it's been a long, long time since i've actually had absolutely nothing at all to do on a saturday evening. i just finished the last peanut-black sesame biscuit in the most unglamorous way possible, digging into the bottom of the bag for all the peanuts and black sesame seeds which had fallen off the top of the biscuits, and shovelling them into my mouth. and you know how your fingers get rather wet and sticky when you do that - the black sesame seeds stuck to my fingers, and i simply proceeded to lick them off.

i told you, it's been a long, long time since i've actually had absolutely nothing at all to do on a saturday evening, and it's wonderful.

***
at the risk of sounding stuck-up and/or small minded, it was only fairly recently that i realised a whole lot more other people i know don't stay in the bukit-something area, or in a house. i never thought it was a big deal to stay in bukit timah and in a house, because, hey, i grew up with people who all did. but it evidently is, and sometimes i just don't want to tell people i stay there anymore because of the reaction i get.

but i went for a walk just now, and i think i will go on telling them after all. because i love my neighbourhood, and i'm really thankful i stay here. it's got quite a number of old houses, and with old houses you get old gardens; with old gardens, old trees. old trees with leaves made silvery-greyish-green by the sun, spindly branched-out branches sillhoueted against the blue-turning-pale pink sky. with all these things, you get what i think must be the most beautiful suburban sunsets ever.

and with houses and gardens, you get, along with crickets chirping and the occasional bird trill, the laughter of children. because of children's birthday parties on saturday evenings - i passed by a total of three on my walk, the last one had yellow smiley-face balloons attached to the gate. all three gates had balloons attached to them, actually. the second one i passed, there was a tubby boy wearing red crocs (he had a very flushed face too) waving a party streamer and bellowing a birthday song rather tunelessly: happy birthday to you, my love to you, may all your wishes come true.

***
rehearsal for the wcdc concert ended about two hours earlier than scheduled, i hopped on the first available bus back home after that and looked forward eagerly to crashing on the couch. but blame me and my smile, i said hi to the uncle at the caltex station - yes, i stay near the petrol station where shakespeare singh works - and he bid me sit down next to him while he launched into a poetry session. he often ended the poems with an emphatic shout and a sort of half-jump, which was quite amusing. i wish i hadn't been so sleepy, i would have liked to remember the poems he recited to me - especially the ones about war and about God.

i pray that there will be world peace
so that for breakfast, everyone can have coffee, bread, butter and CHEESE! (cheese emphatically shouted with a half-jump)

but something he said after his poem on God struck me, about how he thinks he's a small fry. that's a jon line, too. and i was thinking about it later during my walk, i think the people who are most contented and at peace with themselves are those who recognise there're small fries - those who recognise and can accept that there's a God greater than us all, greater than the things of the world, and we're nothing without Him. a God who created everything around us for us to enjoy, if only we would see that we're small fries, and just enjoy it for what it's worth. because i've come to realise that it's only when you acknowledge what (and who) you truly are, that you can stop caring so much about what the world thinks and stop trying so hard, too hard.

not that small fries don't seek excellence in everything they do, you understand. it's just that there's more to everything which this world affords, today.

***
i make an effort to smile at people i encounter on my walks - smiles from neighbours always make a lovely evening even lovelier. and sometimes it's the most unexpected people who have the most genuine smiles. like the contractor gabbling away in hokkien, smelling of sweat and cigarette smoke who broke his flow of words just to smile back at me. and then you wonder at how people can not realise that they're loving God by doing these little things.

i shall probably regret sleeping so late again when i wake up tomorrow - i've already got eyebags i think, and i want NO MORE PANDA EYES. but -

brother: what movie are you gonna watch?
me: TMNT!!
brother: what?? that's so unromantic!!!

so one of the first scenes in the movie, michaelangelo plops himself down on the couch, picks up the remote, and starts channel-surfing aimlessly, yawning all the time.

and i'm like, jon, i didn't know you were starring in the movie. he can even smile like michaelangelo la.

oh no, i've fallen for a turtle. wan2 le4.

i might regret staying up so late to type this in approximately six-and-a-half hours' time, when my too-efficient body clock wakes me up at 0730. which i actually think is an answer to my prayer that i'd wake up each morning to read the bible and pray; whatever it is, at around 0900, depending on how skillfully jemery navigates traffic and traffic lights, i'll either be telling jon to buy me tehohkosongdaizou, or i'll be walking sleepily out of the lecture theatre to do it myself.

