the four right chords can make me cry

on thursday ben and ivin came for the buffet to visit me! cheryl joined them later, and after i got off work i hung around with cheryl and ben till they went for a movie. so nice of them to visit and waste their time and money for me! =)

at work met a senior of mine! was most interesting work-related experience so far.

today went out for lunch with granny! we went to sakae sushi! hehe im being totally spoilt by her, its like a second childhood for me! although im not sure if i've cleared the first yet... hmm...

posted by beckyboo @ 11:07 PM 0 comments

listening to this really kickass cd i borrowed from timo. fwah... it's not my usual fare, but it is seriously funky.

as i walked into the shop today, atmosphere was tense. turns out that the captain lost her bag yesterday, while i was out having fun in the sun. was that just yesterday? already feels like quite a long time ago. guess i've been keeping myself quite occupied! today was a longish day too.

after work, i went and bought me an entire bag of chocolates. they're to tide me through my period. really kinda sucks having to stand so much when you feel all crampy and having to smile at bad customers to boot. i took refuge in the kitchen alot where i drank copious amounts of 7up and ate alot of keropok to take my mind off it.

tmr ben and cheryl are coming for lunch! hopefully it's enough to keep me happy for the rest of the day. dont get me wrong, i like my job alot, its just that i've been doing it for 5 days straight and even a fun job gets mundane under such conditions. need a distraction. ben and cheryl are timely. i even made an entry in the reservation book for them under mr ben ng! haha!

met mei yi today! i think it went pretty well, im eager to learn more from her, i think she's got alot of valuable things to teach me. =)

have been eating alot just keeping my mouth occupied. cant understand why. im not hungry or anything. food is just so available, its lying about everywhere, just begging to be eaten! *snark* who am i kidding yeah?

posted by beckyboo @ 12:01 AM 0 comments

had a wonderful day today, something good has come out of my sadness and confusion, God can use every part of my life for something good, even the parts that i feel are beyond redemption. =)

i'm at a great place now, feel like i'm growing with each hour, feel as though my ways are blessed, i'm living the life. i pray that it stays like that.

in less cryptic terms (i cant really tell you what happened, i AM entitled to a certain degree of privacy) i shall recount the details of my day.

went for work, did the morning shift which was very slack. talked alot to jean (the waitress, not enai) talked to the cook (the nice one) and got her to tell me the recipie for phad thai (my absolute favourite, i eat it at every chance i get). ate 2 entire bowls of phad thai on the sly, but still got reprimanded by the cooks. the not so fierce one said "later get fat then your boyfriend dont want you" haha, i guess thats one of the benefits of not having a boyfriend then, being able to say "fat then fat lor!"

went kayaking with ben and hozea, it was FUN!!! =) at the end ben said "race back to shore, last one buys supper." SO NOT FAIR! for those who've never been kayaking with us (i think that's everyone, cos i just started kayaking with those 2), i lag WAY behind ben and hozea. they have to turn around and stop every now and then for me to catch up (they just sit in their kayaks, faces to the sky, limbs dangling out, waiting for me to arrive. kinda like stranded starfish. heh.)

well, anyway, even though i lost, they bought me waffles and ice cream from GELARE (!!!!) instead. =P it was so nice!!! (to keat: like i said, its who you go out with) me love gelare.... *drool*

went for prayer meeting after that, it was pretty good! i had a refreshing time, i find im beginning to really enjoy prayer!

saw gabs' copy of the yearbook and read what i wrote for the class page (did the entire thing cos no one else wanted to) i was not really very proud of my work, discredited myself as kel read it. but to my utter surprise, he liked it!! (and kel is an english major, no less) he said i have this earthy style. i was just amazed that i possesed my own style! on reflection, yeah i do, and i like the way i write. =) learning to love myself, baby steps. shall post up my work sometime, im actually proud of myself for once! aint that amazin....

