7. my favourite quote

That's hard. I have too many quotes I love to remember. But there's one verse, from the Bible, that ignites a spark of excitement in my heart that turns into a whole flame of love whenever I hear someone else say it, or when I chance upon it somewhere. Like my daily devotions book, like when Pastor Phil loosely quoted it.

(Ignite! I wanted to submit another post to Non Sequitur; only remembered about it when it got published.)

2 Timothy 1:7

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity,

but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

35th Students' Council Theme Verse

6. The last time I was truly honest with someone

The first thing that comes to my mind:

with Joan Lee, yesterday, while on the way home together.

It was the first time I told someone about my ambition in complete honesty.

(Just for fun, because my blog has been far too photo-deprived recently:)

from 2C1...

to Crescent Dance...

(ignore the date stamp!)

to Crescent-AC...

to AC Dance...

<3

4 & 5) Times where things were good / not good

4) Write about a period of time in your life where things seemed to be constantly going good.

....woah, what?

Primary 5 and 6, maybe; ignoring the primary school infatuation nonsense (because people were saying he liked another girl HAHAHA and I asked him on the phone and there was a long pause before a small 'yes' and then a series of coughs HAHAHA), it was when I had Rachel and Teressa, and it was the start of my JJ craze. A clique transition, maybe; my P4 clique was separated now because of the classes and Rupini and Aruna were growing much, much closer to Didi (was that what we called her?) instead and I felt pretty much of an outcast and then Mandy joined in and then it was worse because we were an odd number and I was still the left out one and then Marilyn came in and we were like yay, it's an even number! And Marilyn and I were really close for a while and then wait, there was a hugeeee fight -

okay maybe it wasn't a time when things were constantly good.

Okay I've thought of one time. A time when things were going great, both in school and out of school, with the 2c1 dancers and the excited girls with a common love and a small dream. it wasn't a long period of time.

lingling, amelia and i usually take the mrt home together after dance practices; it’s unbelievable, the greatest memories i have of my sec 2 life took place there.
memories of ling saying random stupid stuff while amelia rolled her eyes sarcastically, of ling and i shouting “BYE CHENGCHENG!” as amelia got off at dover, of ling and i laughing whenever amelia lost her balance, of me pouring out my feelings to ling in the packed train, and realising that these were the best friends i could ever get.
and on the train after the last dance practice of the 2007 school year, amelia announced, “i don’t care. next year even though we’re all split up into different classes, we must still take the train home together okay.” :)

Gosh I love Crescent Dance and the 2c1 dancers. Nadine Joan Amelia Lingling Shermin and me.

5) Write about a period of time in your life where things were not so good.

Just one period?

Maybe the stretch in 2009 after the breakup and I realised I had taken that one person to be the center of my life such that I had no one else - barely any friends, really. The first day in, like, a year eight months and almost three weeks that I took the train back home alone, and realised the emptiness of it all. That was three months before the O Levels.

Getting a little out of hand in my conversations with another guy who had also just gone through a breakup, not in the sense that emotions were running too high too fast - we both didn't like each other that way - but other things were getting out of hand, and getting very, very hard to get out of.

Crying on the day of the Math O Levels. On someone else's bed.

Or maybe in 2007 when I didn't know what was happening to me when I felt like distancing myself from the sweetest best friend anyone could ever have, and then distancing myself from my whole group of friends in the process. Feeling very misunderstood and very guilty. But that was different because I made a new friend in the storm, and in each other we found a glimmer of hope.

Or maybe in end-2008, when I was struggling in Dance with my new post - and struggling with the gossip and the disrespect and that huge fight we got into on the day that was supposed to be a really special, happy one for me.

3. If I only had 24 hours to live

I'd spend the morning at home reading the diaries I kept as a child and my older blog posts,
get my Malaysian cousins to come over and get into Universal Studios for free just to get on Battlestar Galactica,
make Ian/Ivan play me Tears In Heaven,
have lunch with Sumay & Sarah at the thosai place at Little India that Sarah and I used to go to a lot after Sunday school,
chat and photobooth with the both of them at Sarah's house, because I really love that place,
pay a visit back to my old church (St. Andrew's Cathedral) and sit in its peaceful atmosphere,
go back to JWPS with Rachel & Teressa and tell Mrs Foo, Mdm Beena and Mdm Pua how great they are,
go back to Crescent with Shermin and see Mdm Lim and Mrs Rupa and Mr Lee, go crazy on the lion dance drums & cymbals and, if Crescent Dance is practicing, shower Laoshi with love,
have dinner with my close AC friends (I'm not naming!) (...I can't think of a dinner place!),
revisit Red Dot Traffic Building with Jt, Janice and Maddie, and relive our OB fun,
go back and stand outside Universal Studios with my Council mates and watch the fireworks,
and spend the last few moments with them in the Council room.

