Exhale

Leaving for Australia tomorrow and won't be back till the 29th. Happy Christmas all!

posted by Jeanne @ 1:20 AM

My brother woke me up at the ridiculous hour of 10am to inform me that 5 people on MSN were asking me the same question -" Did you check your posting results????" So I obliged Ian and the 5 people and went to see which school MOE's computer had decided to throw me to for the first 3 months.

(Ah...MOE needs a new web designer. Seriously.)

And it turns out I'm not posted to HCJC after all!

Sudden relief!!

This means I can return Gwen her amaths book and stop worrying about C-maths :D:D

Spent the next half hour talking to Gwen and singing "We're going to the same school!! We're going to the same school!!" Gwen initially maintained that she was "neutral" about the result. Then the impact sank in and she suddenly realized that she would be attending the same school as her brother.

Gwen: This could mean two things...I'll be bullied by my brother...or...I'll lead a normal life there.
Me: We're going to the same school, we're going to the same school, we're going to the same school!

Justina and I plan to gatecrash each other's schools next year.

Justina: Wait for me...I'll join you in AC in March!

Now. There's just JAE to wait for. Argh.

posted by Jeanne @ 5:36 PM

BBQ day! Went to Buona Vista to pick them up. While walking to the bus stop my brother calls from home.

Ian: You better hurry up.
Me: Why?
Ian: Because pest control is here. They're going to start fogging in 10 minutes.
Me: ????????
Ian: Didn't you remember???? They always fog on Tuesdays. And the food is just sitting out there. At the pit.
Me: Are you at least guarding the food?
Ian: ....No.
Me: Can you?
Ian: ......No.

So tried to rush back home but apparently pest control decided to fog before 11.30. Ran to the pit only to realize all the food was already covered in aluminium foil and not lying exposed to several tons of pesticide as I'd imagined them to be (IAN!!!!). So evacuated to the clubhouse while pest control did its thing outside. Spent a couple of minutes peering out of the window at the fumes as Pea remarked that she felt like she was in a gas chamber.

At least Ian helped start the fire. And in the process got his "fingerprints burnt away" because the flames suddenly shot up and burnt his hand. Abandoned the pit after realizing that the firestarters and charcoal just didn't want to catch fire and ate the beehoon, my dad's stew and the cocktails while my mum went in to grill the chicken wings. Wanted to play card games in the clubhouse afterward, so snuck into my brother's room to get his cards and told Sylvia to hide them because I knew he would never lend us his cards even though he has 7 decks (pilfered off the plane). Then I felt bad and asked Ian whether he wanted to join us.

Me: *takes cards from Sylvia* Wanna play?
Ian: *stares* Aren't those my cards?
Me: *walking toward the glass door* Yea we'll use them ok?
Ian: *takes card from me* Wait. This is the deck we use to cheat with. The cards are all marked.
Me: Aiya, just don't cheat la.
Ian: Its hard to resist sometimes.
Me: Anyway we're playing Daidee not Bluff what.
Ian: Hmmm....
Me: *wearing my slippers* Are you coming or not?
Ian: Yea maybe later. *walks back into living room* .....Ey, you took the cards right?
Me: *thinks the cards are with Sylvia thanks to my wonderfully short-term memory* Yar yar, bye. *closes glass door*
Sylvia: *when we're outside* Eh where are the cards?
Me: ...I thought you took them from him?
Sylvia: No! He still has them!
Me: WHAT!!!!???? * turns around and sees Ian grinning from behind the glass door*

If any of the neighbours upstairs had been looking down, they would've seen me yelling and pounding on our door - which Ian had obviously locked - and Steph and Pea, standing behind, looking on in amazement as my brother waved the cards around, a look of pure evil on his face. (Alright but it wasan evil smile)

He did join us later. Bringing along the cards. So I don't understand why he couldn't have just given them to us in the first place.

Chilled out a bit in the clubhouse for an hour while Ian started "entertaining" the crowd, asking unsolvable riddles and ridiculously hard Maths questions. Have a go at this riddle which Louis Carrol asked but never answered in Alice in Wonderland: Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?

Answer Ian found on the web: [Edgar Allan] Poe wrote on both of them.
This induced Gwen to yell "That's stupid shit!"

And then there was the whole Maths question fiasco which involved lots of quadrants, lines, equilateral triangles, intersections and Gwen escaping to the Girls' toilet where she could figure out the problem in peace without my brother going "HAHA YOU CAN'T DO SEC 2 MATHS" every 10 seconds. No one really managed to solve it without Ian giving a hint (which was to draw another circle-quadrant figure on the back of a paper plate) and that obviously served to boost his ego further especially when Qing remarke that he was "oversmart". Geez.

And TW's incredible! She's started studying A level Economics! Why???? Stop studying! Its the holidays!