of course, i could just save myself the torture and read akt's slides at home but, masochist that i am, i like school. i like being around everyone, just because i can be. plus akt is pretty hot. even though he either believes that his trousers are wrinkle-free or he irons them himself. jon thinks he just doesn't wash them, but i think otherwise, simply because he wears a wedding ring. what faith i have in marriage and women.

plus i'm on food duty for efg, and if i don't go to school joseph is going to lynch me.

but i have to blog, because thursday was a day of perfect moments. like jon telling me that he thinks akt is hot too, and he was going to ask him for his number after lecture, and i told him that he should just email him instead because we can get his number off the law website and jon promised to bcc me a copy of the email he would send. or tris making me and yalan laugh during lunch, my tummy is still feeling the after effects now. seeing the lovely drink stall auntie smiling when i dragged her out into the sun to take a picture with me for the law annual - just because i felt like it.

how justin dropped me off at quentin's after my tutorial just because he had a car and it was raining; how aunty patsy (quentin's mother) made me pumpkin soup and gave me a real baked wholemeal roll - the kind where you can taste the yeast, dense like bread was meant to be, not like the conditioned soft loaves we get nowadays - with butter, for dinner. even though i'd only asked quentin if i could come over on a whim, about an hour and a half before i actually showed up, just because i felt like it, during my equity and trusts tutorial. how it was raining during dinner and i sat opposite the window in the dining room drinking hot pumpkin soup, watching the rain fall with one of the people i love the most in the world, in companionable silence. even scalding my tongue slightly, because i can never wait for these hot liquids to cool down before i drink them. how quentin's mother suddenly popped up next to me bearing a perlini's box which held a silver chain with a cross pendant, as a baptism present.

most of all, it was about being baptised - it only started hitting me on wednesday evening that it was a pretty big thing - jon was like, hey it's like getting married you know? and in a way it was, because people kept smsing throughout the day saying congrats. which was lovely, but rather strange - in a good way. it hasn't really sunk it yet that i'm actually baptised. i told jemery in the car on the way to school today that i shall always be very thankful i met him that sunday he was signing up for baptism class, but really, i suppose God planned the meeting.

and it was about eating supper for the first time in almost three years; real supper, not like the leftover vegetables i would snitch from fridge after late shifts at rouge, not even like the yoghurt and apple pie or the chicken foldover i had after working the 2006 new year shift. nor the cheese on toast/crackers and cheese i'd have on a running day, as well as all the fruit i would eat, like grapes and plums - the easy to eat fruit. just wash and pop it in your mouth. it's never real supper, i think, unless you're having it just because you feel like it. not because you're ravenous after running around serving people too-expensive tiger beer, and you have to eat something you don't really want to because it's supposedly healthier. not that we should just go all out and eat whatever we want to, of course - but everything in moderation, and we do know how much we can afford to eat.

some of jon's pig organ porridge - the liver was overcooked but the consistency of the porridge was just right. and prata. i love prata. surprisingly un-oily, hot and crispy, fish curry with bits of fish in it. as jon kept saying last night, wonderful. (although i do think he was just blown away by the company...) and a chicken pau, from lim kee, the only factory mass-produced coffeeshop pau that tastes good.

as i was telling jon just before we parted, God did create everything - and so we should just enjoy it, for all it's worth. don't wait till you're 50 to search for the meaning of life. it's not that you won't find it, but really, life could be so much better now.

i'm really very joyful and thankful that for the first time in my life i actually have good girl friends (tris is included, he's sitting next to me now as i'm typing this and i can't resist naming him). but i don't think it's going to be very beneficial to my wallet - or my ego, for that matter. the following conversation transpired between muikheng and myself yesterday.

me: eh die already la. i'm so breaking out.
mui kheng (giving her YES YOU SO ARE look, wide eyes and all): YES!! YOU ARE!!
me: thanks.
mui kheng: which facewash do you use?
me: ginvera.
mui kheng: that's really too strong already.
me: really? i didn't know?
mui kheng: yes!! you should go and buy the neutrogena extra mild one. i don't even use mild, i use extra mild!!
me: isn't that really expensive?
mui kheng: but it's a very big bottle and it lasts very long...

after my nap yesterday i went to the ntuc pharmacy and bought myself a bottle. i've never spent more than $5 on facial wash before but i bought what she (and the pharmacist, too) recommended - and it was $13.77.

tris says he can't believe i've typed this entry and he doesn't think $13.77 is expensive. for 200ml?!?! okay what he says. considering he uses BODY SHOP facewash.

oh well. see above for why i'm so pleased.