time to increase QT.

Long bus rides always seem to cause me to think a lot.
On my way home today, my mind was filled with the various worries, fear and insecurities I am currently facing.
I don't know why my mind has been more troubled than usual these past couple of days..
Just all of a sudden my mind became over occupied with troubling thoughts making me more absent minded, leaving things behind, missing bus stops and train stops...
Maybe I need to stop for a moment...
maybe longer...
to allow myself to catch up and deal with all these thoughts.
I also need to find my confidence in Christ Jesus again.
I have somehow moved from the faith filled 'I believe God is always in control', confident christian to the somewhat faithless, always worried, insecure human.
I seriously need to spend more time with God.
Seriously, a lot more.

I haven't been having morning sessions
but my mornings have still been pretty busy..
YESTERDAY morning was my very first driving lesson! :)
it went pretty well...
I was out on the road on my very first lesson which was a little scary...
I know how to do a three point turn, turn into roads, drive on the middle of the lane, on the line, near the line and near the curb...
I feel so accomplished.
I CAN DRIVE! :)
I feel like my driving instructor is keeping secrets from me...
because when Quen quizzed me about stuff I'm suppose to do in certain driving situations, I totally didn't know the answers..
But I'll quiz my instructor the next time I see him.
then this morning, I had a dental appointment.
I went to get my new retainers! :)
yay!
I was getting a little bit worried about not wearing my top retainer for the past 2 months but it seems like it's okay :)
about 2 more weeks till I'm a jobless bum!

extraordinary friday

With no more Saturday morning sessions, friday evenings are a new found freedom..
I spent this evening with liz and haikal......
DOING NAILS.
yes, Haikal is a MALE.
and I AM SERIOUS.
WE WENT FOR A FULL CLASSIC PEDICURE.
ok. Liz did a mani..
BUT YES, HAIKAL DID A CLASSIC PEDICURE WITH ME.
I. am. very. amused.

BECAUSE I wouldn't believe it unless I saw photo evidence,
HERE IS THE PHOTO EVIDENCE (via my very lousy phone camera)

And it seems that it might be quite common for guys to go for pedicures in this era because.....
We found magazines that were obviously for the male species...
(Haikal says I must put a disclaimer to state that he ONLY posed with the magazines and did not read them.)
I am still very amused.
I am also VERY HAPPY that I finally got to do my nails..
I have been putting this off since forever..
The girl doing my pedicure actually had to use the corn cutter!!
I NEVER had one used on me before...
but apparently the dead skin on my feet have accumulated SO MUCH, they needed to use it this time...

We had ayam penyet (I think that's how it's spelt) for dinner after that..

I've never had it and was quite intrigued by the name...
The chicken didn't look very squashed to me though...
I had the 'squashed fish' instead of the chicken and that didn't seem squashed at all either.
so disappointing.
but it did taste very awesome.

I think I had too much tea today though...
2 cups of green tea and a glass of iced tea during dinner.
So going to be up till tomorrow morning...
but what an eventful day! :)

sleeping in

This morning, I woke up at 9am.
Which is a really big achievement for me!!
after starting work, I hardly can ever sleep past 7..
even on weekends.
Fine.. to be honest, I woke up once at 6.30 and then made myself turn over and sleep more.
usually that allows me at most another hour and a half of slumber but this time I actually slept for 2 and a half hours more!
WELL DONE, AMELIA! :)
I was going to bake this morning but I'm actually deciding against it now as I MIGHT NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME because I slept in later than usual!
all this is really new to me...
and I'm liking it :)

I'm slowly getting replaced at work so by the end of this month, my mornings should be free.
I have to start figuring out what I should do with my time.
My mom says to rest and relax for a bit..
actually, most people have said that..
And part of me really wants to
but part of me feels that if I do, I'll be too much of a bum.
We'll see..
there are a couple of things I really want to do, but seem pretty unrealistic at the moment...
I might just set aside a few months to work toward achieving some of these less realistic dreams..
just for the fun of it.

The perfect weekend.