LOTR this thursday with Ann and a few others. No popcorn this time for obvious reasons.

posted by Jeanne @ 2:06 AM

New layout. Whee.

Hope it doesn't rain tomorrow.

posted by Jeanne @ 9:10 PM

Was bored this afternoon and began reading my brother's book about life in Victorian England. Came across this verse from a popular love song of that time. Its seriously morbid! The Victorians must've been a v. sad bunch of people.

That is Love
See the father standing at his cottage door,
Watching the baby in the gutter rolling o'er,
Laughing at his merry pranks, but hark! A roar!
Help! Oh, help him! Gracious Heav'n above!
Dashing down the road there comes a maddened horse!
Out the father rushes with resistless force.
Saves the child...but he lies there, a mangled corpse.
That is love, that is love!

Cheerful huh.

(I conquered Bevelle! Without cheating!)

This house needs more junk food and cushions.

Was thinking of having a BBQ on tuesday but I can't light a proper fire let alone BBQ the food. Ian, back from ECP with loads of experience, suggests doing what he and his classmates did - put about 20 firestarters in the pit, light a match and get out your aerosol spray [Aim. Fire.] Only he says the fire lasted for about 2 minutes before fizzling out. Hmm. My mum suggests inviting a couple of girl scouts to help out with the fire problem. She actually took me seriously and went out to book the pit on Thursday night (paid the deposit and everything) and is threatening to hold her own "party" if I can't get enough people to BBQ with me. This would obviously mean that The Leong would be there and that's motivation enough to start calling up friends.

Ian's also managed to salvage our big Pikachu soft toy from the storeroom and he's been carrying it all around the house ever since. Like, he places it on the dining table while we're eating so it stares at me with its huge glassy eyes. And Ian's started talking to it in hushed tones whenever I'm in the room as if I'm on the verge of death or something. I suppose its his new way of irritating people.

-while watching Survivor-
Ian: whisper whisper whisper whisper whisper whisper...
Me: Can you shut up?
Ian: *leans down toward Pikachu and starts nodding wisely* Pikachu thinks you're being very mean.
Me: *stares*
Ian: Oh...Pikachu? What's that? What's that? *leans down as Pikachu 'speaks' to him* Pikachu also thinks that you are abusive and vulgar.
Me: Are you mad? You're talking to a toy!
Ian: *listens to Pikachu* Pikachu would like to express his view that you are extremely shallow and stupid.
Me: Hmpf. *goes back to watching TV. Pikachu suddenly looms in front of me*
Ian: Pikachu's observing you in your natural habitat.

So I punched Pikachu which did not go down well with Ian who claimed I was "inflaming" Pikachu and it would use its thunderbolt attack or some rubbish. Then as I left, he threw Pikachu (who is very big and heavy) down the hallway hitting me square in the back.

That's actually someone I'm related to. (Ian. Not the pokemon)

I just made a couple of calls. Sherry is away in Bali. Anjali, in Malaysia. Stephanie thinks she might not be able to make it because the BBQ's on the same day as her dad's birthday. The prospect of having a gathering of woman nearing midlife crisis looms. Starting to dread Tuesday.

posted by Jeanne @ 10:23 PM

THE LEONG had lunch with us.

THE LEONG is actually in our house right now eating our Crasins!

Thought I would never see her again after we moved but apparently not. Met her 2 years ago when she called up my mum and hyperventilated over the phone because she "suspected" she had cancer. And after that everyone started treating her to free lunches including my mum and Aunt Pauline - old neighbours after all. And we were dragged along for the lunch too where we witnessed her eating her way to heart failure - saturated fat after saturated fat! And she was supposed to be ill.

And in the end it turned out she never had cancer!
(And my mum did!)

And then The Leong mysteriously disappeared for 2 years! (No phonecall? No Xmas card? No free lunch?)

...Only to resurface again today. For lunch at Swesons. Which Mum and Aunt Pauline paid for.

She seems to have an unusual fixation with other people's weight this year. I don't know what her problem is. She's a 45 year old tai tai, weighs 47kg, can fit into tiny halter tops and wonders why everyone else can't like, go for line dancing classes all day and get slim like her too. And she expresses it very...tactlessly.

Ian: *in the car* You know, once in my report book they listed me as weighing 68kg? That's 8kg more than I actually weigh!
THE LEONG: WAH! So heavy arh!
Ian: No I told you, they made a mistake. I weigh 8kg less.
THE LEONG: *relentless* YAR...but 60kg is still fat you know. You better watch your weight!
Ian: ...60kg is within the acceptable range for my height you know.
THE LEONG: But for your age? 60kg is SO heavy!!! *titters*
Ian: *turns slowly around to glare at her*
- One of the wheels suddenly go flat -
Joelle: *jokingly* Haha mum you're so fat that the tire burst!
THE LEONG: What's your weight?
Aunt Pauline: Hm? Oh 52.
THE LEONG: Oh. That's heavy. *quickly adds* I'm 47kg.

