exco yolo

hello.
guess by now most of you should have figured that the only reason why i actually am blogging is because i am procrastinating.
you're right again.

looking at the crazy piles of homework we have this holiday and the amount of time left, i kinda already gave up on trying to finish everything.

seriously, i think it's insane, but whatever, i will just chill and let nature take its course.

actually tonight, at 12.42am, i am sitting here typing at blogger.com for a very good reason.

i am utterly happy (and thankful) for whatever that has happened for the past 7 days.

really, i can't even express how yolo i feel, but what matters beyond that is really the people that i spent it with and the quality time that contributed to a stronger bunch of friends, or i would say, family.

so i actually spent a whole 7 days with the exco, but to be exact, 6.5 days.

it totally feels like i went on a vacation with them.

well, let me start off from day 1.

day 1, 4th december, wednesday

it was merely 2 days after i touched down from nepal, but we had cca practice in the afternoon from 1-5pm to brush up on our ensemble pieces for the christmas concert.

was still feeling rather jetlagged (idk for what reason) and sick (stuffy nose) and i was really dreadful about heading to school...

but seeing the ensemble and the exco again after 2 weeks really made practice worth it.

the srgce people all came back tanner and we were all just talking about a few of our many adventures overseas.

sectionals with guitar 1 always makes me feel happy.

how we can never rehearse jingle bell rock enough, and that we just keep playing the song over and over again to improve.

and the best part is that guitar 1 had full attendance.

honestly words can't even express how proud i am of my section.

they're really the most hardworking people i've met and seeing the amount of effort they put in (and thereafter paying off) is indeed heartwarming :')

ensemble practice that day was quite pathetic because we had to find our own venue (which turned out to be the canteen which had shitty acoustics)

nigel even wanted to give up halfway conducting because we just couldn't catch the rhythm for the various sections in the song, here is joy for every age.

nonetheless after a long, tiring afternoon of practice exco had dinner that night at saizeriya's again only because david had our guitars stored in his aunt's place.

i tried their seafood spaghetti that day and for the entire night onwards i felt really nauseous and bloated...

had this really strong urge to throw up the whole time ugh it was a sick, horrible feeling.

we shopped around the vintage market upstairs, and david, nigel and i bought spectacles/sunglasses for the fun of it!

it cost us $3 per frame anyway...

can't exactly remember what other fond things we did as an exco that night probably because i was feeling too ill to even bother.

but anyway, this was day 1 with the ensemble/exco!

day 2, 5th december, thursday

so we arrived in school early in the morning to collect our stands and guitars.

took a bus down to tpjc for that day's full dress rehearsal and i probably looked like a retard wearing the red ladybug-like specs on the bus...

when we reached tpjc i was genuinely glad to see janice.

i haven't seen her in such a long time i really really really really miss her.

so we carried on our 3-hour full dress rehearsal and i was still feeling really shitty....

my nose was acting up every 15 minutes and having to excuse myself from the sectional practices to clear my nose always makes me feel so gross...

full-dress rehearsal was pretty much about us rehearsing our movements up and off the stage, our jingle bell rock runthrough and our ensemble pieces, which i must say was really really really messy.

it was pretty scary to think that we'd actually be able to perform with such a standard.

nevertheless it was fun during the apt breaks of the rehearsal to take selfies hahahaha.

after the rehearsal exco + a few others went out to ikea to eat lunch!!! woohoo!

i had the poached salmon, my all-time favourite cold-water prawns, meatballs, chicken wings, and of course the very delectable yogurt ice cream!!!

though the food was good my mood was crap, i don't even know for what reason...

maybe because nigel was rambling non-stop about rubbish HAHAHA so much that i had to tell him to shut up.

but then again he is always like this on a usual day so it doesn't really matter.

anyway back to the food, please please please please go and try the yogurt ice cream at ikea.

it's super good seriously, it's way better than the $0.50 soft serve ice cream they sell at the basement.

this $2 yogurt ice cream is really going to knock your socks off because it's too heavenly.

after eating, we did walk a bit around the basement of ikea.

i mean, what's a trip to ikea without walking around the maze-like store!

hahahaha and this was when gary and jasley pointed out the reason for my horribly black face at lunch.

it was quite funny how they both could tell what the hell went wrong with me.

