I miss sleeping at 3 and waking at 1.

I miss waking each other up in the morning and agreeing that we shouldn't go for lecture.

I miss going to the gym in the afternoon.

I miss swinging by the floorball booth and hanging around all day.

I miss going to Genes R Us lectures and straining to hear the professor and gossiping and theorising and eating sweets and sharing secrets and laughing at the touchy les couple. Haha.

I miss spontaneously going for 8km runs in the height of the afternoon heat.

I miss running together two, three times a week. Running round, running out, running away.

I miss spontaneously going to run at 12 a.m. on a deadbeat day while behind time in studying in the middle of exams.

I miss the thrill of the fear of being caught for not going to biz law tutorials.

I miss going for lessons half an hour late together.

I miss not studying for quizzes together and guessing the answers and once not knowing there was even a quiz.

I miss bitching about our groupmate. lol.

I miss msn-ing in class till I LOLed and got questioned by our tutor.

I miss dragging our feet to statistics class together and faking that we're doing work even though we're not and cursing whenever some smart ass behind us asked the tutor a question cos he would have to walk behind our computer terminals.

I miss faking our experiment results together. lol.

I miss going to Mr. Bean together the moment lessons ended.

I miss spontaneously going to town in your car.

I miss invading your rooms for chocolate and tuna and dahfa therapy when I was sad or angry or just plain greedy.

I miss waking up at 8 a.m. to go to LWN and camp there all day though it wasn't exam time.

I miss the Johor Straits.

I miss the stuff that mid-autumns, birthday steamboats and movies are made of.

I miss studying for exams together. In LWN, in HSS, in JCRC room, in ADM, in Hall 2 reading room, in old can A, in can A.

I miss chatting on msn for hours, about nothing, about everything, about the past, about the future, about life, about love, about loss.

I miss spontaneously going to practise floorball at SRC in the middle of the afternoon.

I miss skipping lecture to crash another's, just for the heck of it.

I miss peanut butter and jelly.

I miss going to supper after trainings and the long walks back.

I miss spontaneously wandering into staff club one fine night eating BnJ strawberrry cheescake in root beer float and drinking and singing and self-mamboing and laughing our asses off.

I miss the people who made me miss what I miss but are no longer here.

Last semester. I miss you. And I'm glad you happened =)

Ok so I'm the 'emotional' one. True, true. Well at least it's a shade better than illogical and quarrelsome, much better than ASEXUAL, and a whole world better than meiyinish, which is so inhuman that there is no known word for it. LOL.

I was so amazed at the time we realised it was late that I promised to devote an entry to it. Not counting dinner time cos a certain someone was too late and didn't make it, we chatted for a grand total of five and a half hours! Actually I went to support hall volleyball and a 45 minute jog so I was gone for an hour and a half, and you guessed right, when I came back, the two of them were still yakking away. And we continued...

It was 2 a.m. when the lateness of the hour hit us, and I thought to myself 'there I go again, not enough sleep again, nodnod tomorrow again, caffeine dependance again'. And I deprived myself of sleep to engage in a conversation where I got hit by a rolled-up newspaper like a cockroach countless of times =( Just cos my imitation of 'a meiyin' was too accurate. Sigh, sometimes people just do not appreciate the truth huh, haha..

Truth is... I enjoyed talking to you all a whole lot. For once, I could talk about my childhood instead of being left out. Cos the topic was getting caned when we were kids, lol! It was rather fun reminiscing and complaining, and admiring how well we all turned out anyway. And you girls made my stomach hurt like hell from laughing at your lack of acting chops. Hahaha. You two really can't act. Try to look fierce and the lips will be crooked and vibrate, or the eyes try to open big big and too kuazhang, and even these lame tries are normally gone in 2 seconds. Tsk. Learn from me la, haha.

Last night, I also gleaned how different I am from the two of you. How we see relationships, how we navigate them, how we conduct ourselves in this respect. And the conclusion by the end of the night is that I should be more like you, and you should be more like me. Haha. Can balance can balance!

And how lucky we were not to be hounded by the dementor last night! Though I suspect we were rather loud in my very open corridor, she didn't come to tell us off. What a perfect night. Sorry to get all sappy again (I am emo yes), but this is what I will remember about my university life years down the road. I swore to myself to treasure every happy day in hall, to stop and admire the beautiful scenery from the end of my corridor, to be thankful for the great company I have had. Cos no matter what the future holds, these years forever will be some of the best years of my life.

Like an answered prayer, jh asked me this afternoon if anyone wanted to play fun and games! I said yes! without considering. Super gian super gian super gian. It feels like so long since we've played floorball.

