Last Few Weeks Of Being 23

My birthday is coming up next week and I can't help but feel a little sad. As the years roll by and I leave my teenage years behind, I find myself wishing that time could stand still. I know youth is a gift and it doesn't last for long. Like a whisper, it comes and goes. 

I also know that someday in the future, I am going to wake up and realise that I needed to sleep at 9pm not 3am. My bones are going to feel more brittle and my muscles- less responsive. 

Almost all my hobbies involve raising my heart rate to a racing bpm, which is why I dread the day my body fails on me. 

I look at all these young kids around me doing things I wish my fifteen year old body were still around to do. 

So it is with such a mindset that I have been living life. 

Fast-paced. 

No space to breathe. 

Few weeks ago Shirley, two other friends and I went skating/cycling at East Coast Park.

We made it to Bedok Jetty.

And stayed out there moon-gazing for some time.

It was so beautiful, big and bright that night.

On a different day, MingXian drove us both into Johor Bahru, Malaysia. We had lunch at a wanton mee place.

Spent almost two hours grocery shopping in KSL City Mall.

Had dinner at the Bamboo restaurant.

Hung out at Danga Bay after dinner.

Poor MingXian had no choice but to be dragged onto this ride. Even though it was small, it was really fun!

Then we just took a million photos for the rest of the night.

Had a Friday night urban skate as usual to the recently-finished Marina Bay Sands hawker centre.

Met up with the Davidians for our monthly get-togethers.

Went ice-skating with the usual Friday urban crew on a separate Friday.

 

Fell while telling people to "watch out for the curve in front". 

LOL 

Attended Shan Shan's graduation ceremony.

I love graduation ceremonies. I love them even more when they're held in a church with a service and worship before and everything. 

Well, I guess this was my first graduation ceremony that was held in a church with a service and worship before and everything. 

I cried during worship. The songs we sang somehow made me think about how lucky we were with Eric's situation and how God's grace just saves us... weak sinners... I thought about our mission in life and whether I am living out that mission to bring people to Christ. 

Hmm. 

(Note to self: don't wear mascara to church services, graduation or not)

Skated around MBS (yet again) with the three amigos. 

Snacked on the night view.

Finished off with a heavy supper at 126 in Geylang.

This is only one-thirds of the food that we ordered and tried desperately to finish.

On Friday, I went prawning at Farmart with Alu.

And Annie!

Annie had quite a few firsts that morning. 

First time eating MacDonald's breakfast, first time catching a prawn and first time being at Farmart!

Nothing beats eating the prawns you caught. 

Swimming one moment, dead and cooked the next. YUMZ.

So, horrors of horrors. 

I just got back from Skateline's monthly Saturday Night Skate and it was on this fateful night that I dropped my iPhone twice and cracked its screen.

My phone looks like a rat just chewed on it now. 

T^T

The first of the birthday gifts have arrived.

A special chinese recorder-like instrument from Chuan gu & Aunty Pei Leng! 

It's too late to try it now since everybody is sleeping, but I'll probably start chirping away later this morning when I wake up for church.

Gonna be playing the piano at Sunday School later...

I don't know how to explain the rush and mix of emotions that I have right now. But one thing I know: no matter what the situation, no matter how old I am getting or how young I am feeling, my purpose in life is simply to praise God, and I have very good reasons to do so.

All my life Lord, I give it to you! I give all my energy, youth, money and time to the furthering of your kingdom. In every walk of life, I ask that you use me like a vessel to pour forth your Spirit. In every action, word or thought of mine, I pray that you reach out to those who need you most. 

A Crazy Fun Night

No prizes for guessing what I did last night. 

That's right, I went prawning! 

At first it was just going to be me, Shirley and two of her friends. However, we ended up having Estella and the rest of the skating crew join us later. 

By the end of three hours, we had enough prawns to feed all ten people. Know how we did it with just three rods?

Well, it was because we got really lucky and three kind strangers gave us their prawns after they were done! 

We played Never Have I Ever and Truth or Dare all night. 

In an attempt to avoid awkward Truth questions, I had to do two really idiotic dares. One of them was to scream really loudly behind some random guy. The other dare was to walk to all four corners of the prawning ponds and do jumping jacks while yelling "I LOVE PRAWNING" twice. 

So. Embarrassing. 

Let's just say, we all found out quite a bit about each other last night.

Here's Estella doing a dare- running back and forth while carrying the chair above her head!

I'm so glad now that I've found another female prawning buddy! 

By the time 7am swung around, most of us were quite ready to collapse into bed. Still, we gamely waited for the sunrise. 

Cheers to a fantastic night!

Though I reached home around 9am and didn't get to sleep more than 2 hours, I wouldn't mind doing it all over again next weekend... :P

August Part Deux

Yay!!!

I'm finally catching up on my blog posts!

This should cover the few weeks after China.

Visiting Stamford American (18th Aug)

The boys had to go for their school's orientation and I tagged along because I wanted to see the newly built campus at Potong Pasir.

I was very impressed with all the facilities. Not even my college was this high-tech! 

Also, they have an angmoh teacher who speaks fluent Chinese. Her pronunciation is even better than most Singaporeans.

=O

Round Island Skate (18th - 19th Aug)

After checking out the new Stamford American campus, I headed over to East Coast Park where a group of skaters and I were going to start our Round Island Skate. 

This was the first time I'd attempted to skate all around Singapore at one go.

Wasn't sure what to expect. 

The only thing I was told was that it was a 123km journey. That's about 77 miles. 

Gosh Singapore's small... 

We stopped for supper along the way.

Went through some HDB areas.

Stopped for even more food.

The famous Thasevi Prata at Jalan Kayu.

It was quite surreal skating through deserted parts of the island around 3 or 4 in the morning.

Because we weren't able to keep with the schedule, we had to stop along Bukit Timah Rd. I ended up getting home around 6-6.30 in the morning. 

Prawning @ Punggol Waterway (20th Aug)

Since that day was a public holiday, I went with my family to Punggol Waterway- now one of my favourite spots in Singapore.

We went to the Hai Bin there for some prawning. Luckily, even though it was a public holiday, the ponds weren't too crowded.

It took some time to learn that patience was a virtue.

We brought home a total of 5 prawns at the end of three hours. The first 5 prawns were lost when Max dropped the basket into the water and all the lucky critters escaped.

Oh the satisfaction of catching something with your bare hands!

Nanyang Tech University (21st - 24th Aug)

I was at NTU for that entire week for work. Got to meet Mandapanda =)

Hangout With Talia (25th Aug)

That Saturday, we had a date to go get our violins cleaned and maintained.

This is the store where we bought both of our violins. 

It's been about 11 years since. 

Being here felt like we were being transported back in a time machine. 

Just like secondary school days.

Like we're still wearing our school uniforms and talking about random stuff.

A road filled with memories...

So it turns out that Gramercy has now moved their workshop from Katong to their headquarters near MacPherson. 

We decided to walk there.

The map they gave us stank and we ended up walking much longer than we should. 

We were so relieved when we finally got to our destination!

New Hair (31st Aug)

This is probably old news, but I got my hair cut, styled and dyed. 

It's a big change for me, considering that I haven't coloured my hair in the last four years. 

That's about all for now. 

I hope to be back shortly with a post about this past weekend.