change is in the air

okay that's all i will reveal for today. thank you for reading the extremely self-censored account of my life.

posted by beckyboo @ 1:14 AM 0 comments

got angry with my mom today. i might have raised my voice at her, was slightly rude. i feel bad about it, but right now still feel pissed off if i think about it.

i clocked up 351 messages last month. darren beat me hands down with 768. my mom scolded me, said i message too much. I told her its not reasonable to expect me to use the phone the way she and dad do, never messaging anyone. I told her (like i do everytime she complains) that if she really wants to save money that much she should just change my plan. she absolutely refused. too mah fan she said! (what a weak excuse) that really pissed me off. i get blamed all the time, yelled at, just because she is too stubborn to admit that changing plan is a good idea. "How do you know it will be cheaper???" (my mom NEVER admits she's wrong)

so i sulk there, anger just simmering. then darren comes into the room and heads straight for the comp. my mom tells him nicely (no accusational tone as when she was talking to me) that he messaged alot last month. then he said, "why not change plan?" then she tells him, you go find out more about it for me. ARGH. that was it, i stormed out of the room, just could NOT take it anymore.

ivin told me once that parents do make mistakes, especially with their oldest, its their first attempt at parenting afterall, should cut them some slack. can see my mom learning on her feet here. children do NOT like being accused, so switch tone with darren, say it nicely. lesson 2; changing plan might save money, (although i'll never admit it to becky), give it a shot with darren.

i know i know... but i do so hate being the guniea pig. it just seems so unfair. I messaged MUCH less than darren. ok 351 is still quite alot, but its not that bad. darren more than doubled me and he gets talked to nicely while i get yelled at. sigh.

but i know i shouldnt have been rude. "in your anger do not sin." i should be more adult about these things. respect them even when they are irrational. thats what i tell the cell group ppl and i failed at it myself.

what a sucky feeling. at once blisteringly angry, hypocritical, helplessly guilty and rejected by my mother. =(

posted by beckyboo @ 9:36 PM 0 comments

turns out i had a relapse of the blues. but the fact that im blogging now shows that im over it at least for the moment.

hmm so many things happened since last entry

thurs: met mandy
friday: went kayaking with ben & aezoh, talked to enai
sat: went for supper after seminar (yassin)

today, sunday, supposed to go jogging with dan, but didnt in the end. worship leader dan loh, song stuck in my head, "Better than Life" speaker, Mr Jeffery Goh: Jesus our Lord and example; Loving the sinner. 1) Jesus knew the sinner uniquely 2) Jesus loved the sinner unconditionally 3) Jesus restored the sinner fully

fell asleep during sunday school... bad... must have hurt timo's feelings. =( next week i'm leading... garh... went for lunch. it was HOT. after that somehow got swayed to going to gab's house. used the treadmill at his gym, watched the guys do weights. came home, went for work. came back from work, typing this now.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:55 PM 0 comments

grown up
oh yeah, forgot to mention. I've got my very own ATM card now! yay! may not be a big thing, most ppl my age probably already have credit cards. but hey, these things come really slowly for me k. i dont even own house keys!!! and my mum didnt want to give me my IC cos she insists i will lose it. (she still does)

and everyone has just been telling me i look like i kid. i really hate it. my econs tuition teacher said i looked like a sec 1 kid. my friends are kinder, say i look sec 4 (yeah thanks man). I HATE IT!!! i dont want to look really mature, i just want to look my age. is that too much to ask???

forgive this outburst. Im just at this stage where i wanna be recognised as a sentient being, capable of being my own person, with my own identity, able to make my own choices, handle my own life. okay maybe im slow, most of you started this at age 14. but hey, i really need some room here....

i guess this is one of the reasons why i might want to go overseas, to stake a claim on my independence. but i kinda want to stay here too. conflicts. cornflakes.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:47 PM 0 comments

sex ed

at work today, i educated my co-workers on when exactly do you get pregnant if you have sex. keeping in mind that they're all older than me, the one who asked the question is married with a 5 year old daughter mind you, it was... weird.

