hello world, hope you're listening...
there's someone i've been missing
i think that they could be
the better half of me

crying out love in the centre of the world-- or just the centre of sweden, sort of. it's been a while, it's been mad, it's been crazy, i've got far too much to write and far too little time and memory in which to store it. i hate the way the days slip away!

my fair share of take-cares and goodbyes
(kudos to you, by the way, if you can identify all the lyrics in this post.) a crazy slew of meet-ups in the days before wednesday 19th august. i'll mostly let the pictures do the talking (because i have three emails to send, an itinerary to plan, 2 albums to upload and pictures to organise-- and dance vids to watch!-- oh. and about 7 hours left to sleep). in order not strictly chronological, mainly because i forgot the dates:

i. gladrags!
saturday 7th Aug: rag day!
sis dragged me out of bed to go to nus for rag day since i couldn't wake up. felt damn proud of law after seeing the performance only to be blown away by medicine's :(
then got even more depressed after i was only able to see heads and shoulders and went away after straining my neck lots to chill with sister and friends.

chin's classic line: "*rubs tummy* i'm so hungry. i think my stomach is going to run away and find a new owner soon."


the sister, eating a not-yummy aglio olio.

cheese fondue with many vegetables-- zucchinis and eggplants and mushrooms. not very yummy though
hunted for shoes and guidebook after. former was fruitful, guidebook no (mainly cos i left my vouchers at home. stupid me).

i felt even stupider for not craning my neck a little longer to watch the rest of rag, because the rh one was truly epic-- even on video. AHHHH.

(sat night-sunday was sleepover. i don't know what happened to monday and tuesday, i think monday was the visit to escape/ cycling that never materialised because of the rain, and tuesday... er. we had ahmad's class? to a choreo i couldn't catch as usual :( )

ii. film-garde, touche
wednesday 12th Aug: filming of blast welcome tea video
also day where i missed my last possible trinity class :(:(:(, and also where i caught a glimpse of what dr is going to be like (i really admire pat's choreographic vision, whatever else anyone might say about his playing favourites or whatever. it looks sooooooooooooooo good)
argh and tracy and everyone's going to kill me cos my memory card conspired with my sinister laptop and washed away half my photos. stupid technology :( thank goodness shu en took a bunch of photos. i have only one left-- mainly cos it was saved on another file for printing:

SIGH. ayo, i'm tired of using technology. (ok no, i'm grateful that it exists even with the occasional screw ups)

ii. sister light, sister dark
wednesday 12th Aug, again: a completely last-minute meetup after filming on wed when i realised i couldn't go for trinity's class and huiwen realised she couldn't do lunch or dinner or something the next day. thank you for coming out on such short notice!
went to royals, based on jin's blog recommendations. unfortunately all our pics got murdered by my memory card, too :(:( oh gosh this sucks!

iii. the nette send-off
thursday 13th aug: the epic wait at the airport from 1-ish am with lily lee's craving for popeyes'
and these photos weren't washed away because i used my old camera! whee.
"signs"-inspired, but everyone thought it was from "love actually"

incredibly flattering photo of ben. not. :P

none of us knew what the HEIL was aidil thinking when he got this SS nazi shirt in FRANCE. seriously.

zombified. not a healthy hour

cousins
with the tree

lawyers!

didn't join the guys for breakfast since they TOTALLY drove off and left us waiting at macs fruitlessly for them. bid jiahui and lily lee goodbye and sleepwalked home, literally: i found myself balance-beaming on the road divider with no memory of how i got there. thank god i didn't drive.

iv. devil by my side
thursday 13th aug (day, not wee hours of morning): twerp committee meeting of two. no quorum, no

i was horrendously late and missed 4 calls from the poor twerp, being soundly asleep. but i got to bishan eventually. lunch at manhattan's, no cute waitress that he was hunting for but OH WELL.

oh gosh i miss these girls :(

vi. and i know that you're the kind of boy that makes a girl's mind blow
friday 14th aug: last studio wu class for six months!
far too much toilet camwhoring. not our best shot, but it looks like our happiest :)

studiooo wuuuuuu

ice-cream with an extraterrestial-walker afterwards-- bad icecream plus toothpaste-flavoured milkshake to be exact heh.

vi. working at the carwash we play love games
saturday 15th aug: cleanup session plus concomitant dawdling before heading off to buy more things for exchange
this was also the day that eva trusted about 5 or 6 of us girls with her car-- i think alvan took one look at my expression when jazreel suggested that i drive to get lunch for everyone and quailed, completely. in the end we took eva's car, but also spent some 20 minutes trying to figure out how to start it, and called everyone from esther to kelvin (krystal's) to eva herself. collen is a very aggressive driver. i like, even though yes it was a leeetle bit dangerous at times. just a little :D

oh FAIL my pics for saturday got wiped as well.

vii. son of a witch aka wicked the second
Talkin', talkin', talkin', talk
baby let's just knock it off
they don't know what we've been through
they don't know 'bout me and you
(: 'nuff said.

viii.