Haha but initially there wasn't enough people and I really had to use dozens of smses to persuade people to come down! Yepyep must apply what I've learned in school in real life, and it worked, wahaha. Like meiyin said, the name wanying whetted her appetite by alot. Social influence and liking for a person worked, lol. Well and foot-in-the-door technique too, which is something like discounting your proposal? They come naturally to most people, I'm just tagging a cheem name to them =p

Well I'm so high cos I really had FUN just now. Though my stamina is terrible horrible deplorable, and I was panting like a wild dog, I was too 好玩 to make faster substitutions. So people, please shout at me to come and sub next time! I was too into the fun to come out and sub.

The thing about me is that I tend to run through the play in my head unconsciously a lot, after even fun and games. The good and the bad. And the bad is more obvious. I misjudged the speed of the opponents (some of them are crazy fast and fit) and made passes that could be intercepted. I made some risky passes down the middle. I was too one-dimensional in my boards play, always tracking back instead of dribbling past. I shot many shots OFF target, not way off, but still OFF. And when I was tired, I couldn't receive, couldn't get the ball though my stick was there, couldn't run smartly, couldn't pass properly. Bottomline - sub faster! haha! Quite happy with my passing and supporting today though =) I'm just fat and unfit and couldn't do as much as I wanted to. Jog jog jog!

Thanks for coming down all of you =)

Only dark cloud in my sky - being called a traitor for leaving storm. Is it really a joke?

My earliest memory of ntu floorball was receiving a call from an unknown caller in my Basic Media Writing lecture in year 1. I had no idea whether it was a guy or a girl, and I was so bewildered that I rushed out of the lecture theatre to listen intently to figure it out. The caller told me which time and date of the floorball trials I had been slated for, and by the end of it, I still could not figure the gender of the caller until HE told me his name, which I shall not reveal for privacy purposes. Haha.

So I went down for the floorball trials quite confident that I would make it through, as I had played floorball a few times in PE in jc, and apparently to my classmates I was rather good! As you might have guessed, I was not chosen. But thank god for my super thick skin, and I went to ask jamie politely why I did not make it through. He explained that he chose players based on what he saw i.e. add points when he sees something good, so I must have not done anything impressive. Still, he said, I could come down for training if I was interested and we'll see how it goes from there. To this day I still am grateful to him for that chance =) I can't remember, but I must have lived in fear of getting axed for the first couple of months? He did not say anything conclusive either and I have been crashing the ntu floorball party ever since.

Things were not smooth sailing at all at first. Not that it is now, but it was tougher then. I was undoubtedly one of if not the weakest in my batch (since I wasn't even chosen in the first place). I could not pass, could not shoot, was uber clumsy, and had bad tempet to boot. Let's not go into details but lets say I have kicked boards apart and threw my stick in a very rude way before. Sorry old stick. Lousy and bad tempered, it was no wonder I did not really have friends at first. Then, I don't remember when and I don't remember how, we became friends. Friends who accepted me for my faults and eccentricities, friends who shared the weirdest and most outrageous of my problems, friends who have helped me overcome many things without even knowing it. Friends who are still friends now. Haha, do you remember how we used to nag about how unenthusiastic and nua the 88 girls seemed to be? Remember this time last year, we went for training with less than 10 people and we lamented how lazy they were? Remember the junior that said that the seniors cannot even make a proper pass? Hahaha. Well they turned out to be one nice and fun bunch too. And there are a few among them I can really turn to in fair weather and foul. It is really my fortune =)

A major slice of my ntu floorball life involved playing and later organising fun and games and getting to know the floorball guys. To all those of you who think that ntu floorball guys are very nice, it's true, they are. In the golden era it was a big part of my life and I had tonnes of fun playing every week with them, while gaining valuable floorball experience in the process. I miss it alot. But things are not so simple now what with many of us on internships, the malaysian bunch no longer in hall, and security guards getting more irritating. Frankly the main reason is that I'm dead tired from internship to organise anything, so I'll give myself a few weeks to settle in. Hopefully I will not nodnod for 6 months!!

The fun and games sessions certainly helped me to improve my skills and confidence. I could not do shit in normal storm training and was all in all lousy, but somehow I began scoring in fun and games. Perhaps it was cos of the existence of super nice guys like our Mr. SIA who would pass the ball to us when we were both right in front of the goal. Or it was also easier to score cos the guys 'gave chance' at first when they saw this cui girl come to play. Haha.

Street challenge was also a feature of my ntu floorball life. So far I've had the luck in such competitions la =p Came in 4th in year 1 while kneeling down in front of the goal the entire time while the four senior guys played. Was 2nd in year 2, losing out only to the 'national team'. Haha. And came in 3rd this year though I felt there was some tough competition!

I joined floorball cos I wanted to play IVP and worked hard to get into the 07/08 season. But it is the 08/09 season that is worthy of mention =) Competency-wise I was once again pushed to the limit and was forced to see my strengths and weaknesses more clearly. And I met some more nice and like-minded people who became friends. I also got to experience being in a team with all my dearest teammates.