sunburnt manager ben said 5 days after the start of your period you can get pregnant. wrong. they all had their own ideas. amazing how these people knew so little about their bodies. and they're like how old. didnt they teach this kinda thing in school?

so for once, i was the authority on something in that restaurant! ironic, since i am the one with the least real-life experience! they went on to talk about something else, but not before shoo-ing me away to the kitchen. afterall, i am still the little kid of the place.

oestrogen

yup oestrogen levels were high today at siam kitchen. no male waiters, save ben. and in the kitchen all the cooks female, so the dishwasher was the only one with Y chromosomes. girls rule today!

posted by beckyboo @ 11:38 PM 0 comments

went for the prayer meeting today. to be honest, it wasnt really to pray. It was the bay's turn to chair, so as a leader i went to show support and solidarity, i didnt really expect to gain much from it. but boy was i wrong.

in typical brethren fashion, the guys and the girls split into groups to pray. Even the old people do that, serious. so the guy's group was huge, like 15 ppl or something. us girls? me, jane (not from work), and joyce.

but it was really great. Joyce started. when she got round to praying for me, she really prayed out exactly what i needed, even though i didnt need it. Cos i've been battling low self esteem lately, i thought she'd pray about that (though i didnt speak a word about it, joyce has proven to me to be someone who just knows things). But she prayed for my results instead, which i realise is what i needed even more at that point of time. it's so amazing, that joyce knows exactly what to pray for even though we hardly talk, even though i never tell her anything. I want to pray as powerfully as she does!

what she said goes along the lines of God is the God of yesterday today and tommorrow. Thank Him for bringing me through the O's and giving me unexpected good results, thank Him for doing great things in my life at the present, and even thank Him in advance for my A level results! that really brought things into perspective for me, gave me alot of peace. I've been refusing to think about what kind of results i will get, i predict really bad results and tears and regret. but i was reminded today of what i should be expecting!

I prayed like i havent prayed in a long time. I really felt the words coming from my heart, i felt my prayer rising up out of me and into heaven. really cool experience.

another cool experience. just last night i was asking serene if she'd found her area of service in church. she said she had'nt and asked me how to go about doing it. I told her to fast and pray. so naturally she asked what i meant by fasting. to which i replied "giving up something, not necessarily food, and using the time freed up to seek God." so she jokingly said to fast icq. i thought about it, and figured it was a good idea, cos icq does take up alot of my time, and it keeps me up till like 4am. which is bad cos i wake up really late the next day and cant do anything productive. so i decided to reduce icq time. and today when i turn on my computer, icq doesnt even ask me to log in! its spoilt! haha, i get the hint God.

going to my piano teacher's house tommorrow to collect my grade 6 cert which she's been sitting on for months. argh... not really looking forward to it. cos im supposed to have resumed piano lessons after my A's. guilt. but to tell the truth, i was never a great pianist, and i dont know if i want to continue. so i guess that's why i never called her back. but i will have to confront that tmr. and you know i hate confrontation, im a wuss pacifist.

posted by beckyboo @ 1:41 AM 0 comments

in the days i didnt blog, i was feeling kinda depressed. heh. and nobody knew i bet! in a sick kinda way i pride myself on being miserable without anyone noticing. and yet sometimes i just wish someone would notice? its paradoxical.

anyway, i think i'm out of the woods now.

work has begun to develop strange rhythms, very much parallel to those when i volunteered at BASC. what i mean is, we have nap time now. serious.

big boss decided to close the place from 3 to 6 every day cos the number of customers did not justfy the eletrical usage. so all the lights are turned off and we are released. when jane and jin yu were still working with me (they quit last week) it was at this time that we'd go wander around bugis. but since they arent around any more, and im too small to hang with the older workers, i just stay behind in the restaurant. i brought my qt to do there, but when i was done decided to take a nap.

