December had always been a month which I anticipated. I guess I'm always looking forward to the end of the year somehow, and for a good closure that comes together with all the other festive seasons.

For the past couple of years, it has brought me surprises, miracles, and more smiles to my face than I could comprehend myself. It's kinda gay but that's the kind of magic that comes along with nearing of an end, for me.

No matter how bad the rest of the year was, December always worked its magic.

This year has been a roller coaster ride with more downs than my heart could take. I lost myself, broke down, and probably gave up many times, only to climb back and fix myself because I had to, for others, but not because I had the will to. I crashed and I burned too much, and I probably killed myself with my thoughts too many times to count.
I hardly saw any light at the end of the tunnel. This year, it was just accelerating down the bottomless pit at different rates, till I felt so numb from the free fall I was left feeling nothing at all.

December this year wasn't any different from the rest of 2013. I thought things might take turn since it was December, even if just a little. But it didn't.
There were certainly a couple of highlights of 2013 as I archived on my blog and I wished I was optimistic enough to hold on to those and hope for the better through the tough times, but I'm not. If I could describe 2013, it'll be disappointments, failures, loneliness, false hopes, stress, anger, anxiety, being constantly stuck in helpless situations, arguments after arguments and unnecessary recollections of the past that only made me wonder, what happened between then and now? But there are so many days this year which I didn't archive and that was because if I did, I'd only have depressing shit to say. It was a horribly disgusting year that flew by in a blink of an eye, but slow enough for all the bad things to materialise.


By now you should have guessed that I didn't really have a great Christmas. It was the worst ever, and I'm not even hesitating about it.

It's 2 more days to New Year's Eve, and I'm no longer hoping for a decent closure anymore. But even though I say that, I'll be spending NYE with my best pals so I guess I'm still strung on the idea of an awesome night with those fools. But whatever bad comes, I'll survive. I wouldn't break down like I did on December 25th.


So dear life, what crap do you have in store for me before 2013 concludes itself?

24th December was Xmas eve baking at Victor's place with Trisha! We got up real early to get the various missing ingredients, and I'm so glad I was baking with these two cause they've got some legit baking skills up their sleeves unlike well um me.
The last time I baked was during Valentine's day two years ago and I remembered baking with the sec3 female epeeists. But we weren't exactly baking cause we just used cornflakes, some batter and a toaster kinda oven. Yeap.

I guess I'm one of those girls who you can't leave alone in the kitchen unless you're leaving me to destroy it. But I do make relatively good sandwiches. And salads. And parfaits.

For this time's baking, I decided on making melting chocolate tartlets after contemplating them between cake pops and some other stuff. Trisha settled on gingerbread men while the ambitious Victor wanted to bake red velvet cupcakes and lemon zest coated sugar cookies. I shall let you in on my Christmas Eve baking adventure with Ong & Loh.






The crust all ready to head into the oven. This was the first batch and the batter left after this was reaaaaaaally little so I wounded up making another batch of it x2 after I was done with the chocolate.


The last time I tried to make some filling for my rainbow cake (about 4 years ago), the instructions said that I had beat the egg whites till they were well somewhat fluffy? If my memory doesn't fail me. But I didn't I just barely stirred it and dumped it into the sugary mixture. The result was some revolting concoction.
This time, for my chocolate filling, I had to beat the egg whites while gradually adding sugar till they were stiff. I thought it was no piece of cake so I decided to do it manually instead of using the electronic mixer and well what a mistake. I almost broke my wrist from that constant endless beating that only made my egg whites whiter but nothing close to fluff. And of course being the baking amateur I am, I was always asking Victor, "so is this stiff?" "what about now?" "oh it's white now is it stiff now" "how long do i have to do this" "does beating this shit really work" "omg i never knew egg whites alone could look like this" "okay i can do this" "ohhhhh yeeeeeeah go round and round and round" "argh can you do it for me instead Victor" "i want to sleep"

Yeah. They endured all of that.






This is the process of the Hershey's semi sweet baking chocolate bar x3 melting, which took a decade, but wounded up looking like melting ice-cream at best. Even Victor said that it took a ridiculous amount of time and that this was the first time he encountered such a chocolate crisis.

I guess I have zero baking luck. Some crisis always crops up when I bake sigh. But oh well I eventually gave up waiting for the chocolate to melt so I thought it's ice-cream state would suffice. I decided to do without some of those troublesome crap and just folded the mix till it looked decent and poured them into the crusts and off into the oven it goes again.









