Michelle's birthday party last Sunday, Shuting's birthday party last night, Boon's birthday party this Sunday!!

So many birthday parties to attend lately, I'm becoming broke just paying for meals and birthday presents. Hahaha.. but its all worth it. Friendship is really valuable and true friendship is really hard to come by these days.. Thank God for good friends and colleagues like Puikwan and Hongyee!

Michelle's birthday (Sun 22 Feb 09)

Met up with Michelle, Joan, Clarence, Sweekeng, Momo, Jeanette, Daryl, Bowen, Mikki and another girl, I can't remember her name, I think is Jazz's girlfriend or something. Think I might have freaked her out by asking a lot of questions about Jazz, but haha, who cares! Oh yeah, and Amelie came later as well, so about 11 pple in total. Met at Bugis and ate at some expensive Japanese place, where the food quality was mediocre, the price was ex and the portions were small! The ice-cream wasn't nice at all, but since they gave mango sauce, it made it edible. If not it just tasted like macdonald's icecream with mango slices! really expensive, that meal, n not worth it at all. Oh, Xiangling came very late too. but as Michelle's best friend, she had to be there lah. Hahaha..

Momo bought the gift which we shared, a black dress which is more like her style than Michelle's style! Haha, but quite nice lah. Mikki made her a card with a really old photo of our old cell group with yujie during halloween, it was damn funny!

Oh yeah, Joan n i took a ride in Clarence's red car to bugis junction, n he's quite a bad driver, changing lanes without signal, and speeding along small roads! but good news is, he quite smoking! (prob for the girl lah.. dawn or something?)

After dinner, we went to TCC (the one nearer the main road) and chill out for an hour or so. the waitress teased clarence (CNN) for being a cheapo, asking for free water n free cake for Michelle! haha.. but then again, the drinks were quite expensive too, about $8 each, so we spend more than $100+ there as a group, plus a few of them ordered cakes. oh, n they took like 80+ over pictures with Mich's ibook camera! so vain n lame lah, but amazingly SK joined the girls in the photo-whoring! hahaha.. she or i mean he, really likes to get attention in photos man! the guys just joked and talked about games, girls, and the usual, and at about 10 pm, I think most of them went home, so left 4 of us guys who went to parklane to play L4D!! To me, that was the highlight of the night, yelling and laughing and panicking and banging the keyboard in frustration and laughter, we played about 2 hours of L4D! by the time we left the LAN shop, it was about 12 plus, and I got home at about 1 plus am.

Was good fellowshipping with the guys n girls! Catching up with things in Michelle's life and the latest gossip and happenings in the cell group! Hahaha..

Shuting's birthday (25 Feb 2009)

Was actually quite surprised that Jasmine asked Joan and I along for Shuting's birthday celebration as we weren't really that close to her. well, i guess Joan is, since she helped out much more with the admin side during drumfest, while i was chilling with the other guys. Haha! but anyway quite a lot of pple came!

Valerie, Jasmine, Yuhong, Ian, Millie, Daryl, Rachel, Yongqiang, Guankeat, Jaslyn, Julia, and maybe one or two more pple that I missed out, I think about 12 of us altogether. They had dinner at Shokudo, but i didn't join them, i prefered to save $ and eat with Puikwan and Hongyee first. They rented 2 rooms at cineleisure to play guitar hero and with 4 seperate computers, where we played L4D all night long! Hahaha.. Was damn fun, screaming and shouting orders and yelling for help and shrieking in fright (yes, Millie and Jaslyn really screamed when playing the game!) and shooting zombies and sometimes killing each other accidentally, was really funny and hilarious! Seeing the expression on Ian's face was priceless man!

Daryl showed up with a big bunch of balloons and we sang Shuting the birthday song. She had about 3 presents from all of us, mostly bags. I dunno why girls always get bags or belts for birthdays! LOL! but the balloons were really nice, n Shuting felt so touched she was stunned for words. Even Irenus rush down from cell group to join the bunch of us.

