Regrets

I’m 19 years old.

My life hasn’t been smooth-sailing all the time. Like many others, I’ve faced my own problems, dealt with stress, pushed myself through obstacles... and I’m still learning to run this marathon properly.

I’ve had my share of regrets. There were so many things I wished I could change. Regrets burn a hole into your conscience, taunting you about the past. The worst thing about regrets is knowing that you can never take them back.

Out of pride, I refused to settle a minor dispute with a good friend until it turned too sour beyond repair, and our friendship of three years went down the drain just like that. Things were not the same ever since.

I gave my heart to a guy when I was 16, only to have it broken 2 months later. I spent half the year trying to nurse it back.

I wasn't fully prepared for my SAT exam. Therefore, my results were not satisfactory.

I took my first two semesters at college for granted. My CGPA dipped below 3.0 and I spent the next few semesters trying to bring it up.

I have said and done things that brought so much hurt to my parents; and I truly regret that. I may apologize, but I cannot fully erase the pain I’ve caused them.

I turned down good opportunities because I was scared of the changes. Maybe I wasn't sure of my chances. I could've scored something big, but I wouldn't know because I did not step out.

I am not very expressive. Maybe even a little passive. I wished I wasn't.

I thought I had all the time in the world to spare. So I took plenty of things for granted.

I have had 19 years to live. I don’t know how many more years God has in store for me. All I know is that I want to spend the rest of my life trying to live a life without regrets.

Who is to say that regrets are inevitable? That mistakes happen beyond your control? Yes, certain things may be beyond your control; but mistakes are not.

We make mistakes, not knowing that they would end up being mistakes. Mistakes lead to regrets, which were formulated from decisions. Those decisions came from choices. And we made those choices.

And choices come with consequences. Whenever you make one, you gotta be prepared for the consequences. Someone's got to be held responsible.

I don’t see the point in blaming other people for my mistakes. After all, what are they supposed to do about it? And what can they do about it? The only person left to take the burden of the blame is ME. Me, myself and I. Because only I know where I went wrong, and what I have to do about it.

The hardest thing to do when you’ve made a mess is picking things up where you left them.

It’s like piecing a broken vase back together; you know that even after you’ve reconstructed the vase, it won’t look the way it first looked when you bought it from the shop. The cracked lines will serve as a permanent memory of the accident. It’s irreversible.

Okay, I have regretted many things. Who hasn’t?

Like it or not, my past has made me who I am.

I wouldn’t say that I am glad I made those mistakes, but I can’t deny that they served a simple purpose: they taught me new lessons and I will hold on to those lessons for as long as I live.

It may be too late to go back into the past and erase the damage. But it’s never too late to put the damage behind and move forward, and learn from my mistakes so I won’t end up repeating the history I tried so hard to forget.

I cannot promise myself that I’ll be a perfect person, living a perfect life with the perfect decisions.

But I can promise myself that I’ll learn to be more careful, to be not too selfish or too selfless, to be more thoughtful, less fearful, and to live a life with joy.

Midvalley

After church ended yesterday, I headed to Midvalley with Gloria and Roxanne for lunch. Roxanne led us to Spaghetti Grill. The exterior was like Itallanies (pale brick walls) but the interior was like Chili's (they had a waiting seat and vinyl booth seats). The food was its own. We ordered a pasta and a pizza which came along with drinks.

Seafood Pasta

Spicy Dory pizza

The pasta was cold but it wasn't bad. And the pizza was tasty.
We had a good time catching up. Gloria posed an interesting question:
"What is your dream identity? Who do you sometimes wished you could become?"

She said she'd like to be a superstar because she likes to entertain people and see their happy smiles fom being entertained.
Roxanne said she'd want to be a dancer because dancing is a way of expressing yourself freely without holding anything back.
I said I'd like to be an actress because in acting, you can impersonate various roles and just be different people every time. It's cool.

What is YOUR dream identity?

Her theory is that we tend to have a dream identity that we wish we could possess in reality. But in reality, we act completely different from our dream identities.

dancer, actress, superstar

After lunch, we went to New Zealand's Natural Ice Cream for some yummy dessert! I used my voucher for the first time and got us a regular tub of rich chocolate ice cream. :) I think it was called "Chocolate Esctasy". Chocolate is every girl's guilty pleasure. It was sinfully delicious.

Roxanne adored the ice cream. Haha!

There were two guys working at the counter, and one of them was wearing one of those flu-protection masks. I don't know what happened, but the man in front of me suddenly pointed a finger at him and demanded, "Are you sick?! If you are sick, I don't want you to serve me. You shouldn't even be here if you are sick!"
I don't think the guy was sick, but he looked embarrassed. He didn't apologize or anything. Just quietly continued making ice creams for the other customers. His friend stepped up to serve the man. Now with the H1N1 flu, everyone's taking precaution.