I woke up at 8am this morning and felt really good about having the whole saturday off :)
did pilates and got to have a nice long talk with mom, making up for all mother-daughter tea dates we have not been having..
Then I met The Boy at Simply Bread for brunch...
I actually didn't finished my food until quite long AFTER Quen did!
I'm quite sure this is the first time this has happened.
Usually I'm done with eating first..
It's been a long time since I felt relaxed enough to sit and eat slowly.
The rest of the afternoon was really nice, walking around pretty aimlessly...
then Dim Sum for dinner at Dim Joy was AWESOME.
the char siew sous were amazing and the egg tarts were phenomenal!
SO planning to go back there again next time.
It's been an awesome Saturday :)
really really awesome :) :)

Just Acia

Sunday brunch with the kids at Just Acia.

You get free flow drinks and ice cream with every meal purchased..
and each meal costs from about S$6.90-12.90.
A pretty good deal, I must say..




I just realized that some of these kids will be going into university next year!!
they seriously grow up TOO fast.

Comprain queen

It's been a particularly tough week.
Probably because it's the 4th week in a row I'm working a full day on Saturday..
This afternoon I got sick of hearing myself whine about how drained or how tired I am and how everything is bad or not how I want things to be.
I have been complaining too much and haven't been counting my blessings.
It's just so much easier to see what isn't going well than look out for the tiny little blessings that come along side these tough situations.
This is definitely something I need to work on.

So I shall start right here, right now.
I'm thankful for....
...being sort of dragged to gCoMM where I actually enjoyed myself and got a teeny bit recharged
...an amazingly supportive boyfriend who da baoed dinner for me when I was busy rushing the 1000 cookies, kept me covered in prayer, and rescued me when I lost a dinner date
...finishing the 1000 cookies in good time
...stumbling on the method to make cute little chocolate chip cookies which I now am very excited to make more of in the near future
...friends who patiently listen to my every complain even when they are miles away.
...the niners who brightened up the midweek with good company and good food.
...today being ALMOST the end of the week and my last week with work on Saturday
...being able to catch up on a little sleep on Wednesday night
...having the night off to indulge in a little self-pampering

I guess the week hasn't been THAT bad after all :)

the niners

Dinner with my 2007 YMLC group, the niners, was enjoyable as always :)

I can't believe we have kept in touch for SO LONG.
so awesome.
Our dear group leader Kelvin is STILL single and very available ;)

It has become our habit to question him about his love life (or the lack) whenever we meet...
poor 'kid'. heh.

we had cze char near joel's place where they have pretty strange dishes..
we tried the yin yang pork ribs thinking that it's pork ribs with the 'yin yang' (coffee + tea) flavour
Disappointingly, it turned out to simply be two differently flavoured pork ribs in one dish -.-
then we tried MARMITE CHICKEN.

which also turned out to be pretty normal.
we couldn't even taste a smidge of marmite.
FAIL.

We seem to be forming a routine with our gatherings..
Cze char then ice cream has happened twice already...
and we were just planning for the third cze char - ice cream round come december...

Ice cream is when I found out THAT FRUTTA LA VIVA IS CLOSING FOR GOOD AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!
:(
WHY!
how can they leave deprive this world of their awesome durian ice cream...
I now aim to have my fill of their ice cream this month.

the 1000 cookies

Monday afternoon, I received an sms from my mom informing me of a baking assignment...
One thousand cookies by this Friday evening.
I was pretty excited until I realised I didn't have much time till then...
I only had yesterday evening and today to work with..
So I set to work last night and continued on this morning.
This is one of the rare moments where I am SO thankful for my inability to sleep in.
After a total of about 7 hours of baking...
.
.
.
.
.
TADA!!!!

I managed to hit a grand total of.... *drum roll please*
1042 cookies
I feel very accomplished :P
I had a little bit of batter left so I indulged myself a little and made cute little chocolate chip ones for myself :)


I'm totally working toward my dream of baking for a living..
This has been good training and I now know I can make 1000 cookies in seven hours.
Definitely looking forward to more baking assignments like this..
Hopefully some where I can be a little more elaborate and adventurous...
:D

iPhone

via Explosm
Be careful, all you iPhone users.. ;P