chai wallah

working gives you more spending power than being a student does eh?

daryl and eddie got togther and organized The Chaiwalla Party at the kensington house, covering all the costs. (yupp they catered very good food). it was really impressive, the effort they put into decorating the place to give it an indian feel. we had tea lights and jasmines, a sea-view wallpaper stuck up, lanterns and goood curry :D

more than just that, the chai walla party (http://www.thechaiwallaparty.blogspot.com)was a very meaningful one because it was organized with the aim of raising money to sponsor an child living in poverty for 3 years. within these three years, the organization that they are doing this through will help the child's famly build a small business, so that income will not stop when they sponsorship ends. http://www.cambodiaoutreach.org/childrensministries/childrenatrisk.html
their website probably gives a much better description than i ever will.

what to say - im just quite blown away but what a success tonight was. it didn't feel like a formal fundraiser thingo, like there was totally no pressure to give at all. they were auctioning stuff that fetched pretty good prices, and we had a lot of fun looking at the two jokers market their "products". it was great! we were all really enthusiastic i would think, because the auction didn't stop just at the stuff that people brought and contributed, yihong, sam and andrew spontaneously came up one by one to offer random cleaning/massaging servives. it was amazing! theyraised almost 200 bucks together.

we ended the night with slumdog millionaire projected on the big white balcony blinds and everyone tucked nice and comfortable under blanketsand cushions on the sofa/beanbags. when eddie tabluated the collections, they had raised enough money for almost 2 years! i think that was pretty insane, because their target was just for a year!



anyway, i started this post with a question on spending power because tonight got me thinking about how we spend our money. i dont think that being a student makes you incapable of having enough to give. last night, i met this guy who says he's got no moey. he stays in college where everything's paid for icluding his meals and stuff. so he's got no money and he "finds things". he's like..a finder. he showed me a bag of cookies he found at the medical building, and also a clay cup he picked up from where the engineering students were having a piss up (that's what he called it). he was really nice. christine offered him cookies she'd baked and he insisted on giving us something in return. he even offered us an umbrella he'd found. he was really keen on returning us a kind act. i just thought he was extremely sweet. i wish i'd bump into him at uni again.

i wish i were more giving. haha. man.. it's embarrassing how we can sometimes hold on so tight to the smallest things.

hmm.. i wonder what kind of person i'll turn out to be in the future. i really wonder if i'll become the average singaporean. typical. boring old workaholic who sends her kids for tuition classes 7 times a week, comes home, maybe cooks and cleans, depending on whether there's a maid.. argh. i dont wanna be a typical singaporean! (of course im making a huge, unfair generalization). i like singapore. i do. it's clean, and safe. it's SAFE. i cannot emphasize enough on this fact that im proud of. it's not 100% safe for sure, but honestly, it's probably safer than melbourne.


i can't imagine myself being an accountant the rest of my life. i have decided, that i want to do REAL breadth subjects, not breadth subjects that would necessarily enrich my degree. breadths like Food for a Healthy Planet are great. i enjoy it. yes. i wanna do something i enjoy for my breadth. i dont wanna leave melbourne with just a degree plus stuff that enrich my degree. because then it becomes all about my degree.



ok tough stuff aside, this little one turned 18 on monday. why am i the little one? cause almost everybody here's older than me. most of the people i hang out with are older than me. dong blindfolded me after church on sunday and made me walk to tiff's place where my old and new cellgroups were waiting to surprise me. then daryl and eddie made me leave the room to put on a bib, pampers and suck a pacifier. those jokers. fortunately, dong saved me from having to wear the nappies because it looked quite wrong. they made me wear it on my head instead. i didn't get any pictures. someone else did though. ANYWAYS, it was really nice to have the old cell back together again because i hardly see them at all nowadays. seeing them made me realise how i miss them. really. it was great. after the little surprise, (omygoodness did i mention the extremely good chocolate cheesecake they bought me!!!!??) the k bros, mandy, tiff, trace and i went to taco bill to have mexican food.
neat place.
i really enjoyed my brthday. it was sufficiently quiet, and sufficiently happening. i wasn't planning to do anything. i might have a big 21st though. but that depends. because i would have graduated by then. don't even know if i'll be in australia or singapore. oh, mummy wants me to get married at 21. tell me she's the cooles mum ever. she's insanely hilarious luh. all bcause she wants to be a young grandmother. hahaha..i love you mummy. (i dont know how serious she is.. but we'll see heh heh heh)

hey dont judge me.

oh before i en this post, i HAVE to mention how sweet mark and his family are. mark asked me out for brekkie on saturday, just like we did the week before. but his family was here to visit so it was me and his family. no not awkward. and noooo not meet the in-laws! (people have been giving me that.) anyway, to cut the long story short, they surprised me with a birthday cake! crazy people! i was so pleasantly surprised!

2.30am! i gotta go to bed!

socks and shoes

i bought 5 pairs of footlets/toe-socks yesterday and they come in all sorts of pretty colours. ahaha.. they came together in a bundle luh, for less than ten bucks. that's cuz i thought i'd lost 2 socks! one green and one yellow which meant i couldn't really wear the green pair or yellow pair.

ohmygoodness elisa shut up socks stories are boring.

ok i had my first week or work this week. i went in on monday and tuesday and im enjoying it. the people i work with are nice and good to work with. (so far) haha. the kiosk is really high-volume though, so i have to work under even greaer pressure than when i was at starbucks.