Though by the time we left it was almost 11.30 am, and I reached home after midnight, I really treausre the time spent with Strikeforce guys, and my old cell group members as well. Guess I really can't click well with my current cell group, even till today I feel like an outsider, to most of them at least. Shrugz..

Thank You Lord for all these friends that You've brought into my life, I feel so blessed to have such great friends! Doesn't matter if they'er younger or older, or in church or not, but they're just wonderful company to be with and enjoy life with!

midnight and still working at office..

Just a note to self.. when working past midnight, always bring snacks to office to tide me over! so hungry now.. think i'll report in late for work tml, earliest 10 am!

Valentime's Day 2009!

Just a short post to describe how Joan and I celebrated Valentime's Day.

I know I really didn't spend much time planning for this year's Vday, I initially planned to get up early on Saturday morning, go to the shop which is near Joan's school and get her one of those plastic balloons with a smaller balloon inside it, then go pick up Joan from her house.. unfortunately, I overslept, and woke up at about 11.50 am!

I don't think we stayed up very late on Friday night either, all I remember is meeting Joan after her class and going to eat some very nice Japanese food at the new Jap food court at paradiz centre. A little bit pricey, around $6-8 per meal, but the food was nice, and the decor was good too, and we got a window seat. Hehz. After dinner, we took a short stroll to the museum and had went to Olio Dome for mocha with gelato and an oreo cheesecake for dessert. The drink was nice, but the cheesecake, while looking quite nice, wasn't cheesey enough, and was a bit bland actually, and I was quite disappointed cos it looked really nice on the plate. But by about 10.30 pm they were already cleaning up and chasing out the customers, so I was a little annoyed. We walked to city hall to take MRT home, and I didn't even send Joan home because I was so tired n sleepy.

So anyway, back to Vday. Reached Joan's place just before 12.30 pm cos my dad gave me a lift to the MRT. helped pack the Japanese rice into a tumbler and a small container (haha, don't ask!) and then wanted to go to clark quay Mai mason restaurant for lunch, but in the end settled for Sizzler, becos the stupid restaurant closes at 2.30 pm, and by the time we left Joan's house was already close to 1.20 pm, can't possibly expect us to rush through a nice Vday lunch right? So we had a good meal at TPY's Sizzler, good food and value for money. We had a window seat too, although not much of a view! Haha.. Think I ate too much, had 2 or 3 servings of salad, 2 soups, 2 cheese bread, main course of beef steak with pepper sauce, and fruits.

After that we went to paragon to shop around for ingredients for the Japanese dinner that we were supposed to cook at my place, and ended up at Carefour at plaza sing instead, cos the things were cheaper and easier to find there. I will never go back to the paragon supermarket, one bad experience there is enough. =P

We bought the food (which amounted to $60+ and over spend by about $15, was estimating$50) and actually shouldn't have bought the chocolate ben & jerry ice cream ($14.90!! for such a small container!) but oh well, doesn't matter, how often do I get to splurge on Joan and on such a special day too.

I shan't go into details of my first attempt at cooking with Joan, at least she had a cookbook and some cooking experience to help her, I was struggling with finding simple sauces and cracking an egg. Haha! I admit, I've never cooked a meal in my life, except for instant noodles. We started cooking at around 6 pm, but by the time we were done, it wa already 8 plus in the evening! I never knew cooking could be so tiring! And all I did was prepare the chawamusi egg thingy, and helped cook the Japanese curry, and cut up some carrots and onions, and I was quite exhuasted by the time we finished cooking everything and sat down to eat! The sushi that we made was really funny too, mine was overly cramped with ingredients and was too fat, Joan's sushi still looked quite alright, and my bro n mindice actually took a bite to try it and thought it was ok. Hahaha.. mine was like, experiment gone wrong! but nvm, important thing is that we had fun cooking together, and I must really thank Joan for not getting annoyed with my constant questions on what to do on this and that, cos I really never cooked before! haha.. Took some nice pics, will upload on facebook when I have the time.. After dinner, we had some erm, recreational companionship activities in the living room, before deciding to join my bro n friends. (haha!)