Meanwhile, these are Victor's red velvet cupcakes and sugar cookies. It's so damn pretty and I'm so jelly why is he so good at this why why why.

He was bitching while he was making his cream cheese filling though but it turned out fantastic. It looks like one of those cupcakes sold at pastry stores (with the exception of his not-so-good piping skills though). Hahaha.
Oh and he baked sugar cookie too which was yummy and I didn't get to see him make his lemon zest icing but when I tried it during today's dinner, damn is it good stuff. Everyone was raving over it and the container of sugar cookies dwindled instantly.




Trisha's gingerbread batter, but she got too lazy to cut the shape of a gingerbread man herself (she owns no cutter) so she decided to settle with those mini cutters and made gingerbread cookies. Even though I despise ginger, I loved it cause it had this unique flavour to it. Not everyone was a fan of her cookies though, I guess it's what you'd call an acquired taste?







My freshly baked chocolate tartlets ^-^ One of the pictures with Trisha's gingerbread cookies.

The reason for our baking was for the festive season of course. But I won't deny the fact that the other force driving me to do this is because I wanted to impress my boy and prove to him that I could actually bake something decent and not just "edible". So yay I fulfilled them both.

I brought the tartlets home that night, when my relatives all came over to have a Christmas eve dinner and they finished my tartlets!! The joy I felt was inexplicable cause before that, Victor and Trisha only dampened my spirits by constantly rejecting my tartlets and saying that they taste "meh". Brandon said it was nice too so I'm just flying, feeling invincible from accomplishing the task that would have otherwise been impossible for me up until this Christmas Eve.

Hopefully I'd be able to cook up something better the next time round. Hehe.

With that, I'd end this post wishing all a blessed Merry Christmas :) Till next time, xx

The past few days have been relatively fruitful for me. I spent the 21st of December out with my favourite girl and our boyfriends catching AnyHow Arts 2013 because I wanted to support Yeewah, who performed really well btw. I have never seen that shortie dance before in the past 4 years of our friendship but damn her performance that night makes me wonder what am I doing being an inflexible blob of fat who was too lazy for her runs the past few days.
Me and Ziman were just... Being Belle and Ziman I guess. We commented on anything and everything as per usual, such as how this guy is a mix breed of who and who and so on. The Chung Cheng days sigh.

Oh oh and that midnight, together with Zhiyi, we went to surprise our dear dear coke boy since it was finally his 17th birthday!! Well okay it's an inside joke but Kelvin is the coke boy and he's a coke boy because we got him this galaxy print coke boy snapback... HAHAHA. And some galaxyish popcorn and cotton candy.
We'll get him a decent gift soon to make up for the past two years of crap presents. Really. We will.

The rest of the Sunday was spent on retail therapy/working with Trisha! We have been crapping about how we'll probably get so sick of each other's faces since we'll be seeing each other everyday till the holiday ends (due to an exercise regime which we are determined to religiously follow) but we still went shopping anyway. It's been SO LONG since I had decent hauls on a shopping trip!! Okay actually not really cause I just got some lovely stuff from Pull & Bear last week buuuuuuut it's one of trips where you feel like the money spent was so damn worth it.
Oh and I should mention that we tried Artease's Apple Rose Tea with no sugar no toppings (which basically consists of apple syrup and french rose tea) and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Why doesn't Gongcha have something like that?? Argh I cannot get over it it perfectly fixes my need for tea everyday. I NEED IT NOW I REALLY DO.

As for today, I spent my afternoon working (as usual) and the night having dinner with my family. It has actually been a really long time since I went out with them to have a decent meal together because I'm always either working night shifts or out with some other company. But yay we got some yummy dinner at MOF before catching Frozen. I loved the movie heh.


These past couple of days, I guessed I kinda gave up a little and decided to step back. I got a little tired, always being the one trying to reach out, always taking the initiative. Everyone says it's 'my thing' but hey, I have a sensitive side too.
After taking a step back, I guess I kinda saw who would have treasured the plans made more, and who probably took them for granted. It's not like I kept mum about it. If you know me, I would have made it blunt and clear about how it's getting on my nerves and not just talk behind anyone's back. But anyway, these past few days have been the best, because I really didn't have to try or think that hard to make things happen. Things worked out because everyone tried, and that's something I can't explain how thankful I am for.

It's already Christmas Eve tomorrow (and 2 weeks to the end of my freedom), I hope you guys have been enjoying your holidays so far cause I have. I have not started on any of projects but let's not get started on that. Besides it's been a really wordy post I hope I haven't killed your eyes.