at the shop selling swedish food outside the ikea store, wanrou bought this festive drink that looked like soy sauce but was apparently barley?

i tried a sip and oh my goodness it tastes like crap...

how festive.

some say it tastes like fizzy grass jelly but to me it's just..... YUCK.

decided to lepak at tampines after ikea while planning out what to do the day after, and this was when somehow my mood lifted.

they were giving out free starbucks that day from 5-7pm!!!!!

jasley and nigel made a move before we grabbed free starbucks, so only david, xiaohui, wanrou and i queued with gary slacking in a corner.

got a free cranberry white chocolate frappuccino yay i was so happy hehe!

luckily we didn't queue for that long as i expected, so we went for dinner at popeyes thereafter.

david was doing some really good advertisement for popeyes seriously so we ended up eating popeyes most of the time in the 7 days hahahaha!

spent our time there mostly listening to covers and out-of-tune covers (wanrou's grenade that got everybody cracking up)!

went to ntuc to buy baking ingredients and stuff for my section :-)

bought chocolate chips, waffle biscuits and yupi gummies!

took 22 back with wr, xh and gary after buying sushi while david left for tampines one!

it was a relatively eventful day with the exco again!

day 3, 6th december, friday

had an impromptu practice session from 9am-1pm because we are obviously not up to standard....

sectionals time and we indeed made full use of the time to perfect our jingle bell rock so that we did not screw up on the day itself.

added the weird high c note at the back as suggested by nigel ahahaha it was really quite funny though!

and again our section had full attendance for practice that day.

you don't know how proud i am of my section really.

thank you to all the guitar 1s who made the effort to come down that day to practise our section song and also for ensemble practice.

break time extended to almost half an hour before we returned for ensemble practice.

kept playing here is joy and angels over and over and over and over and over again.

we did improve, but not drastically.

after 1pm the exco stayed back to lepak and play pokemon on the ds (omg seriously hahahaha childhood).

jasley and i stayed on with cheowfu and liqian to practise jingle bell rock again.

we tried to figure out some chords for cheowfu to strum but in the end it didn't work out.

also, it was very nice to see liqian stay back on his own accord to practise jingle bell rock...

the improvement that you've made since the last time we had official practice during school time is vast and your positive attitude is really something very inspiring!

keep at it!!!

lunched with the exco and cheowfu at the coffee shop near school and i ate $2 worth of food yumz hahaha all that veggie.

even during lunch then david was playing pokemon and everyone was still making a big fuss and snatching over the game console hahahah.

#thingskidsdo #thingsfamiliesdo

after lunch xiaohui and wanrou went on to buy the guitar supports for the ensemble (thank you guys for the hard work) while jasley and gary went on to my place first to bake!

we exposed our young photos and had a good laugh at 'em all haha!

the both of them were playing scrabble survival while i weighed the ingredients!

it was really funny because both of them completely didn't know about the rules at all; jasley tried to form diagonal words while gary tried to stack the letter tiles like upwords.

HAHAHAHA.

baked our first batch of cookies while awaiting wanrou and xiaohui's arrival.

and not bad, gary did help with the mixing and spooning the cookie dough for us girls!

#potentialchefgary

our first batch turned out relatively large and so we cut down for our second.

it was after i think the 2nd or 3rd tray that went into the oven that jasley decided that we should cook dinner!

sucked my fridge dry of ingredients, and what we found was less than half a cabbage, less than half a carrot, some popcorn chicken, chicken wings, a packet of edamame and three eggs.

this is what you get for coming to a house that doesn't do home-cooked food :P

so while jasley prepared the ingredients and i continued baking, xiaohui and wanrou came!

many hands make light work, and when they came we did try cooking a little!

david came after and then jasley and i made the other 3 go downstairs to buy more eggs and a little more food.

so we just continued cooking through with joy and laughter; with xiaohui and gary massaging the chicken wings with honey, jasley deep-frying chicken nuggets in scary boiling oil...

and my mom came back to the kitchen in a whole mess (the sink was clogged to the brim) omg..

but anyway we ate over dinner and it was seriously hilarious because david kept making stupidly literal comments relating to pokemon omg i couldn't even....

