New Expectations

What does a new year mean?

It’s like a chance to hit the refresh button. We all wished at one moment or another that we could start all over again. Starting a new year is something like that. Of course we can’t ignore the past completely but we look forward to the new year as if it would erase all our mistakes of the past so that we can start anew. We draw a line at 2007, leaving what we don't want behind. It’s a significant step as we step over to 2008. We want to be harder, faster, stronger, better. It’s rare for a human being to want to stay stagnant and be truly happy with what he’s got at the present. Even if one is content, one would strive to maintain that level of happiness that has been achieved and bring it over to the next year.

It’s pretty much the reason why people have New Year Resolutions. Some people try to buck the trend and not give themselves any because they know that they wouldn’t do it anyway. But isn’t it great to set foot in a new year knowing what dreams you’re going to achieve and what fears you’re going to conquer?

Go do things that you haven’t do before. Dare to dream. Limits and boundaries are placed upon you by people who are narrow-minded. You place those on yourself because of poor self-image. Let go of those because at the end of the day they aren’t the most important things in life. Work at how you want to be remembered if yoy should leave tomorrow. As an old friend once told me, it’s the relationships that you have with other people that matter the most. Everything else is secondary.

Every year, new people enter my life. Some people leave and never look back. It's a matter of cause and effect. Sometimes I welcome them in, at other times I block them out. Seldom do i take the intiative. Usually I react to the dirt thrown at me. I've comitted my fair share of mistakes but thankfully I made more right decisions than wrong ones. I feel great that I've managed to salvage my social life, though I wished it could've happened been earlier. No matter. I feel as complete as I can ever be.

Looking back I've improved tremendously the past year. I've done things that I wasn't brave enough to do previously. I've taken on challenges with regards to managing my finances and although I wasn't very successful in saving, I've managed to fund myself for the whole of this semester with the exception of my lappy! I've balanced teaching tuition and studying (fcuk maths), and I'll continue to do that next semester. I've tried out new sports like Water Polo and Cheerleading. I haven't been outstanding in either of them but I thought it was great that there were people patient enough to show me the ropes. I'll be god-like next year.

Kidding.

Seeing that I'm doing rather well, I think my methods of dealing with stuff will still be more or less the same next year. However I hope to achieve more, put myself out there - be it my thoughts or work and push myself to the limit. That was what I set out to do this year and it turned out to be rather rewarding. It's always hard to take the first step, but since I've done it many times, it can only get easier and my improvement will be accelerated.

I judge myself by my own standards.

Results

Everyone is eagerly anticipating the release of my results. Especially Maths. I've complained a hell lot about it and I suppose everyone wonders if it as really as bad as I said it was. Remember when I said that I'd give everyone a car if I passed.

Well, obviously ya'll ain't getting it!

Anyway, I'm not too upset about it despite the impact that it has on my GPA. I did decently for those that I did study for. I got 2 B+ and a B- for my cores this semester, and another 2 B+ for my Theatre and History, both which comes as a bit of a surprise considering the lack of feedback at my progress in both subjects. Theatre is non-examinable, and I've only had to do one week's worth of tutorial in the entire semester. Looks like I have decent smoking skills after all! I am so staying away from courses which have a "correct" answer, kind of opposite of what some of my friends would rather take!

I'm quite satisfied at my results and I think they look rather encouraging. It's only the first semester after all and I've got 7 more to go, so there's plenty of time to catch up.

I still do pride myself in not being such a mugger.

Post-Results

It's late and everyone's checking their results. I haven't because I promised a friend to check it out with him, and I don't want to be distracted. I need to focus on my water polo training tomorrow. It's not going to be easy considering the fact that I'm quite tired from today's cheerleading. It was great though. I got to try a lot of stuff today, prompting Mun Chun to say that he hadn't seen me sweat during training in so long. It's fun to be doing more stuff, but I think I just didn't have enough strength to continue and that sucks.

I realise that I'm as kaypoh as everyone else with regards to finding out their results. Some people I ask to suss out their academic standing and some I ask out of concern. I've seen results posted on some blogs and MSN nicks. I don't really know what to think of it though.