And tell him (and him) how I once felt.

Oh and there'll be hugs all around.

2. The best friends I've had over the years

(Correction to my 15 facts post! I had braces when I was 12!!! Took them out in March '08)

Hard. I don't put friends into a category called "Best". Best is vague, and best sounds competitive. Exclusive. Not for friends. Closest friends sounds more friendly.

School friends

Lydia, the one kindergarten friend I was close to. We played at each other's houses. I remember going to her house - a lot of white, I think it was some really nice condo - and when we were going down to go play, her grandfather (French!) opened the lift door for me and said "Ladies first!" I felt like a princess. Pebbled floor.

When we were six she moved back to France. I found her on Facebook again two years ago.

Yan Hua in P1 and P2; classmate, my first friend in primary school. I went to her house a lot, and our mothers would chat - her mum in Chinese, and then my mum in English. I remember her insanely fun computer game about snow and little math problems in between. We organised class picnics at the canteen together.

Rupini and Evelyn in P3 and P4; with Evelyn I shared an intense love-hate friendship. We got on each other's nerves; she refused to let me copy during Chinese spelling tests (but we both barely passed). I also remember us jumping in the puddles on our way home together. Rupini and Yan Hua didn't like each other. Once we were lining up at the quadrangle; both wanted me to line up with them, pulling each of my arms towards themselves.

P5 and P6: the legendary Rachel & Teressa. I wrote in my diary about sitting beside "a nice girl called Rachel" when I was the table row leader and she was assistant (HAHA), and Teressa was part of the Teressa-Raymeo-Karen-Derrick perpetual-note-passing-at-first-row gang. Rachel and Teressa were already best friends before; they introduced me to JJ...and started my never-ending journey of JJ fandom.

BRACESSleepover'05

And we've stayed strong till this day. Awesome picnic on National Day; spent the 2011 New Year sleeping over at Teressa's place (just like old times!); we spend every Teachers' Day together, because it's Teressa's birthday (and near Rachel's). Our friendship's a blessing.

Sec 1 & 2: I had a clique - Nadine Jiayi Yimei Lingling Silvana and sometimes Amelia.

HIDAMARI. That's what we thought the keychain was called. We loved them. We named our clique after it.

Their limbs fall apart easily, but never the head. We tried.

The only time I was truly an extrovert. In Sec 2 I had a fall-out with Yimei because of something I called a 'virus of my mind'; I just suddenly couldn't take being around her anymore. I hated myself because Yimei was the most caring lovely friend anyone could ever ask for. So I distanced myself from The Hidamarians, hoping Yimei would find comfort in these friends.

In my confusion, I found comfort in someone else who was in crazy friendship problems too, and we just stuck. Shermin. Like finding shelter in a raging storm.

HEH. I COULDN'T RESIST

Her Chinese name was 诗敏; the first word means poem. My Chinese name apparently means 'soothing melody'. We wrote songs together - she composed the lyrics, and I the tune. Our most iconic one would be the first, 失恋的滋味. We recorded them with my tablet PC in this room in the Arts Conservatory where our SYF props for Dance were kept.

Upper Sec: the lovely Cui Xiao. I was a lonely kid in upper sec (but I didn't care because I had my ex). She's not the kind of person you'd expect as a closest friend, but she's insanely enlightening in the little thoughts of hers. It just...opens up your mind. The way she thinks is amazing, great for someone like me. I just met her earlier this month for dinner!

JC: In class it's Amelia; we share almost every break which is weird because hardly anyone else does (hooray for no Chem / H2 Math!), so we have lots of htht time in the void deck; best thing's that it isn't crowded because the rest are having lessons!

And of course there's the Council, and the Exco - 'nuff said in all my other posts. I guess the closestestest would be Reuben, Emme and Pauline (because she's also my foster sibling, together with Fangjiunn and Seokhoon) and Weiliang. But the others - Jaslyn, Jus-smurf-tin, Geraldine, Chloe, Van and alllllll the others. All of us.