Haha the bottomline of the wonderful nature of my journey is that ntu floorballers are nice. nice. nice. No bitches for you. Erm but got dog la. "woof woof!" Good lucky!

I could never have all these valuable friends and fun if I didn't have such thick skin. Phew.

Yes I've moved. I do not know how things will turn out, if I can really reap the benefits, if the problems can be overcome. But I will not regret it. Always give things a try, I say.

From where I came from, I had a good life. Friends and laughter all around, greater ease of winning games, perennial spot in the lineup, all in all, a relaxing life, a happy life. But I'm choosing to leave the comfort and familiarity, and throw myself into scrutiny and competition. This is all done in the name of self-improvement, and I'm sorry to those that I let down, that I did not consider the team enough in my decision. I always saw us as a training ground, and did not have a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve. This does not make me love the team and my teammates any less. I just lacked a team goal, and had overwhelming personal priorities. That's just me, a 'self' person, and I thank you all for understanding that everyone is different, and respecting my decision.

As I mulled over the issue, I felt that it resembled a romantic relationship. I love my teammates very much, I still do, but when I realised I'm failing to gain nor give enough to the relationship, it is time to leave. And it is even a 'it's me, not you' situation. It's not that the team or the teammates are not good enough, that's hardly the point. It is my personality that doesn't allow me to stay, unlike some of my linesmates. Over time, my ego grew too large for my head and my feet too large for my shoes. I wanted to play defender yet run all the way up to attack, I wanted to miss training just cos I played mahjong the night before and was tired, I wanted to skip the boring drills and just do what I like. Worst of all, I wanted to be able to do all this, and still expect to definitely make the lineup in games. Complacency and arrogance are my downfall. And I'm choosing to move to a harsher environment, so that I am forced to be humble and work hard. I could be brave and stay on, and somehow make myself miraculously humble in my old environment. But I have no idea how, and I'm afraid I can't do it in time, so I took the easy way out. I believe some aspects of everyone's personality can never change, so I'm taking myself as I am. If I can't change myself (and I increasingly think I shouldn't), I shall alter what I do, where I go, to make the best of my life.

So yes it's me, not you. I had to make the switch ultimately though it was an extremely heartwrenching decision. Everytime I told each of you, my heart would shatter a little more. And even more painful was facing those whom I did not tell before the training day itself. Two of them said jokingly 'we're going crazy lor, so sad cos you're leaving, why you leavvvve, is it we're too lousy for you!'. Though I laughed and said they were being funny, I know there's an element of truth in every joke. Besides missing a friend, it really does strike them that I'm leaving cos they're not good enough. As I said above, that is not the case. Things weren't that hard before I had to face the people. I was terribly emotional the whole day and could not look straight at the team when it was announced. As I heard the soft bewildered cries of 'why', I dared not look at the faces that accompanied the voices. Now as I think of them, I can see the hurt and sadness in their eyes. And much as I needed to, I totally forgot to give a speech explaining my decision. Instead, I went to take the cards and gave them out with literally, noticeably, shaking hands. My first and actually only encounter with such goodbye cards was from a softball teammate who left jc after a year. What she wrote was simply the potential she saw in me, and the appreciation for being a good friend, but it means so much to me, even now. Heartfelt words can be so powerful, but they are often overlooked and all too often, they go unspoken. I will not let them get away this time.

That's how much you mean to me.

From now on, no matter how much I visit and how much I support, things will never be the same again. I know that. But the team is still very much in my heart, and I still want to be part of your journey, tribulations and successes included. All the best for the new season girls, I will be here when you need me. And if you are still angry with me, I promise to come down to play goalie somemore, and make sure you hit me with all your might =p

I hover in and look at her from the other side.
I will remember this scene forever.
Her sitting astride the dark blue toilet bowl in a dark-tinged cubicle.
Wedges, black skirt and white shirt.
Legs closed but feet apart.
A bunch of hair clutched in her right fist.
Her head drooping every three seconds.
Lower and lower.
Her right fist still hanging on to the same bunch of hair.
The same bunch.
At the same length at the end.
Those long strands of hair holding up her entire head now.
Her head hangs down from the clutch of hair.
A look of helplessness, pain, anguish and fatigue.
Etched into my mind forever.
That scene.
That look.
I want to help her.
But how can I?
Give her a helping hand?
Tilt her chin up?
Lead her into the light?
I can't make her come if she doesn't want to.
I touch her hand and she feels warmth.
Little by little.

Heart to body.
I cried.
I don't even know what is it I feel.
But the tears came.
Two streams.
Trembling hands.
A dropped water bottle.
Goosebumps.
Cold.
Helplessness.
A fear to face the dark.
Will someone help me?
No, I gotta make my way out on my own.
Life hurts.
Face it. Mend it.
Emerge from the shadows standing upright.
I gotta face this.
Love.
Big heart.
Some warmth.
I'm trembling.