We met up with Annora. Funny girl :D She's working at Carefree. Hahaha! We were teasing her about it. Carefree is a brand for panty liners. And she was saying that she tells random things to customers sometimes. Like,
"Hello, would you like to buy Carefree?"
"No thanks. I already bought one."
"Oh... buy again la! :)"
Who's so carefree to not care about their money, Annora? :D

Anyway, to sum up the day, I think I got conned. More on that later.

I was so bored today. So I decided to cook! :D I created my own recipe. FRIED MASHED POTATOES with carrot, egg and chicken :) Haha. No pictures of it, sorry. Will improvise and try it again and then I'll take a picture !

Oh, and last weekend, my mom taught me how to cook Stuffed Chicken. I helped out. It was a hearty dinner of : , along with baked potatoes and gravy :D

roasted chicken with stuffing.

baked potatoes

and gravy! whee! we whipped up a good dinner. =D

Life's good when you love to cook. Agree? :)

Chi Elron

Talk about weird dreams. I just had one a few nights ago.

I dreamt that my mom, brother and I flew to some middle state in USA during winter. It was cold. The snow was falling over the grass, replacing the green with pure whiteness. We entered a very big but old building (was it a church or a university? I don't remember) and I was suddenly sitting in front of a PC, checking my emails when I received an acceptance email from a christian university located also in the midwest; it was called Chi Elron University and based on my previous SAT score, they offered me a scholarship worth 6,930 k. I'm serious! I remember the exact figure too.

People say that dreams have meanings. Well, what meaning was that dream supposed to have?
Lol. Anyway, today I went to google up Chi Elron University. I even tried chielron university but no results prevailed -.-

What a dream.

Cutest Advertisement Ever

Have you seen this?




So adorable! :D

Prom Night: Mystical Illusion

July 17th; Friday.
My first prom, and definitely a night to remember!

Seeing that it was my first time going for prom, I opted for a "different" look. I went to the salon to curl my hair, and then had my darling best friend to do my makeup for me.
She's awesome!
(If you're reading this, Vi, thank you for taking the time to help me! :) I love you so much!!!)

Okay I'm gonna talk full-scale about the day. I stepped into the salon and told the guy I wanted waves in my hair, not curls. But he curled it anyway and then assured me that they would straighten within a few hours. By the time I left the salon, I think my hair resembled the Asian version of Goldilocks! Lol.

So curlayyy!
And I've never curled my hair before.

Alright. Moving on. I went to Vivian's house after that to get my make up done. She offered to help me with it, since she has a more complete make up kit at her place and she's better at it than I am. And she spent about 30 minutes on just the eyes alone, trying to create the smoky-eye effect, blending three colors: silver, blackish-gray and dark brown. I just sat there while she worked her magic. Like I said, she's awesome. :)

Me and Vivian :)

I had to rush home after that because Jia Yang was gonna pick me up and he was already on his way to my place while I was still at Vivian's. He got caught in a jam, so he came around 6.30 pm, giving me just enough time to head home and get dressed. While we were in the car, we were talking about going clubbing and then I told him that I can't dance spontaneously; as in, I can't dance freestyle on my own. I think I've tried doing it before, but I felt awkward. I can follow a choreographed dance, but not create my own one on the spot. That was one of the reasons why I never went clubbing - yet.

There was a long jam when we left Subang, leading into PJ. We reached the hotel around 7.30, I think. The ballroom wasn't open yet. The theme for the night was Mystical Illusion; a classy masquerade. Most people were wearing their fancy masks. Jia Yang brought this white plastic Jabawockee mask which he refused to wear -.-

He rather wore my mask :P haha!

We sat at Table No. 3 - whee, my favorite number! :)

Jia Yang and I.

Jean told me I'd been nominated for Prom Queen, and when I was told that all the nominees had to dance onstage for the showdown, I panicked. I didn't mind going up there, introducing myself or even doing a little catwalk; but dance spontaneously in front of so many people?! Haha seriously I freaked out for a while. The last thing I wanted to do was to make a fool out of myself onstage. Less than an hour ago in the car, I was just telling Jia Yang how I couldn't dance spontaneously!

Dana and Jia Yang

But then I calmed down and reminded myself that this was just going to be for fun. It was an experience anyway. Winning or not didn't matter; I just wanted to have a good time.
Later on, I was briefed along with the other nominees about what we had to do.
We were paired up and told that we'd have to do a 30-second dance. My partner was Szen John, also another AUP student. :) We got some dancing 'tips' from our friends and then we made up the rest.

Our song was La Bamba!