"the person exclamation mark me omg!"
"josh say that i am as slow as always"
"i bought 7 pokeballs from the mart"
"i know i know!!! red roof is pokecenter, blue roof is pokemart!"
"i talk to every single person in the mart, but they all ignore me"

it's soooo hilarious omg i can't even hahahahaha :)
laughed so much my stomach actually hurt and i had so much difficulty eating thanks to all my phlegm from my stuffed nose.
stupid flu that hasn't gone away until TODAY.
played raving rabbits after dinner on wii and i'm horrible at that game hahaha.
ate the giant cookie we baked!! :-)
after xiaohui left we played with this deck of dads for life cards that i found at home hahaha it was something like the truth segment of truth or dare.
it was pretty funny how we got most of us to speak the truth and how we played i have never again :-)
it was a good night with great food and the best company :-)
they all left at about 11.30pm!

day 4, 7th december, saturday
got out of the house real early for tpjc, it was our actual concert day!
had dry runs after dry runs after dry runs it was so technical i couldn't even remember anything.
but wanrou and i forgot to take the scores so during the rehearsals we tried our very best to play by ear but i guess you could obviously figure what happened :P
we both completely died at riu riu chiu ahahahaha.
all i remember was the fact that our ensemble pieces were still rather messed up so we were only given half an hour of lunchtime while the remaining time we had to report back to the auditorium early to practise again.
we did progress a little as we ended more in sync and also kept tempo.
so we gave out the cookies back in the holding room to the ensemble and i'm glad they liked it!
the photographer came in to have our photo taken too! :)

srge ftw :)

lepak-ed around the room until about 4.15pm to gather again at the hall for a final briefing and for the concert to start!

sherrill came in to encourage us with chocolates, so sweet of her :-)

probably the only conductor that genuinely cares about us haha.

was pretty excited because group 4 (nepal), mavis and vanessa promised they were coming!!

haven't seen the girls in so long and also really thankful for the nepal group for wanting to come down to support us :)

sweetness max i swear hahaha!

took a group photo outside the hall when the whole of group 4 (except fred and gary) were there!

sat through tpjc's performances and finally got backstage to prepare for our section song!!!!

all that nerves omg but i was really excited and happy to be playing jingle bell rock for the crowd!

kept doing weird breathing exercises backstage and had to hold in my pee (idk if it was even psychological) and suppress my stupid stomachaches...

when we finally got seated on stage and plucked our first note, i panicked for that milisecond because apparently i was the only one playing.

idk what happened to jasley but turns out wrong frets!!!

wah i fret for nothing man! (HAHAHAHA PUN INTENDED)

anyway it was a success overall, and i indeed tried my best to look really happy and alive during the performance.

and i think the rest of guitar 1 did too :-)

good job guys, i'm honestly so proud of you all, especially liqian and siewhwee, for all the extra effort you guys have put in to come this far.

not that i helped you all alot but i just feel really happy.

the fact that your hard work has paid off, and that the effort is showing in your playing really makes me feel so heartened to see such positiveness in you all :)

thank you cheowfu for being so passionate about guitar and always being present during practices, and emmeline for stepping up to play the accompaniment for jingle bell rock! :)

you both are really good with the guitar!

*inserts non-existent section photo*

we need to take a section photo soon.

then after that it was our turn to perform our ensemble pieces...

though i personally thought it was still very messy, janice said that she could tell an effort was made to keep tempo and not to rush!

at least that was something we made an effort to do :)

combined pieces was fine too, at least i personally tried to look at the conductor as much as i could!

trying to bring back what i used to do while in the harp ensemble~

after the concert we had the sing-along segment where we really went crazy and formed a human train while singing, and i must say, it did help hype the audience up!
took many photos after the concert with the people who came down specially to support me!
so glad and thankful for you guys, and sorry if i didn't get enough time to speak to you all individually :-(

but just know that i was really thankful for your presence :)

concluded the day of the concert with an exco dinner over at mof!