Then she started asking about our heights. What morbid satisfaction does she derive from this anyway? And she didn't believe Joelle at all.

The Leong: You're that tall?? *titters* Can't be! My daughter is around your height but she looks so much taller!
Joelle: I really am!
The Leong: *titters* You must've made a mistake la! See, Jeanne is around your height already (and Jeanne was so much smaller as a child!) so you can't be that tall la!
Me: I'm wearing heels today.
The Leong: *completely ignoring me* You must've made a mistake la!
Joelle: *very pissed* What's your problem!?

I think Ian got pretty cheesed off too over the 60kg discussion. We reached home and he went digging for his health booklet and started waving it around at the dining table where the adults were to prove he was not fat. But Leong ignored him and started asking why our lights were so "yellow". ....

Am disgusted.

Oh a brighter note, finally managed to take a quite decent picture with Joelle just before my digi cam conked out again - need to stock up on more AA batteries. Joelle started going through some of the past issues of our primary school newsletter which I have stashed away in my closet while I started downloading music from this new program which Ali's son introduced to us while fixing up our new compuer with broadband - its called Diet-K and it looks a lot like Kazaa but at least it doesn't look illegal yet. Heehee.

I'm addicted to that Britney song!

posted by Jeanne @ 9:59 PM

Stayed up till 3am on Thursday Night (friday morning?) before finally giving up watching Liu Xing Hua Yan [Meteor Garden II] and went to sleep while Sylvia and Gwen continued ploughing through the entire volume. That show is extremely addicitve!

Gripping plot: Boy drives a car to propose to girlfriend. Boy meets an accident and loses his memory. Boy falls in love with Michelle Saram. Michelle Saram has an annoying giggle. Old girlfriend cries. After about 20 episodes, Boy finally regains memory. Boy has to decide between 2 girlfriends. Boy finally proposes to old girlfriend and they get married.

Gwen: *looks cheated* The show started at one point...it went in one long big circle and came exactly back to the same point!

Still haven't quite recovered from the lack of sleep during our stay at Ann's. Still, went downtown with Gwen, Pea, Ann and Anj today to catch Love Actually. Was accosted in Orchard MRT by a zealous lot of teenagers who kept pestering us to buy these lucky draw coupons to raise funds for youths in drug rehabilitation. I tend to be quite wary of these ticket sellers after 2 guys extorted me of 4 dollars (which are supposedly benefiting disabled orphans now) on the day of the prom.

Guy #1: *bears the same beseeching look those NKF patients have* Could you please donate $2? It will greatly benefit the poor, disadvantaged orphans and will contribute greatly to our efforts in establishing a.....*continues reading from a script*
Me: Oh eh ok...*pulls out some money*
Guy #2: *comes over with same beseeching look* Could you please buy one of my tickets too?? It would greatly benefit the poor, disadvantaged orphans and contribue to our efforts to....
Me: Ahh...eh....ok then...*pulls out 2 more dollars*

Later on.

Me: I can't believe I gave them 4 dollars!
Anj: I can't believe you gave them 4 dollars!

So was determined to avoid any repeat incidents today at Orchard Mert.

Guy #1: *waving tickets around* Hi would you like to -
Me: Oh I've already bought.
Guy #2: *suddenly jumps in front of us* HI! COULD YOU PLEASE BUY A TICKET FROM ME ITS JUST TWO DOLLARS - !!!
Gwen: *grabs my arms violently* We've already bought thank you! *drags me away*
Guy #2: *follows us* OH BUT YOU SEE YOU COULD ALWAYS BUY ANOTHER ITS REALLY CHEAP JUST 2 DOLLARS PLEASE???? YOU COULD SPLIT AND PAY ONE DOLLAR EACH!
Gwen: No no no!! *breaks into a run*
Guy #2: *runs after us* I'M SURE YOU CAN AFFORD 2 DOLLARS MISS YOU SEE IT MAY BE A SMALL AMOUNT TO YOU BUT IT COULD MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE TO THESE POOR, DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN !!!
Gwen: *bellowing* NOOOO!!!! *yanks me toward the escalator*

We passed by them again later and some other guy tried to sell us more tickets.

Guy: Hi could you -?
Gwen: *snaps* Aiya buy them yourself la.
Guy: *totally bewildered* What?

Later conceded that we were quite mean to him.


And Ann continues to amaze me with her devotion to Orlando.

At a distance, without wearing her glasses, she somehow manages to spy a poster of Orlando Bloom (for ROTK) across the bustling street and shriek "OMG!!" while I'm still looking around trying to see what she's talking about. So for the rest of the day we tried to avoid the poster lest she go into a convulsion. And after the movie, she immediately got into a cab and went off to NUS in search of a computer to download all her Orly goodies on the web because her own computer was too "slow". Whoa.