Went down to the BBQ pit to chit chat with Weiliang, Mindice, Huiling and her bf Bao-Er (what a name for a guy, i thought the name was for a girl!) and basically just talked crap and lame jokes until everyone was laughing. The wine probably helped! Then my bro came with more cakes although all of us were simply too stuffed and full to eat anymore, but we still crammed the cakes down, as the cakes were really delicious. Sounds like gluttony, but oh well, once a year only right? How often do we celebrate Vday? Hahaha.. But seriously i've never eaten so much since the CNY cruise!

So that just about wraps up Vday.. sunday was kinda relaxed, didn't do much, wake up for service, Joan came over to watch service with me (parts 2 and 3 of the top 5 things that matter to a man and woman in a relationship), then we had a late breakfast / early lunch and Joan took a short nap before going for MTT and collecting gig pay, while i struggled my way through the afternoon heat to do some work. We had dinner at casuarina, at the botak HK guy's steamboat reastaurant, the promfet cost $47! expensive.. but it was quite big lah, so not bad. we had champagne pork ribs, hot plate beancurd, and charsiew with the 3 layer meat too. I actually enjoyed dinner with my family and Joan, mindice didn't join though.

Just like that, the weekend flew past. Weekdays seem to really crawl by, but the weekend always speeds by so quickly, before you know it, its Monday. Sigh. But i must admit, I did have a really good weekend with Joan from Friday all the way until Sunday night.. although i'm a bit sad that I didn't have time to really plan out the activities, or buy a nice gift for Joan.. thank God she's a really understanding girlfriend, but still i should've done things right, and not let work be an excuse. oh well, i promised her a holiday to Langkawi or somewhere nice for sightseeing after her exams, so i guess i'll plan that trip properly and make sure she has enough shopping money. not like the last time we were at phuket. =P hahaha..

i feel like i'm hitting a dead end..

its 2.15 am in the morning.. i'm awake and i don't want to sleep, and when i sleep, i don't want to wake up.

its a monday morning n i've got to go to work tomorrow.. either that, or i go to the doctor to get a MC. which is really quite pointless, cos i don't think dr kwok will give me anything which i already don't have... honestly i want to get MC cos i want to stay at home n not go to work because i hate my job.

i've got to admit the fact n start dealing with it, otherwise i simply won't be happy. i suck at my job n i don't like it there. i've got to go job hunt for another job. i simply can't take much more of corporate lifestyle.

sorry God but i think i messed up my life. my girlfriend's upset with me over a few things, i'm feeling really lousy about not being able to meet her needs n being like a slave to my job.. i can't even have a weekend without thinking about work. i'm forced to work extra long hours cos i can't finish my work on weekdays.. i hate this lifestyle, i really hate it..

its like what boon said. i'm doing something purely for the sake of money.

and i''ve got no choice because i'm locked into this property, a house i bought at $630,000. ok, minus off 30k grant, but it still costs $600,000. how the heck am i supposed to find the money to pay finish the house, have a wedding, n a nice honeymoon at the same time? its freaking ridiculous..

i don't know what to do anymore.. i only know how to run away n hide under my blanket, n wish my troubles away, but i know that when i awake, its back into a living hell for me.. the hell of my job, the hell of trying to make ends meet, in paying the house.. i mean, if i want to be debt free in 15 years, i've got to pay off $600000 in 15 years, thats about $40000 a year, which means is about $3k a month which i need to fork out..

that is freaking impossible.. i only earn 3.6 k a month.

on top of that, i've got insurance to pay, the building fund, tithe, offerings, transport, hp bill, and pretty much anything that i need, i've got to use my own cash to pay for it. my parents aren't giving me a single cent anymore..

its so hard to go on.. God i know i can always quit and find another job. but i want to at least finish up this deal with inventa before quitting n perhaps, going for SOT.

maybe start giving tuition part time n teaching again. i don't know.. somehow i pray that You offer me a solution. anything's better than this living hell i'm in..