I'm so excited for tomorrow!!

I just got back from Bintan last night. But I couldn't pull myself together to blog cause I was sea sick.
It's kinda weird because I wasn't suffering from it throughout the whole duration of my trip, but only a couple of hours after my arrival back at Singapore. So yeah I got seasick while on land. Which is well, weird. And I never once suffered from motion sickness or anything like that... I feel like a weakling to succumb to such an illness. It's nothing severe, but it feels a little like I'm suffering from vertigo.
My parents said it was probably because I travelled on boats a lot, and yeah I guess that's it cause throughout the past three days, I really boated around a couple of times. I hope this illness quickly tides over.

Anyway, the terrible things aside, I had the time of my life while I was at Bintan with my boy and his family! If you're wondering whether I fear the awkwardness, well duh. Who wouldn't when it comes to travelling with someone else's parents (and your boyfriend's at that).

But no fear was gonna stop me from travelling. Nu-uh. It was far too good an opportunity to give up. It turned out to be a blast, and I'm so thankful for how fearless and semi thick-skinned I am to have accepted the invitation. It was sooooo worth it. And I got to know his family better too.


Well, here's my 3D2N Bintan trip through my iPhone!


1. Taken while on ferry to Bintan  //  2. Mini van ride to Bintan Spa Villa  //  3. Day 1's ootd  //  4. Dress details  //  5. Greeted with a low tide on the first afternoon  //  6. Massage house which we went to after the long travel



1. Relaxing by the beach with the lovely sea breeze  //  2. I love coconut  //  3. Jacuzzi spot with no jacuzzi in picture cause I think my silhouette's cooler  //  4. Day 2's breakfast buffet  //  5. Sea port of Tanjong Penang far away from Bintan Spa Villa  //  6. While on the boat to tour another island



1. The other sea port which we disembarked at  //  2. The lane which I thought deserved a photo  //  3. Temple visiting  //  4. The twin kittens that followed us the whole temple trip  //  5. Road to Kampung area  //  6. Brandon leading the way



1. Back of the Kampung houses  //  2. Trees growing on top of a temple  //  3. The 325 year-old temple which royalty once resided in  //  4. More Kampung houses on stilts  //  5. Old windows with an old man smoking inside  //  6. The corridor of one of those houses



1. Picture taken by uncle Tan before we went back to Tanjong Penang  //  2. Boat's view of houses along the sea port  //  3. Streets of Tanjong Penang  //  4. Stray cat sleeping beneath the wheels of the car we're traveling in (it would have died if the car moved forward)  //  5. Virgin try - chill crab for dinner  //  6. Twilight back at Bintan Spa Villa




1. Rising tide  //  2. From the view of our room's balcony at the break of dawn on Day 3  //  3. Waiting for sunrise from 5.45AM local time  //  4. Sunrise  //  5.  Pretty lamp  //  6. My fat feet against the sand



1. Getting on the speedboat at 8AM  //  2. Ready for White Sands Island  //  3. Boat's view of the sea view villa  //  4. My excited self with my not-so-excited face  //  5. Frowning Brandon with his thick eyebrows  //  6.  White Sands Island and its white sand



1. Getting ready for a dip in the crystal clear waters  //  2. Another view of the beach  //  3. Clean soft sand  //  4. Day 3's ootd at the beach  //  5. Picture which I forced Brandon into  //  6. I sell seashells on White Sand's seashore






Panorama shots.

I brought my polaroid and superheadz camera too but I shall upload the other photos together some other time (maybe) once I've got the films processed.
I dipped into crystal clear waters, ate chili crab, went around Kampung houses on stilts and much much more for the very first time in the 17 years I have lived so far. That's a couple of things ticked off my bucket list! Not that I had an exhaustive list to begin with but, it's always been on the back of my mind.
But I so miss the food there because its spiciness is just damn shiok la and I need more of it. Undoubtedly, I ate a lot during this trip and didn't watch my diet at all so I've probably gotten fatter. Time to get back into shape again huh.

I can't wait to travel again during my next semester break in February. Hopefully, I'll get to go Japan this time because I've been dying to since 2 years ago and I still haven't got the chance to.


Travels aside, I just got a haircut today. I didn't get a new fancy style or anything, just chopped off a good three inches of my too-long hair and trimmed my fringe. I think I might have regretted my decision a little cause it feels a little too short now argh.

Damn hair can you pls pls pls grow like an inch longer by Christmas?