mmm the ramen was good hehehe i'm even thinking of it now..
thereafter i went on a long, lonely hunt for herbal tea to last me throughout the night...
bought 3 bottles back to wanrou's aunt's place for sleepover with her, gary and david! #likeaboss
so we did many crazy things that night!
we jammed to music and quarrelled over song titles and genres for a whole hour while waiting for david to come!
then after that we just watched david resuscitate a dead carpet with cpr omg it was hilarious hahahahaha.
the stains and everything omg lol he really looked like he was a pro at first aid hahaha utter nonsense please!
then we took turns to bathe and went down to explore the house; the kitchen, the wine cellar, the swing etc.
the swing was so beautiful omg so were the skies.
spent most of my time sitting on the swing and looking up at the sky thinking of what we would be like in the future :P
first time sharing a bottle of alcohol too (but well of course i didn't) and i bet it tasted bad.
attempted to watch television in the wee hours of the morning and there were actually shows on!
played rock paper scissors up the staircase and me being from first place to last... SIGH.
we also just played around with light shadows and weird movements with the spotlight attached.
and did fail mvs like wrecking ball hahaha!
ate a bit of snacks and took turns to bathe.
then after that the best part is we ko-ed from 5am to 11am...
6 hours omg we way exceeded time!!!

day 5, 8th december, sunday
wanted to catch the sunrise and eat breakfast at changi village but turns out... HAHAHAA.
failed.
ended up settling for cheap beehoon at bedok food centre and it was good!
flew off to tuition straight after and later we met up again hahahah.

so jasley and i met xiaohui, wanrou and gary over at heartland mall who waited for our tuition to end.

so nice omg hahah aww.

i think we mingled around the mall for at least half an hour before deciding where to eat...

bumped into narcissa otw there! :)

nice to see you nana~

train-ed down to j8 and ate watami!!!

the pork rice bowl was not bad but it got really sick after awhile, it was a pity they didn't have the clam udon omg :(

so we sat at watami for at least 2 hours i think; talking, laughing and mostly persuading gary to take a polaroid/photo.

yeah at first it was quite funny but after awhile i guess everybody got tired and i myself got frustrated for some reason...

oh well.

but anyway things always end up well and good when i'm with you all :-)

and i'm really thankful for that!

had a good dessert at mcdonalds thereafter too!

finally home-d after spending 2 whole days and 1 night out lugging at that shitass heavy school guitar and the casing around!

day 6, 9th december, monday

took a hiatus from our meet-ups hahaha i guess we all needed a break after roaming around for the past 5 whole days.

finally had dinner with my mom and sis that night :-)

day 7, 10th december, tuesday

you guessed it!

we met up again after a good day of rest HAHAHA!

#oneandonlysuperonexco

went to watch frozen together in the morning at cathay cineleisure! :-)

i swear it was a darn good movie omg (going to watch it again with my sister tmrw) the soundtrack is seriously the best of the best!

the animation is really cute too!

i love the voices of the singers omg i should totally catch the musical!

overall thumbs up for the show ahhhh so so so good! :)

had lunch at eighteen chefs and boy it was damn good too!

i was such a happy girl hahaha good movie + good lunch!

made the right choice to try the creamy mango spaghetti!!!

it has this really unique flavour of mango and the cream is not too strong, which is good for someone who isn't a fan of cream-based pasta.

love it!!!!

totally going back to eat that again :)

walked around scape to find a phone cover for my new iphone but meh though it was only $1 i didn't buy any hahaha.

bought a hot cranberry white chocolate mocha and it just reinforces the point of how much i still detest hot coffee.

seems like my dislike for hot coffee still hasn't faded.

walked down to buy krispy kreme and i bought half a dozen home!

i was soooo excited to try one hahaha!

after that we went to ion to walk around topshop!!!

which was when we picked out clothes for nigel and gary to wear hahaha!

it was quite funny hahaha 'cos we picked out really rad clothing for them~

i think we were so much of a nuisance the salespeople kept looking at us.

but who cares, #excoyolo!

then now it was the girls' turn to try on the clothes that the boys picked out for us...

and seriously i have reached a conclusion that nigel has really bad fashion taste.

he picked out really horrible tights with chain prints on 'em omg i looked like i was going to get down to the floor and break-dance anytime.

and i picked out a decently normal dress for jasley.

nigel also chose some super hideous dress for wanrou i think ahahaha i can't exactly remember how it looked like, all i know that it was extremely oversized :P

contemplated for forever to buy this $21 floral tank but it was really pretty omg.

i ended up buying it in the end after repeated persuasions from jasley!

and my mom who although said it was old :P

can't believe they actually went to try heels while i went to pay omg hahaha!

seriously #excoyolo.

had popeye's for dinner (AGAIN) but i actually like popeye's omg.

the chicken is damn nice, even better than kfc's!