on a side note, dong just pointed out that my birthday's in 8 days. i dont feel it.it's like.. once in awhile i'll remember it's this month and that im turning 18 soon, but im not conscious of how much closer it actually is. i think if i feel anything coming at all, it's the exams. what a bad time to have a birthday eh? i dont think i'll be doing much. or anything at all for my 18th. OH BUT MUMMY CALLED YESTERDAY! and she said something's coming over to me by mail :D i love receiving things by mail. even if it's just a simple birthday card. exciting stuff. oh i dont particularly fancy bills though. speaking of which, i finally got the letter from jake! :D he also sent me 3 photos that we took when he was here to visit:)

met up with eej for brekkie on monday, met guyan to disuss bs on tuesday, tried to do work with john allen on wed but major failed so called nicky over and did work at the seminar room after, met aimee for lunch on fri. yes so my week's been full of people.

okae time to get back to my FoodforaHealthyPlanet research esay on obesity. meh. cannot finish tonight luh.

i really wanna go shopping.buy ten dollar shoes. haha :P

so much for not taking soft drinks

the soft drinks industry is totally unnecessary.
it's got zero nutritional value and cups of sugar per bottle.
soft drinks contribute to obesity and diabetes and unhealthy lifestyles!
plus, the plastic used to make the bottles aren't doing any good to the environment.
same with metal cans.
ok ok dont crucify me. yay, go soft drinks. soft drinks rock. blah.

haha. man i've been eating a lot of sugary stuff.
there were cake and muffins at homecell, and sweet pastry at church breakfast today. oh and YESTERDAY, mark and i went on a breakfast "spree" at vic mart. i had a borek,spanish hot chocolate and an apple custard crossiant. he had a borek, orange hot chocolate, a jam doughnut, a chocolate crossiant and a hotgod crossiant. crazy stuff. i was so full we decided not to get spanish doughnuts which i still have yet to try. haha. ee. im totally putting on weight.
nevermind. it's winter. people put on weight to prepare for winterr.

i was moody again this morning. didn't feel like going to church. but i still went anyway, cause it's important. i spent part of the afternoon wondering why i was so unenthusiatic about everything today. then dong came and we went out for a short holiday -- to docklands!!

woohoo! :D that smiley means im not moody anymore.
i havent done any work at all today. or yesterday.
not good. but i think i needed the break. i couldn't bring myself to do any work this afternoon. pastor tim told me i needed a holiday. heh :D ya la he - just came back from a one month holiday/honeymoon.

i just spent the last couple of hours preparing for this week's bs. i would consider this a good use of time. ok time to get work done!

oh actually! i DID do work this morning. i completed and submitted my forum report before oing to church. :D yay!

two forty-five

yes it's 2.45 in the morning.
i just got home.
it's a rainy night.
i looovee rainy nights! perfect for sleeping in.

today was a rather bad-ish day.
it kinda had to proper structure. i was trying to kill time a lot today because there were all sorts of random gaps of time that were too short to do anything productive. the feeling of wasting time like that's not great, especially when exams are so near.

i had my under 18 group supervision today. group meetings are the worst. i get made to feel like im wasting even more time. the individual meetings are fine because they feel like normal proper conversations, BUT the group meetings feel more like a tell-me-about-what-your-fish-ate-this-morning session. RAHHHH!!!



BUT HEY GUESS WHO'S TURNING 18 SOON!! WOOHOOO!! NO MORE UNDER 18 SUPERVISION!! im so excited. ok not really.

ok before anything else, i should just mention that the moment i got home, i was astounded by how clean the kitchen was! and how neat my place looked! hahahaha!! dong was cooking stuff for his cellgroup at my place when i had to leave to meet my cellgroup so i left him with the apartment. :DD i just think it was a really pleasant surprise. my apartment for the past week's been looking like it was raided by a typhoon.

anyway, the reason i got back so late was cause homecell ended really late.
which i think is a good sign.
we headed to jon lee's house at about 7 and played games, had food, shared about ourselves. surprisngly, it did not feel like another one of those getting-to-know-you BBQs, which was really great. the sharings were hilarious/interesting/meaningful/informative. good stuff. i really enjoyed myself tonight and i think so did almost everyone else there.
as jon lee says, it was "v fruitful" :D who to thank? God loh :))
i suppose it really helped that everyone was reminded of what homecell is for.
compared to the first homecell we had this year, this was a blast. 7 hours of non-stop food random facts games and good conversation.
and we prayed about it. which really made a difference. when you ask, trust and depend, He'll work things out.

ok. it's 3.13. im meeting mirasol for brekkie tmr morning. or rather in a few hours. i'd better get some rest.

gnite world!

then again

then again,
i probably should take a break, talk to Someone, have an early night wake up early in the morning and decide what to do.

time to look for a monument

conversation with myself

tell me a thing or two about wrestling.
what's the hardest bit?

i really don't like watching wrestling.
pains me.

i used to get really frustrated with myself.
i actually think that sometimes it's a good thing.
a part of me misses it.
sheesh i dont make sense do i?

conversation with myself.

dang it.
such an angsty post.
i havent had a bad day though.
but i can feel stress piling up. i've got accounting and micro econs due this week, forum report due next week, another forum this week, quantitative methods due next week BLLAAAHHH!
anyway.
i managed to finish my forum report at the library with nick today.
solid stuff.
(nobody really cares elisa)
ooooh ouch!
do i think im crazy? i feel a bit insane. like im really having a
conversation with myself

oh dear.
mm. oh exciting bit of something! a letter's making it's way from singapore now!
woohoo!
i hope it doesnt get lost.have you tried wrestling with yourself?
i actually think it's even harder than wrestling with someone else.

someone sing me a song
give me brain power
drug me with caffeine
make my brains go vvrrrooooommm!

haish.
or maybe just give me a power nap.

shall i publish this?
i'll change the text colours and size first.
eh!! bongers. the colours and size functions are GONE!
too bad.
read and snore.