Non-school

There was JJFC that helped me through my very angsty Sec 2 period: firstly, Jacey, and then JT, Janice and Maddie - the four of us joined OB Music Forest (JJ's music company's school) together, and we were evidently inseparable. The day before our audition to be in the singers' training course, we gave ourselves a name - J4M; JM stands for 杰迷 or 'JJ Fans'; but it's really 'JMs 4 Music'. We were an acapella group (I was the harmoniser). And....we were the only people JJ gave an A to. HEEHEE. Later on an omy.sg interview, he said J4M was the one that left him and the other judges with the deepest impression; he didn't expect acapella from a group of 4 girls whom he knew were his fans. HEEHEE. It was super shiok seeing 'J4M' appear in front of his face on the screen. OMG.

HALLOWEEN

We still meet sometimes, at church and stuff; I'm closest to Maddie now.

And last but not least....... THE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS

(our parents and the rest of The NUS Choirmates meet up every Chinese New Year & Christmas. We've known one another for longer than we can remember.)

WE COOKED TGT LAST SATURDAY. I COOKED.

Sarah. We went to Sunday school together and had countless sleepovers at her place. Her awesome pink room and armchair and every other pretty thing inside. I loved her house. I watched her golden retriever grow up. We watched Britney's videos and concluded she wasn't wearing undies; we played random computer games like Graal; we experimented with dark purple nail polish and body glitter (SHE STILL HAS THAT GLITTER STICK IN HER HOUSE); we spent two hours in the bathtub (until her grandmother got worried); omg we staged plays for our parents hahahahahaha.

Sumay. I wasn't as close to her initially, but we did have sleepovers in primary school too. I remember her condo's swimming pool. We and our brothers took up badminton when I was about 12 or 13. (I sucked.) It's interesting that I used to see Sarah every Sunday morning, and then it became badminton with Sumay every Sunday morning. We were there for each other every stage of our lives. I know the names of her primary school crushes and her classmates and all the stress she's been through. I was there for her through her breakups; she was there through mine. I remember crying at Boonlay MRT station while she consoled me through the phone: "You've got to be strong. You can't turn back now. You have to stay strong."

And it's great to have childhood friends. Sarah and I went to Australia (TOGETHER! ALONE!) in the first week of this June holiday to visit our other childhood friend Audrey. Which reminds me, I haven't blogged about it!

Sumay and I still meet and make sure we're updated with everything about each other's lives - it's been quite a feat, actually; we're not in the same school, not in the same level, yet we know everything. It's been much harder to update each other about everything now that we're in JC, but we have our ways. Today we wrote down on paper where we'd like to see ourselves in 30 years' time. Today we exchanged straw hearts.

Why can't I rotate the pictures?!

yay, I'm blessed, I'm blessed.

1. 15 facts about myself (or rather, truths?)

A fact and a truth aren't really the same thing. Can I post truths too? They're more interesting.

1. I actually took up ballet classes when I was 6 and quit a year after. They never actually really did ballet anyway. I only remember jumping around to beats. And seeing a male ballet dancer. SEXY TTM. I remember that man, he was in black, doing ballet. I've always thought male ballet dancers were manly and hot, never feminine. If you do it right it's really hot.

2. I love musicals and concerts. Okay the only big real musicals I've watched were Chicago with the AC dancers (amazing, amazing) and The Lion King (seriously beautiful). But I'm a lucky kid whose parents have showered me with a lot of exposure to the arts in little performances and plays and concerts!!! Esplanade, Singapore Indoor Stadium... I love performances.

3. The first time I wore a tank top was in Sec 2. Before that it was solely tees and jeans.

4. My orthodontic journey began when I was around 10 when I had to put retainers because my teeth were too crooked for braces (IKR?)! Braces for three years from P6 to Sec 3, and retainers forever - I just wore them again today for the first time in months, and it HURT SO BAD.

5. Before I fell in love with JJ thanks to my primary schoolmates Rachel and Teressa, I was an Avril Lavigne fan.

6. My kindergarten centre was NUS Faculty Club Childcare Centre. Awesome place, bigggg with playgrounds and we got to go for outings and make noodles and draw clouds and other amazing things. Apparently it's very expensive now. I do have a lot of memories from that place. There was the person you'd call the 'gang leader', she was pretty and everyone followed her, but she shunned anyone who was different: a dark-skinned girl called Joan and a girl with specs called Rachel Ho. I always tried to play with them a bit before the leader came along. The one day the 'leader' wasn't around, everyone was mixing around with everyone, which delighted me. I asked her 'apprentice', the one who was always closest to the leader, why she was playing with them and she said 'it's okay, she's not around now'.