but the biscuit thing's too salty for me though.

wanted to take a polaroid with nigel but my camera decided to die on me -_-

only after nigel left did the camera work so i only took one with gary (long overdue pls!).

headed down to sheryl's place after that for gp tuition!

yet another great day with my lovely exco :)

^ a very good summary of whatever happened that day :')

love; enjoy every moment.

day 8, 11th december, wednesday

thought it would be yet another stay-home day where i could finish my homework.

but turns out i was wrong :P

met the exco yet again in the afternoon at bugis nlb to study!!

not very productive but yes i managed to finish my chemistry tutorials and the standard graphs questions!

and yay i met yeewah at the library!!!! ^^

so happy - feels really good to meet an old friend after so long.

ate blackball for the first time after our very distracted study session!

guess what.... wanrou xiaohui and i had popeyes for dinner AGAIN.

omg.

and wanrou had chicken for like 4 days straight hahahaha!

but it's okay i still love popeyes, not sick of it yet.

just yet...

day 9, 12th december, thursday

missed the study session again with them because i had a class chalet!

shall blog about this in a separate entry!!!

day 10, 13th december, friday

despite having only 1 hour of sleep at the chalet, i went to find the exco at esplanade nlb after lunch with my girls!

i actually brought work to do hahaha and i did a little bit of apgp!

but damn it i really forgot everything cleanly :-(

slept in the library in the comfort of the aircon and the good seats, but damn, my stuffy nose was seriously out to kill me.

left the library at about 4+ because i requested to leave early 'cos i had dinner at home.

thanks nigel, gary and xiaohui for actually making sacrifices for me hahah.

i feel really bad.

headed outdoors to watch the open theatre choir performances!

and ite choir was really really good!!!

it was like watching a local glee or something ahaha!

sat there through their dry run for about 3-4 songs and wow i really am amazed :-)

wanted to come back the next day/the day after to catch an arts programme hahahaha!

can't believe we actually said we wanted to watch the mongolian performance oh my :P

bought cream cheese bread at breadtalk (mmmm... heaven) but i lost my ez-link card.

though i didn't find it, thanks guys for actually bothering to trace back the steps with me :')

#family.

day 11, 14th december, saturday

and yes we met up once again :P

supposedly a sunday night outing but it was pushed forward!

met david, freda, xiaohui, wanrou, nigel and gary this time!

seeing freda for the first time after 21 days omg yay! :)

missed her so much!

roamed around city hall and had dinner at the soup spoon!

the prawn bitsque soup is pretty good, but i still prefer my tokyo chicken stew heheh!

and gosh heavenly bread is heavenly mmm.

played the number bomb game again and we came up with really gross foods like bread with salt and pepper topped with a stroopwaffle and like salads with salt!! :P

hahahaha i swear these crazy ideas by nigel make him seem like a younger brother you never had.

walked around suntec and went into h&m...

that's it.

we spent probably 1.5 hours there just fitting into dresses and laughing?!

and hesitating to come out...

wanrou >:)

freda and i had a fun time trying dresses at cotton on and h&m too hehe!

met yivoon at h&m too omg so coincidental!!

tried coffee bean and tea leaf's mocha frapp and omg it's damn good!

BETTER THAN STARBUCKS!!!!

seriously.

lepak-ed at popeye's while waiting for our night snack chicken to come (omg popeyes again hahaha)

i think gary wanted to watch the ite choir performance a lot so we left for esplanade thereafter!

but oh crap we were too late and it already ended :(

so we ended up walking around the esplanade area looking at the city lights at night.

i must admit that the view is really beautiful! :-)

we attempted to take photos with flash but they failed super horribly.

so what wanrou did was to hold one phone with the camera and the other with the flashlight on to give us better lighting!

#smartwanrouissmart

we should totally come here for countdown guys.

(no amount of filter could save the colour contrast whoops haha)

all in all i would like to say a very big thank you to the exco.

for everything that has happened over the past 11 days.

it was amazing, it was interesting, it was crazy, it was heartwarming, it was just like our own adventure.

our own story.

thank you guys for completing the story because as they always say, the company makes it all better.

i'm so glad to have you guys in my jc life.

i can't wait to actually go on more of such adventures of you all when we're older.

i love each one of you so much you don't even know it. ;-)

on a side note, i really love good charlotte right now. ☺♪