the assistant manager willy slept across 2 chairs with his arms folded, didnt look too comfy. the bangla guy who washes the dishes and the captain adelyn had both marked off their territories on the sofa seats already so i just slept at the table (a la desk napping at school), facing the folks at seoul garden. haha. how i must have annoyed them. poor sods had to continue standing at the counter while they watched me curl up for a nap. i imagined them to be jealous as i stretched and yawned like a lazy cat when i woke up. heh. so evil.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:58 PM 0 comments

vday preparations reaching frenzy point. curse my last minute nature.

on a positive note, managed to find a much cheaper caterer. Hope the food is good still.

havent practiced my dance! cos no one is willing to practice with me.... =( daddy would rather jump off a cliff than dance, mum's kinda headachy, darren's too lazy to extract his butt from the chair, darryl just doesnt want to.

i dont think my poochy-poo darling can walk on 2 legs for long, much less dance, although he is one handsome looking doggie. much too short to be my dance partner anyhoo.

have to go for lunch with my grandma tmr. do i make it sound like a chore? well, it isnt. but its just really awkward for me, tense family issues. but my brothers dont seem affected by it at all, especially darren, but that could be because he was always her favourite. anyway, im going at it solo tmr, wish me luck.

Tmr will be hectic, have to put up the decor, train the emcees, settle all the logistics, confirm registration details, tie up various loose ends. Pray for me k? So far stress levels have been managable, im not as flustered as i normally am, God's assurance is calming. but in these last critical moments im gonna need all the help i can get.

posted by beckyboo @ 1:49 AM 0 comments

alright alright, i know i havent been blogging.
been afflicted with a bout of laziness, i'm recovering tho.

okies... cant really remember what's been happening the past few days, so let's just tell you what happened today?

they recently changed the lightings at the eateries at Bugis, if you pass by you can have a looksie. noticed it only at 7pm, when i went out of the kitchen for a while and thought the restaurant seemed more dimly lit somehow. its an eyesore-inducing alternating yellow and red now, presumably to make things more romantic. right....

valentine's day is just impossible to ignore. just this monday, i had to walk though the "bridge of Love" to get to my workplace. how corny can you get. they decorated the little bridge thingy at bugis. and so now every day, i walk across the "bridge of Love". ok..... whatever.

and shops everywhere are trying to make you buy stuff!!! newspapers are guilty too. sheesh. not that i'm bitter about being single or anything, but its really excessive. ohh... but the ipod adds are seductive. yeah baby.

things are falling into place for v-day dinner. got many loose ends to tie up, but at least its just loose ends. time for shameless promo!!!! Valentine's day dinner 5-9pm at my church! there'll be a catered buffet spread (i'm still wrangling a good menu on a tight budget), games, friends, and, dancing! yay! =) seriously, its a nice way to spend the evening, much nicer than moping around at home sobbing your eyes out. haha, not implying that you'd do that of course.

okies, thats all fer now.

posted by beckyboo @ 12:32 AM 0 comments

yay! korkor jon is back! =) altho he'll only be here till thurs. havent really had much time to miss him, what with the A's and all. but i guess i do. meeting him tmr anyway, wonder what he looks like now?

today had lunch with my mentor. if ben has a soothing effect on me, then ivin has the effect of making me want to spring into action! he encourages me in my ministry, pushes me to grow more, challenges my assumptions. there's always so much to learn from him and im grateful for all the time and prayer that he spends on each and every one of us. i hope that i do him proud.

after that went to hougang mall to go hang out with cheryl and ben. went to ben's house, watched stand up comedy downloads and went through some old photos of bay events through the years. they really made me think, but those thoughts are far too private to be aired here. nostalgia, a hint of bittersweet regret, and emptiness where my memories do not match the photos.

adding neth to my linkies. do check out his photos, they're gorgeous. mark too has good photos, although of a different approach. neth has a more perspectives, composition style. sigh... why cant i take photos like em...