Our season ended suddenly last night. Painfully. I for one, have never been known to control my emotions and react well to defeat. When the final whistle was blown, all I wanted to do was hide my face in my shirt, hide my look of anguish, hide any tears that might have come rolling down.

But the tears wouldn't come. I wish they came, I wish they will come now. The feelings of disappointment are still clinging on to me as strongly as ever, but I can't cry because there's too much good in this team to warrant my tears.

Yes we lost the championship, we didn't even get a chance to advance to the semis, we didn't hang on to our lifelines, we made mistakes. But we trained as a team, played as a team, lost as a team. It is almost magical when a random group of people with a goal actually puts aside their differences, accepts each other, and conducts their heartbeats towards that one common goal.

We did not achieve the goal of winning the championship, but we achieved the goal of being a TEAM. We did not obtain the shining cup, but we have learned the lessons of discipline, faith, humility, respect and love. It may sound far-fetched, but this experience has taught me to look past surfaces, give second chances, to forgive, and most importantly, to lose. To accept defeat valiantly, to be sad but not bitter, to be disappointed but not dejected. We will come back stronger, in more ways than one.

The times we watched the IVP tryouts for the new girls, the worry that we would be cut from the team, the trudging down to ITE mac for training, the countless suppers, the fun-filled romps in the parks, the support we gave each other in trainings and games, the unity when we lost...

The white-shirt days may be over, but we have created a fond memory that will live forever.

The world sucks. People suck.

Materialistic: Making acquaintances and friends to gain material advantages. Working towards materialistic goods and undermining other things in life.

Practical: See above.

Superficial: Liking people for their looks. Disliking people for their looks. Treating good looking people in a nicer way.

Selfish: Only caring about their own well being. Cannot do something out of the way nor give in, some not even for the people they claim to love.

Mean: Ill-treating, misusing and inflicting hurt on others. On purpose.

Uncaring: As it says.

Judgmental: Refer to superficial.

Insensitive: Insulting people for things which they are not at fault for, like being FAT. Making fun of topics which would make others awkward, sad, shameful.

Unappreciative: As it says. I hate this A LOT. A WHOLE AWFUL LOT.

I'm sure one way or another we all are guilty are some of this. We suck. But we should at least strive to stop doing them.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!... I shouted as I counted down the last ten seconds of 2008 and welcomed 2009. But they were merely words; there was absolutely no meaning in the begining of a new year, and I, just a zombie doing what everyone else was doing, with nothing running through my brain. My laughter merely a relief of pain. So relieved to be able to make some noise and let some.... stuff out of my body. Let loose a little.

Some could have been happy last night, but I guess some were not. I'm not the only person in the world who is feeling upset over the new year. But they sure hide it better than me. I wear my heart out on my sleeve, and aided by the lack of sleep and some alcohol (I guess I don't hold it well), I let it bleed for the whole world to see. Felt horrible to show a black face all night, felt bad. I wish I could just disappear and go somewhere alone, but that would make me feel even worse cos people would worry and ask. Though I didn't appreciate the good company and fun last night, I really do now. Thank you friends for just being you, and accepting me for who I am. Been feeling so dejected, and just your acceptance and understanding is appreciated.

2008, in all honesty, was fine, mainly because of friends coming into my life in more important ways than superficial acquiantance. The family front, as you all know, has improved on the whole. Studies, well, as usual, nothing to scream nor weep about. Floorball, inspired to improve my skills even more. Love? Well at least I got over him, by ALOT.

SHIT I'm already in such a bad mood and I have to listen to my mum ramble on about shit at home. Here I am in my room and she came in to ramble on about how hard it was to carry me for 9 months, how freaking painful it is to give birth, how much they have to pay for my education, how they are old and are gonna die soon. Yes I admit I answered some question of hers short-temperedly just now. But I'm in a freaking bad mood and I don't care. I do not want to hear all this stressful shit. 'Did your friends teach you to be bad, why did you teach your brother to be bad? (for the record its the other way round).' I tell her 'Can you just kill me now?'. Then I cool down and say I'm sorry I shouted cos I was in a bad mood. I'm really sorry.

I really wish I could hide my feelings better. Not only do I wish to hide it better, I wish I could just STOP CARING for things which are not worth it. STOP being so sad and emotional. I really wish I could.

I wish to just die now. Go to hell. At least in hell there is no hope for reprieve. There is only pain. I'd rather just get pain. It is way better than hoping and being let down. Again and again. Way better than hoping and getting hurt.

Or maybe I can go to heaven.

I do not trust in human nature anymore.

2009, I hope that you will be better than 2008. I do not have much ambition. There is nothing much I want. What I want most is to stop being such an idiot and stop bringing hurt upon myself.

Lock it up. Chain it. Freeze it. Keep it for myself.