I was still nervous, but I forced that away and focused on having fun. And I'm glad I did. =)
The other couples did their dance too. And they were great.

Then we had to answer a question: "What is your favorite part of your body? And why?"

Okayyy. What should I say?
I was looking down at my feet and then I remembered that I was wearing my new white Vincci heels. So I replied: I like my feet. They are unique... because they're a size 3!
Then it was John's turn: Err I like my... hands? Because.. I can do stuff with them.

When you have a random question, you get random answers! :D

What is prom without pictures?! We spent half the time camwhoring. I didn't take any pictures of the food (the food was okay) because I was more concerned taking pictures with things that mattered; like friends :) Lol. I took lots of pictures with my faithful Ixus 80. The rest of the pictures are posted on Facebook.

Jay, Nick, Dai Lou, Joel, Jon, me and Dana!

It was kinda dim in there, so the pictures turned out yellow-ish without the flash.
But yellow's good.

Yen Loo, Yann Hooi, me and Thing Yan !

There was a Best Dressed contest too. I don't know any of the three nominated guys, but I know that the one I voted for went home before the award ceremony =/ He won! But he wasn't around, so the prize was given to the second runner up. Lol.

As for the girls, Shannon Keng bagged the title of Best Dressed female :) She wore this really nice black and purple dress.

Congrats, babe!!! :)

Guess who I met?

Steffi Chong Hui Ning! :D
We were primary schoolmates a long time ago. Then we went to different high schools.

I accidentally tagged another Steffi on Facebook, thinking it was her. =/ Shy.

Anuuuu! :D

She pierced her nose few weeks ago. And I was supposed to pierce my ears few days before prom. But then I was thinking: There will be good food at Prom. If I pierce my ears, I can't eat eggs, prawns and anything with black sauce for a month :( I'll just wait til Prom's over.
And now that prom's over, I'll be piercing my ears soon!

:D

Finally, it was time to announce the Prom King and Queen.

The nominees

The Prom King was Goo Szen John and the Prom Queen was me! :) Haha I was speechless for the next five minutes. I guess I was feeling the slow overwhelm of happiness and excitement growing within me. I won a pretty bouquet of flowers, along with a lovely tiara (my very first! :D), a 2 year supply of New Zealand Natural ice cream, a Clinique skincare set, a watch, and a few other stuff.
All I wanted to say was "THANK YOU!" :D

John and I had to dance a little while onstage to a slow song before the dance floor was opened up. Then we went offstage and started taking more pictures. Lol.

Nick Wong and I. He's leaving for Cali next month :(

Here's Foo Kai Bing, one of the Prom Queen nominees.
I just got to know her that night. She's so tall! Haha.
Plus I just realized that it was her birthday that day.
So, happy belated birthday, KAI BING! :)

Nate took this picture for us, and he had this new photography theory: if you want to look taller in photographs, you gotta tilt the camera at an angle. It's all about angles.

Does it really work? I'll try it next time :D

I left the hotel around 12 something am. Or was it 1 am? I can't remember. I was tired when I went home, but happy. It was a day full of firsts. First hair curl, first prom, first prom date, first time winning a Prom Queen contest, first smoky-eye make up, first spontaneous dance onstage... it was an experience that I would never forget :) The people, the fun, the thrill... exhilirated would be one of the words to describe how I really felt.

Toodles :)

Help?!

Ahhh! Prom is tomorrow. \

[x] dress
[x] shoes
[x] bag
[x] makeup (Vivian's doing it for me :) )
[ ] hair ???
[ ] mask? (it's a Masquerade)

Okaaaayyyy.

This is a really last minute planning for prom. I never gave much thought about it until few days ago.

And I'm not sure what hairstyle to do. I don't think it's a wise idea to just walk into the salon and tell them "do whatever you think will suit me best" because most of the time, their opinions differ greatly from mine. It's best to have an idea in mind, and then tell them what I want.

I don't know what I want yet. Waves at the tip? Bun it up? Extra high ponytail? Lmao.
Help!

Cooking

On Friday, I went over to Nate's place. When I got there, Nate and Pei Wen were still in the kitchen cooking. It was their idea to cook up a feisty dinner, so I helped out. We're not the best chefs in town; and I have a confession to make: none of us really knew much about cooking. Anyway, we stuck to the plan of three dishes: spaghetti & sauce, mashed potatoes and mushrooms. We cooked based on our 'instincts'.

This seems like a picture taken for my high school Moral project, where we pretended to be angels and did the housework.

We just went along with whatever seemed "right". Like, while the sliced white mushrooms were simmering in the wok along with the onion strips, Nate took one look at them and said they were too dry. And then he poured a whole cup of water into the wok. Later on, he realized that wasn't the right way to make gravy; so he started spooning water out of the wok. Then he added salt and more salt and even more salt. Pei Wen and I just watched and laughed. I mean, it's better to have more than less.