posted by beckyboo @ 12:29 AM 0 comments

ben(ben) has a soothing effect on me.

whenever we meet, we inevitably, instantly start talking about work. which to us means the bay, the church and its people, our friends. normally work would connote effort and stress, but when we talk, i dunno, it calms me, reassures me. cos ben always has an interesting take on any problem, and always speaks with the confidence that comes from knowing that God's in control. to my easily-worried heart, his words are quieting and uplifting.

met him at bishan pool after i knocked off work (early today! yay!) he was having a lesson with these two really young ang moh kids. haha they looked so cute... after i swam a few laps, had a bath and was ready to go, it started raining. so we sat and talked in the shelter, as i watched kids continuing with their swimming lesson, the surface of the pool rough with rain.

where did we have dinner? oh yeah, at ya kun. satisfied my craving for kaya which has been bothering me the past few days. met some zhonghua person who knows ben. she was a prefect too so technically we should know each other, i recognise her face, but she has no idea who i am. haha, low profile, that's me.

even in JC when i made a conscious effort to be more outgoing, i still have a low profile. at work, met jane and jin yu, both from AJ, albeit arts fac. they didnt know i was from AJ too, even tho i was in talentime! to top it off, jin yu was the part of the AVA crew for talentime. haha....

hmmm yesterday didnt blog cos i was busy preparing stuff for vday. anyway, went out with keat wei yesterday, did some shopping. shocking confession from him! (hoho... dont worry, i wont blackmail you. yet =P) haha now i can read his blog with understanding! hehe...

it was nice catching up with him, it's easy to get along with him, i dont have to think too hard about what to say, i'm very contented as a listener. and keat always has something interesting to say... unless its to shop owners! the boy refuses to ask for assistance!

later on met his tuition student, janice. she's in aj, gab's batch, counsellor. and she's so nice! we hit off almost instantly =) astounded at how quickly i got along with her, usually i take a LONG while to open up. we both like soup spoon (compared the stamp cards, haha), we both think indian guys have nice features (much to the disgust of keat) and.... we're both friends of keat? haha couldnt think of one more...

all the new friends i've made in 2004 have names starting with "J"! and i like them all! jane, jin yu and janice. let's see if this trend continues...

posted by beckyboo @ 11:36 PM 0 comments

broke stuff today! you mean ppl, probably assumed it was only a matter of time right!?! but hey, its not my fault. my colleague spilt lemon tea on the floor... and as i was bringing 2 empty plates in, i dramatically slipped, with fancy hands-flying-around action. but i dont blame her lar.

anyway, back to my dramatic rendition of my mishap. so this one plate few up in the air, a graceful arc of pure terror it made, (i witnessed the fall out of the corner of my eye as i felt the floor slip out under my feet). by an amazing display of latent gymnastic prowess (fwah.) i managed to prevent myself from falling and facing UTTER humiliation and also managed to keep one plate on the tray. Alas, it was one plate too few... so i was merely humiliated. (as opposed to UTTER humiliation)

yes, i am so familiar with humiliation that i have a grading system for different degrees of humiliation. ALL the customers turned around and gawked at me... i felt so.... humiliated.

on another note. my brother just told me the other day that Utt is bi. at the sight of my crestfallen face, he spake thus:
" dont worry la, you still got chance....
well.... Half a chance."
CLASSIC! freaking farnie!

well today was a bad day on most counts. this requires a little background. my boss wants to fire me, kind of. He told me that this week is like my probation week, if i dont do well, i "dont need to come back to work". reason being "not stable carrying the dishes". well ok, im not great at it, but up till today i didnt break nothing. but now that i DID break something.... well....

my boss, (name's ben. which is confusing, cos i know so many bens) seems to think me an incompetent blur idiot. thats nice. so he keeps making me be the runner, the one carrying the dishes out of the kitchen and serving them, saying i need to practice. fair enough. but because i'm incompetent in his eyes, he's always looking out for mistakes that i make. so naturally he finds em. makes me feel so demoralised.