7. I'm still using the kiddy POSB savings account, the one with the baby pink bankbook with rainbows and bears on it HAHAHA DANG THIS IS BECOMING A SECRET-REVEALING SESSION! Dad refused to let me change to the normal one and let me get a bank card 'cos I'll spend it all in a matter of days. But I'm 18 now yay so I have to go get it changed.

8. I've been in one relationship. It lasted a year and nine months.

9. I'm an introvert. INFP, yeah the whole world knows, but not many expect me to be an I.

10. The kind of movies I love: thriller-centered action, suspense, sci-fi. Inception, Black Swan, Legion, I Am Legend, The Day After Tomorrow (OH AND HARRY POTTER WHO DOESN'T LOVE HARRY POTTER) - things that get your heart pounding, things that get you thinking.

11. In the past two years, I've really only liked one guy. Thank goodness all that ended long ago, and we're friends yay. (oops awkward sorry if you see this don't feel awkward!!)

12. I haven't had a birthday party / celebration since I was in primary school. Doesn't matter lah. Just so happens that my birthday always falls on/near the mid-years or something.

13. If God hadn't placed Guin in my life, if not for Crescent Dance and the chance it gave me at leadership, with space to fall and make mistakes (but not without its tough times - the tough times I went through trying to be accepted and respected as discipline mistress, while knowing they were bitching about me behind my back) where I grew tremendously, I would never have considered anything like Council. Or even OG Rep and Class Rep.

14. I actually consider myself pretty socially inept. I look back at my previous photos' captions and the way I commented on them and my blog posts and my responses to certain things and I think to myself 'wth...if I weren't myself I'd think I'm some weirdo who really cmi'. It's a continuous looking-back process. I hate how embarrassing I am sometimes. socially awkwarddd

15. I was quite an extrovert in Sec 1 and 2. In Sec 2 my life was a huge mess; I turned to introversion and rage at the world and rebellion in interesting ways. Sec 4 was spent being an emo loner, especially after the break-up and all when I realised I didn't really have close friends in Crescent but it didn't matter when I had the one person I took to be my whole world, and had never bothered to foster close friendships with my schoolmates as a result. In JC1, during Orientation, I decided to turn my life around. It did work for a while, and then emoness and confusion set in again at AC and its acidic, vicious / unforgiving ways (or that was how I felt). But then with Council, I found hope and a life again.

....16. I'm actually Grade 6 on the piano, although I play Grade 4 songs and I'm really actually very bad for a person of my grade. I stopped in JC1. I should go back to it I guess.

This is fun. I could go on. BUT ARGH IT'S 2.05am why is it that since Week 2 of the holidays I haven't slept before 2am?! It's the holidays dang it! I should stop going online.

THIS CALLS FOR A CHALLENGE

as if I don't have enough to blog about, right? I'll try, I'll try, see if I get around to finishing it :P

1) Post 15 facts about yourself.
2) Write about the best friends you’ve had over the years.
3) If you only had 24 hours to live, what would you want to do?
4) Write about a period of time in your life where things seemed to be constantly going good.
5) Write about a period of time in your life where things were not so good.
6) When was the last time you were truly honest with someone? What was it about?
7) Post your favorite quote.
8) How do you feel today?
9) What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you?
10) What’s the meanest thing anyone has ever said to you?
11) Write about the best day of your life.
12) Write about the worst day of your life.
13) What are your plans for the future? Far and near.
14) Post your favorite book, favorite movie, favorite band, and favorite food.
15) Write about something you worry about a lot.
16) Write about your relationship status.
17) Bullet your day.
18) Post one confession/ secret.
19) Write about your last birthday and how you plan to spend your upcoming birthday.
20) What did you eat today?
21) How has your life changed over the past year?
22) Find a horoscope site and post yours.
23) Post your Tumblr crushes.
24) How was your week been?
25) Write about your favorite music artist. (Very similar to 14)
26) Write about your religion.
27) Where is somewhere you would want to visit?
28) If you had three wishes, what would they be?
29) Write about any particular habits/mannerisms that you have.
30) Where do you think you’ll be in 5 years?