things I know I would treasure the most, were the roles reversed. If knowing I loved them could've made just one person happy, then I know my life's been worth something.

And I suppose at the end of the day, that's what all of us really want, isn't it?

Have You Ever Been In Love?

In the morning light
Half awake and half asleep
Have you ever laid there thinking
Was it all a dream?
But you reach out and she's there
Every moment, everywhere
Have you ever been in love?

Have you ever felt
How far a heart can fall
Have you ever stayed up waiting
For a telephone call
Just to hear her say hello
Cause you miss each other so
Have you ever been in love?

Have there been times to laugh
And times you really want to cry
Finding reasons to believe her
cause you'd die a little if she lied
And when in times of doubt
Have you ever tried to work it out
But still she leaves you wondering
What it's all about

And when she's far away
Have you ever felt the need to stray
And tried and then discovered
It just doesn't pay
Cause with her, you can be true
And with her, you can be you
Have you ever been in love?

Have there been times to laugh
And times you really want to cry
Finding reasons to believe her
Cause you'd die a little if she lied
And when in times of doubt
Have you ever tried to work it out
But still she leaves you wondering
What its all about

And when the night comes down
Can you call your house a home
Do you dream you're still together
And wake up alone
Have you ever been in love
The way that I'm in love
Have you ever been in love?
Have you ever been in love?

V-Day Cometh

Love is that condition in which
The happiness of another person
Is essential to your own.
~ by Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land ~

I know loads of people don't subscribe to the idea of Valentine's Day, and I can't say that I blame them - prices are hiked up, it's almost impossible to find a nice restaurant that isn't already fully booked, and it's - to put it mildly - too much of a hassle.

But if the above quote is to be believed, then maybe all the hassle of Valentine's Day is worth it. If only to see the happiness in the eyes of the person you love. You don't really have to do much - just something thoughtful would cut it for most people..

And really, what better way to show you love someone than to do something memorable for them, for both of you? Something that you can look back on in the future and smile because it was THAT special.

If you don't want to buy into the commercialism of Valentine's Day, good for you. But if you haven't let the person you love know how much you love them lately, this'll be a good time to do it - especially if they're not expecting it!

Sometimes it doesn't take much more than a little time and ingenuity to make the person you love happier than they've ever been :)

The Last New Year..

Chinese New Year's coming up next week... I'm looking forward to it, but I feel real sad at the same time.

This'll be our last year in Malacca, since both our grandparents are gone... The aunties and uncles have decided that they'll sell the house this year, after 2 years of postponing it mainly due to a lot of pleading and whining on our part.

I can't imagine a CNY that's not in Malacca. We've been celebrating it there since I was born! That's 20 years of tradition, folks! Now I can understand a little of why older people have such a hard time adapting to change.. It isn't easy at all, having to get used to something new...

And none of us know what we'll do next year. There're are lots of suggestions about what to do and where to go, but I know one thing for sure - it won't ever be the same again!

Everyone goes back to Malacca - EVERYONE. But a lot of the time, it's coz it's like an obligation.. on the part of the older generation, at least. So if we go somewhere else, there's no guarantee that all of them will join us - in fact, I'm pretty sure some would end up making their own plans and skipping the family gathering, if not entirely, then just showing up for a day and that'd be it.

And crazy as it sounds, I'll miss the experience of having 20 people live in a tiny single storey house, with only one toilet and one bathroom. It's always crowded and noisy, with things all over the place, but it all feels.. right. And God knows, when you live in such close proximity to each other it's bound to make you closer. And it has! It really has.

I'll miss the short walks we used to take in the mornings and evenings to the jetty just behind our grandparents' house. And I'll definitely miss watching the sun come up over the calm sea, and setting with the in-coming tide. We had such fun on the jetty... It's a pity we only discovered it 3 years ago!

We probably will be going back to Malacca again, but not to the same house where years and years of memories linger. We won't be doing the same things, or feeling the same way. I can't help but think that it's such a pity....

With the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, the last link to our roots will be gone.

Eye-opener

I started work at the Bridges EIP on Monday. It's a school of sorts for children with learning disabilites, specifically with autism, but most of them have much more complicated conditions than that.

I was scared as hell, because I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And for awhile I was afraid I couldn't handle it..

But you know what?

Sure, they have short attention spans. Sure, it takes ages to just get a response out of them. Sure, some have ADHD and require lots of supervision and stern "no!"s.

But when I looked at them, I didn't see all those short-comings, much as I worried that I would. All I could see were 5 little boys, whose innocence made them all that much more endearing. And every little accomplishment, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, was a joy in itself.

I can't wait to continue.. Those kids give us so much more than we give them, if only we could see beyond the disabilities and into strong little characters who keep on trying, even when it's sometimes excrutiatingly difficult for them to do so.

Tis February..

So dear I love him that with him,
All deaths I could endure.
Without him, live no life.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet ~

More Lim-Cuz Craziness

Sharm, Steph, Yin and I cooked up this meal during our latest sleepover... Potato salad and chicken arrabiatta spaghetti :) [Oh, and David checked on the spaghetti TWICE *applause*] Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Taking into account the fact that we ARE amateurs, of course ;)

Followed that up with a um.. a photo session, in which we were s'posed to be playing Twister. Lol.. Does it look like we are? :)

Mm..

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed,
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

- Lord Tennyson

(And no, Dav.. I just like this a lot. Nothing more!)

Uh oh.

4 days into 2007 and I still don't feel like it's the new year.

Oh lord. I'm turning 20 this year! That's insane, people! Where on earth did all that time go? And I can tell you one thing for sure.. I sure don't feel 20. More like 13, sometimes. How do people adapt to growing up? It scares the hell out of me.

But oh well. 2006 is finally over. That can only be a good thing, right?

Sharm, Steph, Yin and I cooked dinner yesterday (David just peeked into the pot a couple of times to "check on the spaghetti".. Lol.) For a bunch of rookies in the kitchen, we did a hell of a good job, if I do say so myself! And if my word isn't enough, the fact that everything - the big bowl of potato salad, an entire box of spaghetti, and all the sauce - was finished before 11 p.m. is telling enough ;)

Next time 'round, we'll be trying the next on our list of favourite eats - Nyonya food! Although THAT is friggin' ambitions, but... We can do it, I know we can!

Goodbye now, I need to go and let the bro come on.

PS to my darling Wino: Here's hoping it'll be a great year for us.. I love you.