Anyway, to all of you guys who've received (voluntarily checked) your results and didn't do as well as expected, just remember that your self-worth should never be measured by mere alphabets and numbers. It's okay to acknowledge failure and mistakes; it isn't okay to dwell on them and stop you from trying harder.

There are much more important things in life than results. For most of us it's only the first sem and there's a long, long way to go.

Hopefully I won't be eating my words when I see what I've got tomorrow. I'll confirm plus sperm fail one elective so I'm banking on doing decently for the rest to give me a pass-average grade. I'm freaking nervous.

The Jolly Season

Traditionally, my relatives and I would gather at my grandparents' place to celebrate Christmas. This year we celebrated it on Sunday. Although it was a day before Christmas Eve, it didn't affect our enthusiasm! I appreciate my aunts making the effort to set up the tree and get presents to fill up the space underneath! Haha...



And that's almost all of us getting into the spirit of things! Before that we also played a lot of Starcraft! I missed that game a lot. It took me some time to get oriented to the game again after not playing for some time, but after a few rounds I think I was pretty good! Haha... It did become just a little bit repetitive for me after awhile so playing it once awhile is amazing especially since I'm not a gamer!



And camwhored some more.



The youngsters just could not get enough of the games. We also played one round of Age of Empires, which I'm admittedly not very good at! We hung around for a late night chat but I was feeling kind of sick so I left early. It's one of those rare occassions where we would all come together and spill our secrets, especially stuff about relationships! I have no idea why that's always the juiciest bits that we want to know about each other!

Despite leaving earlier than the rest of them, I didn't make it to bed till 4AM!

Yesterday Liqi and I took a trainride to Tiong Bahru...



.. to meet Daniel and Yiping...



... to get food for our steamboat!



We prepared the food with some help from Daniel's family. And yes, his house is jaw-droppingly huge. We ate till we couldn't eat any more! It was rather incredible that we managed to finish the amount of food we did, but I was really hungry to begin with. The butter prawns were especially delicious but then everything else was good too! It was simple to prepare and we just enjoyed an hour or two cooking and eating!

After that we went upstairs for a session of Mahjong. I was the only person who lost! Yeah, I was kind of disappointed and disgusted - also by the fact that my drawer was completely empty after the whole thing! Hahaha... I did learn a lot from them though, and my skills have totally levelled-up so watch out!



We went downstairs to take photo with the Christmas tree and had Tang Yuan for supper! I've had too much of these kinda snacks already - I can feel my tummy coming out as I'm sitting down typing this. I guess I'll have to really exercise more after this season of festivities!

We also had a gift exchange session. I gave Daniel a cake towel, which is essentially a towel that looks like a cake. I should've bought the chocolate one though cos the other one looks less... masculine! Hahaha! Daniel got for Yiping a plushy cushion. Yiping got Liqi an Adidas water bottle. I received a box of chocolates from Liqi! We continued watching a hilarious Hong Kong movie. I fell asleep halfway through but woke up when it ended to play Dai Di! I did rather well despite my grogginess. I can't say the same about myself when I'm fully conscious though!

After only a couple of rounds we gave up and went to sleep. In the morning we had Sara Lee's chocolate poundcake for breakfast before hitting the mahjong table again! I lost significantly less money, but was still the biggest loser. Bah. I can't get enough of the game though. I'll be winning soon enough.

We had lunch at...



... Ikea before heading back home. Great stuff!

Merry Christmas!

I probably won't be in time to wish everyone reading my blog a Merry Christmas so I thought I'd better do it early! I'll be couting down with 3 good friends to the cute day where we all, for a moment, believe that Santa exists and having cool presents is the only thing that matters! I'm exhausted though, having just returned from a celebration held at my grandparents' place. It used to be a grander affair, but I guess growing up does take away some of the magic. It's a pity because the younger cousins didn't get to experience it the way we used to celebrate it.

I just like the fuzzy Christmas spirit, despite how my believes and attitudes with regards to the festival deviate sharply from how it was traditionally.

And this is a welcomed surprise - the Spice Girls sang live on Strictly Come Dancing. I liked how they performed 2 Become 1 and considering how it was the Christmas No. 1 in the UK in 1996, it's appropriate to take a listen to this ballad and remember the good times.

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