when we just opened, the kitchen told me we were out of "lemongrass". so i go tell ben and he sends me down to cold storage to buy 2 boxes of "lemongrass". his description to me? "white box, costs about 4 bucks"

so there i am, eager to get it fast and redeem myself. i go there and cant find any lemongrass. ask the cold storage guy but he says dont have. so ask him to go check, and turns out that they do have lemongrass, just that he only knows it as serai (he was a malay guy). then i find that they dont have it in boxes. not wanting to waste time, and not having my handphone (which was in my apron) i just buy 80 cents worth of lemongrass and report back to work.

ben was on the phone. but the moment he saw me, he smacked his head. darn. i screwed up again it seems. turns out they wanted lemongrass TEA BAGS. How was i to know?!?! felt so humiliated. he was betting with my colleague that i would screw up. she stood up for me, said i wouldnt. but ben had the last laugh... all at my expense of course. felt so hurt and run down....

after that he told me that all he wanted me to do was to go give the complimentary tidbits to the guests when they sit down and serve water, no need to take orders or lead customers in. cos he didnt want me to screw up. then as he walked off, he told my colleague to look after me, like i was bound to do something dumb if left unattended. low point of the day.

when we started to get into the swing of things and customers were coming in, one of the cooks walked past where i was standing and caused this whole stack of bowls full of pineapple rice to fall to the ground where they inevitably broke. I, being so near, reached out and actually caught a bowl and managed to save that one. But unfortunately, that made me look like i was the one who knocked them over. which was what ben saw. sigh... i felt so wronged.

then i went to go break a plate on my own. fabulous.

it's days like these that make it hard to NOT think of myself as an incompetent person. I tried my best...

but hey, not gonna let it get me down. William Hung spirit!!!

thank you for reading this excruitatingly long rant. i needed to get it off my chest and get some salve-of-sympathy to soothe my bruised ego.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:29 PM 0 comments

how could i have forgotten to thank enai yesterday, for waking me up in the first place.

and ben(benben) for his concern. sorry la, just didnt want to talk about it yesterday...

today got to thank cherie and abby... sweet girls they are.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:26 PM 0 comments

http://www.williamhung.net/

my new hero! the guy has guts, you gotta admire that.

"William Hung is definitely our American Idol! Classy, mannerly, enthusiastic - an all-around great guy (unlike ALL of his competitors). He did his best, accepted criticism, didn't attack any judges, didn't have to be escorted out by the police. He left smiling, head held high - ready to take on his next challenge. Let's start giving awards to people for being good, decent folks instead of fawning over no-talent brats who have very poor home training." Trudy, San Francisco

I've been thinking about that recently.
I realise that i dont like myself terribly much, always condemning myself, blame it on the low self esteem. But my real problem is that although i see what is wrong with myself, i'm reluctant to change, cos it's just too hard. So my flaws, which i despise, remain and i keep feeling bad about myself. Most pathetic of all, i dont even try to do anything about it, always settling for the path of least resistance.

If people laughed at me like they did at Will, i'd be in tears, a sobbing mess of broken dreams on the floor. So thanks, Will, for the dignity and good grace that you showed.

And thank you Josh (groban)! I stand tall when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up, to more than I can be.

And thank you Serene for reaffirming that sentiment. Its not about me and what i have achieved, but its about how much God has done through me.

Radical paradigm shift for my self esteem.
Hope i still remember it tommorrow.

posted by beckyboo @ 12:59 AM 0 comments

at the nudging of keat, have started blogging again.

to v, sorry about the last blog, its dead now. cos enai's school doesnt allow blogs or something. so here i am!

today marks the birth of tappy speaks. stay tuned.

posted by beckyboo @ 12:35 AM 0 comments