rushed off to tpy for grandma's lovingly-cooked and very very yummy nonya chap chye, amongst others. :)

SIGH i'm going to miss these guys.

ahem liren if you're reading this for the following pictures until you've done your 2.4 you might want to skip ahead and not look at them!
feast your eyes!

and more!

moreee.

i know ellen's blurred, but soozey's face is CLASSIC.




happy happy eaters, all.

ix. sisters are doing it for themselvesssssssssss
ah yes my poor abused sister. made her come find me in rh where i was practising busking steps and bits of dr steps with ellen, in the process of which she didn't manage to eat her lunch (EEKS) and then dragged her with me to far east to get my new (and very weird) spectacles and then to parkway to print photos, where we ran into the brother who walked right past me and completely failed to recognise us. stupid brother. p.s. michelle i KNOW you're reading this: i want tapioca chips. bad. ROAR. salt!

x. when i saw-- saw that girl for the very first time
tuesday 18th august: busking, lunch with dance girls, ahmad's class! and swensens supper with family after that
busked at union city, took photos (please refer to fb i'm getting sick of uploading photos using blogger :S), squashed FAR too many people into eva's abused car (i swear my jaw dropped when i saw her boot. it's full of delectable shoes-- including delicious boots and a pair of LV peeptoes AHHH) for lunch at fish and co. thank you girls for the farewell lunch :):)
headed back to school to dawdle a bit and watch fred's senior's item choreo since i was pretty sure i wouldn't get to see it on wednesday itself. glad i saw it-- and that i had the company of the ever-lovely krystal and a dozing collen (haha)too! got tracy's squishy squashy present which i am kicking myself for not bringing to sweden :( and while everyone had dancetitude prac i ran off for ahmad's class and to squeeze a few precious minutes to print more photos. scrimble-scramble all the way to pomo for my last danz people class for six months too. :( at least i finished this package. spent some time with soozey and nicole and-- oh dear i don't know his name-- at macs, after which soozey headed for more rehearsals and the rest of us left. airport supper (service sucks by the way)--






x. wednesday (i'm all out of fancy lyrics and titles)
jin and lilylee came over in the morning to help me pack and-- er-- eat cereal with jasmine green tea, and to deliver cards which are now sitting pretty on my sister's desk instead of being in sweden with me (i am beyond irritated at that). scrambling to write photocards i completely neglected them, and in the end i had to call jinglin to ask her if we could cab down to nus instead of meeting to take public transport. we were still late eeps. by the way, thanks for the "drop dead(,) gorgeous" notebook :)

and now i FINALLY know why krystal was rushing around looking so stressed that day-- when i asked michelle rose she said krystal was looking for her costume. NOOOO it was the nus dance blast shirt wasn't it!! in any case thank you all very very much for it it's hanging in my room and every now and then (think once every 15 minutes or so) i will look at it and read it. oh for the first two days it was HORRIBLE i teared up every time i looked at it, so you guys definitely achieved your goal of wanting to make me cry. but like i told krystal, i already cried in the car-- seeing her half-tearful face as i got in my mum's car was the complete trigger. but THANK YOU all so much. without that shirt-- and without your friendship and care and concern-- i think this uppsala room of mine would seem much less welcoming and homey.

xi. the send-off
maddest rush ever, with 10 minutes to spare between checking in and boarding plane
when it rains it pours. too many things went on at the same time-- issues with my sisters and the whole sending off thing.
no brother, but aunt's here! and i was so tired of rejecting red packets that i just took hers.

lovely people who went to eat popeyes. *hugs-all-but-ray hehh*

and hi ho hi ho it's off to sweden we go (went).

and, because i am sick of organising, this is what i wrote on my laptop during the stopover before it died:
I am now sitting in Suvarnabhumi airport, nursing a low-level headache and some exorbitant eight-dollar elixir egregriously promising health and beauty and wealth and... er... to "pamper my emotion with SMOOTHIE SMILE". what? Really all I want it to do is have it take away my headache. I HATE CRYING.

oh but when it rains it pours; today i found both of my sisters crying. one was upset over a mishap with her laptop (case) and school (i think!), and since welcome tea was overcrowded anyway i spent the time huddled with her and scrambling to finish writing my photo cards (i didn't. damnit my best friends are really my best-abused friends). the other... there are some things i wish no one would ever have to go through the way i did; some emotions i wish she would never understand or empathise with. unfortunately now she does.

and so we grow older, wiser, and a little more bitter.

the cynic in me is rising. it's freezing in here.

blame it on the headache.


what a day. i don't think it's exactly completely sunk in that i'm going to be away for 6 months yet; when ning and ni and ray sent me off at the airport jia ning asked why the heck were my parents' luggage larger than mine; jin and lily lee came over in the morning to deliver cards and eventually to help me (re)pack and made exclamations to the same effect. i am going to have no clothes, and to have to ship back a separate piece of luggage altogether.


ok it's now 11.17am 29th august for me, and 5.17am 30th august for all of you. enoughhh. off to fold laundry-- how very domestic!