Met Charmaine and Sherry later on at Taka where they were on some "Amazing Race" kinda thing organized by Charmaine's church. Gwen, Anjali and I were suddenly drawn into this dance number by the 2 of them.

"Aaaasssss weeeeee.....walk to the left and we walk to the right, as we walk as we walk and we walk all night! With a heel and a toe and a half turn around, with a heel and a toe and a new friend fooouuuunnnnddddd!!!!

Forced to dance to that in the middle of Orchard because Charmaine refused to let me go.

Me: Dance?! What dance?! I don't want to dance in front of strangers! *creeps away*
Charmaine: NOO!!! NO JEANNE!!! DON'T GO! *grabs my arm and throws me back into the circle*

Whoa again. She'll make a good bouncer!

Gwen wants to go dancing. Anjali wants to tan. I want to shop. Pea wants to hide in Borders/Kino. And I think Ann wants to buy/beg/steal the poster on Orchard Road.

Can forget about going to work I guess.

posted by Jeanne @ 9:12 PM

In M'sia now! Ann let me use her computer after scrolling through her Orlando Bloom webbie to check out "reports" by fans. These are graphic accounts of their encounters with Orli and usually involve lots of swooning, bear hugs and other rather disturbing details which Pea, Simon and I read with a mixture of horror and fascination behind Ann who was writhing with jealousy ["OMG she kissed Orlando!!!!!!!! Not fair!!!!!"]

Fan: *recalling her meeting with Orlando* "If I died tomorrow I would die happy because even at 17 my life is complete.....Orlando is SO GORGEOUS in real life!!!!! And he came straight over to me even though there were tons of other girls screaming "Mr Bloom! Mr Bloom!"

Been shopping mostly for past few days. Some of the stuff here is so cheap! Jeans for 10 bucks! :O:O Heaven. My mum told me not to buy too much "rubbish" though so I'm still trying to resist cleaning out the whole of City Square.

Ann's in the toilet now with Gwen dying the remainder of her hair with Wella's Copper colour hair dye. We dyed the crown of her head yesterday in the bathtub but we needed a second bottle of dye to complete colouring the bottom of her head because her hair's too long. Took a few shots of Gwen posing with her plastic gloves and Sarah wrapped in her towel just before the massive dye job yesterday.

Ann: *moaning in the bathtub* GWEN I'M SCARED!!! What if my hair turns green??
Gwen: *running dye through her hair* Shut up.
Me: *twisting open new tube of lip gloss* OMG! Its white!
Ann: *screaming* WHAAAT???????!!!!!!
Me: *talking to Pea* I thought my gloss was supposed to be pink!
Ann: *hysterical* WHATTT???? IS MY HAIR WHITE?????
All: NO LA!!!
Ann: *still moaning with her hair all over her face* ERGHGGH.........
Pea: OMG you look like that girl from the Ring! Stop looking at us!!
Ann: ERGH...Gwen!!! You dripped dye on my ear!!!!! Its going to be brroooown....
Gwen: *pissed* Move your ear la!!
Ann: How????
Gwen: *barking* Too bad la! ....Turn your head! .....TURN! *combing vigorously*...TURN! ...TURN again!....

In the end it turned out quite good! Though Pea says that it looks like a brown bomb fell on the top of Ann's head. :\

Spent the nights watching movies from Ann's father's vast collection of pirated VCDs. Its been horror the past 3 nights. The Exorcist was v. vulgar. V. disturbing. Couldn't sleep the entire night because I kept seeing Linda Blair's disgusting face in my head. Ann and Pea kept laughing throughout the show though! They thought it was hysterical when the Priest was exorcising and smoke just kept coming out from the girl's ears.

Ann: *laughing wildly* Jeanne!!! You should watch! Its so damn funny!!!!
Pea: Hahahahaha!
Me: *pulling the covers over my head* NOOO!!!!!! Its Scary!!!!
Pea and Ann: HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!
Me: Its Scary!!!!!!

Opted out of watching The Ring the following night and just listened to Britney's new CD on Pea's discman while they watched the movie in the same room. Heard later that it was very freaky. And Britney sounds drugged on her new album. Listened to it again while watching Freddy vs Jason last night so it wouldn't be too scary. Bah. Didn't really have to. It was more gory than anything else. And predictably half the cast was wiped out in the end by Freddy and Jason. I suspect the only reason it was RA was because of the excessive swearing. I wonder if it was worse than Blair Witch? Lena claimed nine curse words were uttered every minute during Blair Witch - apparently she and Audrey counted.

Keep getting beaten by Simon and Gwen during Speed! And Pea always seems to get the 2 of spades during Daidee. Oh well. There's always Bluff!

Think Ann's dye is ready. Gtg now.

posted by Jeanne @ 1:08 AM