Despite the mini chaos over the mushrooms, they turned out to be really yummy :) I'm serious.

Oh, I have to mention that the pictures didn't do any justice to the food. The dishes tasted a lot better than they looked. I showed Nate the picture of the mushrooms.
Me: Do they look yummy?
Nate: No, not really.
Me: It's okay. I'll just photoshop it.

And then it was time for the spaghetti sauce. First, we added the Prego tomato sauce thingy into the wok,and then decided to add some cheese into it. The instructions weren't clear enough, so Pei Wen emptied the whole can of cheese sauce into the wok. There was too much cheese, so we added more Prego tomato sauce. Later on we dumped in the ham slices. Nate poured more salt. I added the parsley flakes :) You know, just to make it look nice. Nate added more salt again. I added pepper. Even though we weren't sure if the sauce required pepper and so much salt, randomly adding stuff in was fun.



As for the mashed potatoes, we added several dollops of mayonnaise and they insisted on the tar tar sauce too. Okay, so in went the tar tar sauce. Then I added the parsley. Someone poured in more salt and pepper. And I think we added butter. Then we stirred and mashed until the potatoes became soft and creamy.

Someone said that looked like corn ice cream 0.o

Ta-daa! Dinner was served :D
The food turned out to be more than just edible. It wasn't bad :)
Plus, I really had fun cooking with them!

Pei Wen and Nate

And after that incident, my interest for cooking heightened to a brand new level. I was bored at home, and I decided to cook. (just to pass the time). So I told my family, "I'm going to cook. And then I need you all to eat." Even though it was only an hour after lunch, they ate :)


I did it all by myself - my very own fried Maggi Mee :) Hahaha yes this is nothing to be proud about. I should even be ashamed because I fried Maggi Mee and I was happy about it.
So what? :) There's a first time for everything. And it tasted yummy!

I'll be off to cooking more new stuff this week. Hehe. I was so excited. I told my mom I wanted to cook Pan Mee.She just gave me this look like (-.o?) and said, "You think cooking Pan Mee is so easy?"

:(

Should I venture into culinary arts? :D

Okay, maybe not. Lol.

Transformers 2

I'd rate it 4 out of 5.

Graphics and all that were great.

Go watch it if you haven't.

PS: Someone said Bumblebee was handsome. Lmao. Then I'd say Optimus Prime is hot. ;)

Growing Up

While I was clearing out my drawers, I stumbled upon an essay I wrote for an exam 2 years ago when I was in high school. The topic given was "Three Fears In My Life". My first fear was slimy creatures (frogs, worms, etc). My second fear was death, the kind that concerns my loved ones. And my final one was growing up. Here's a short paragraph of what I wrote:

I fear growing up without a sense of direction in my life. There are times that I wished time would stop at this age because everything seems so right. I am sixteen; I do not have major things to worry about like SPM, financial problems, women aging crisis. Life is easy the way it is now. I know that growing up is something unavoidable, and whether I like it or not, I would have to move on. There will be new challenges to face, new people to meet and a fresh variety of decisions to make. Things change over time, and that is all just part of growing up. I just hope that when the time comes, I will know what to do.

I've learned to accept changes as a part of life. I understand that nothing remains the same forever. We don't live in a fairytale world, so we can't always have everything we wish for. Although there's always this flicker of hope that tells me I could have what I wanted if only I tried hard enough. Or if I waited patiently enough.

I've always feared wrong decisions. Some decisions can change your life, like choosing a university, or a particular field of study. Before I even started thinking, I had started worrying.
"Am I gonna be good at this? Is this place gonna be okay? Will my scores me good enough to get me in? What if I can't decide on time? What if I pick the wrong pathway? What if I change my mind halfway?"

Call me paranoid. My parents told me I was putting unnecessary pressure on myself. I didn't believe them. I thought they didn't understand why I was worrying; or why I always wanted everything to be perfect. My friends said I should just "chill and take things easy". In my mind, I felt that these people didn't understand my dilemma. Here I was, raveling back and forth between several options and I still hadn't achieved a definite conclusion. Time was running out. And I was tired. I was tired of running around the whole time and yet not having reached my destination.

Then someone reminded me that this was all part of the "growing up" part. You're faced with challenges all the time. So what's the best thing to do? His answer was simple:

Just go with the flow.

Five simple words that carried more action than thinking. Worry less; live more. That's the best thing to do. So I made up my mind; I'd just go with whatever feels right.

Whatever's meant to happen shall happen. All this while, I've been the one chasing decisions. Maybe it's time to take the backseat for now, and let the decisions come to me.