YHorror Of Horrors!
Yuen Kay bought my dress, just in pink!!
All right, you may stop laughing now, everyone. Jac knows how to resolve the situation. Or, she would be able to if she weren't so horrible at sewing. Don't get me wrong; I know how to sew (every self-respecting dancer sews her own ribbons on, okay) but I don't know how to sew well.
But hey, now's a good time as ever to learn how to.
Maybe I should have just gotten one in the US. But I wouldn't have been satisfied with it, I know, because all the time I had the peach dress in mind.
School's been pretty all right. It's funny; I was dreading starting school but now that it's started I think it might be just what I need. I've been a bit down lately and I was wondering when that gift of joy God promised was ever going to come, because I sure don't have it yet. It's so complicated, you know? What exactly is being joyful and rejoicing in the Lord? I wish one day I could and live forever like that but knowing my aptitude for making up fantasies I don't think what I'm imagining now as joy is really joy. It's confusing, I know. I'm a confused girl.
(p.s. Spider-Man 2's coming out tomorrow! I'm definitely going to watch.)
jac was here with you
6/29/2004 09:34:00 pm
YJac's Escapades In Virginia III
Had a fun day today. I prefer Vienna to Richmond. It's cooler because it's up north, and we stay in Aunt Helen's house, which warrants easy Internet access and a cosier environment than the hotels.
Oh! Guess what! Yesterday i fulfilled one of my resolutions for this holiday: to learn how to cook! Actually, i helped Aunt Helen cook lunch and dinner. And today I learnt how to make French toast for breakfast! Yay! If Jac can cook, so can you!
Went to D.C. today with Mum. We visited Capitol Hill, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Smithsonian museums (we intended to visit all but in the end cut it down to just two: the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum. We did run through the Freer Art Museum on Asian art but I got bored and my feet were aching) and Union Square (Mum insisted on going there just to see the 97-ft tall ceiling). Took tons of pictures using Aunt Helen's digital camera, which is why I have a picture gallery now. I got really camera-happy at the start, and then we realised we only had about 20 shots left, so I had to take less.
Went to watch Stomp! on Friday at the Carpenter Centre in Richmond. It was really good--very funny, with the guy who kept trying to fit in. Mum fell asleep, though. She always does. She fell asleep during the Moscow City Ballet's Swan Lake, too. We wanted to watch a play or something in Vienna tonight but they don't perform on Mondays--all the performers take a rest after the weekend.
The Carpenter Centre is gorgeous. It's really, really beautiful. Its interiors look like the set of the Arabian Nights--a brilliant ochre hue that darkens into orange. There are box seats with sculptures and walls that glitter. The stage and the walls that frame it is no ordinary type of stage--its edges are patterned and shaped in an elaborate gold border. Whereas the Esplanade is all cool minimalist, the Carpenter Centre is ostentatiously old-Hollywood. I love it. It's the best part of Richmond.
Word on my Founder's Day Dress: it is hopefully still in the shop in Singapore. Yes, I am getting it in Singapore because after a whole week of looking, I gave up. It's sort of hard to get a dress when you've already got one in mind, and I realised I shouldn't care about what other people think I look good in; I like that peach dress and I'm getting it because I like it.
Leaving for Singapore in about 9 hours' time. I'll reach Singapore on the 23rd at midnight, all sleepy and jetlagged from a 25-hour flight (layovers at Chicago and Narita. Coool.). Can't wait to see you all! :)
jac was here with you
6/22/2004 12:01:00 pm
YWorld-Class Airport
USA Today, 18th June, 2004:
Singapore:Flying High
Viktor Navorski should be so lucky.
The gleaming structure that shelters fictional tourist Navorski in the new film The Terminal was built from the gound up in California. But Singapore's Changi Airport tops even the Hollywood facility, from free movies, local phone calls and two-hour sightseeing tours to live entertainment, public showers and a swimming pool.
"If I had to be stranded at an airport, I'd put Changi at the top of the list," says Peter Miller of Skytrax, a London-based firm that publishes passenger rankings of airlines and airports worldwide.
The in-transit hotel rents rooms for as little as [US] $23.75 [about S$40] for six hours, but crashing within the carpeted confines for the free "napping lounge" (thoughtfully equipped with alarm clocks) is a cheapskate flier's nirvana, says Donna McSherry of www.sleepinginairports.net. "I am almost inclined to travel to Singapore, just to camp out in the airport," she says. "It's a little piece of heaven on Earth."
A swimming pool? I didn't know we had that.
How to make a jac Ingredients:
3 parts intelligence
5 parts humour
1 part beauty Method:
Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add a little wisdom if desired!
Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com
Whoa.
How to make a jacqueline Ingredients:
3 parts jealousy
1 part self-sufficiency
5 parts instinct Method:
Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Add a little lovability if desired!
jac was here with you
6/18/2004 11:01:00 pm
YJac's Escapades In Virginia II
Miss Singapore. Miss the familiarity of home and the ability to go anywhere I want and know where I'm going. Miss the people I can talk to and have fun with. Miss Chinese food.
Went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. They have so many different types of art: Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, European. Very interesting. The exhibition on Faberge eggs was really pretty. I wish they sold those miniature imitations in the gift shop so I could get one and bring it home. I got a brochure instead.
Things I Learnt About The US:
1. A quarter is 25 cents, not 15 cents. For the longest time I thought it was 15 cents; I have no idea why. I only realised it was 25 cents when the cashier gave me back 10 cents when I bought something today. Ding ding ding! (Proving that a1 in E and A math does nothing for you in real life :D)
2. The only spoon they use here is a dessert spoon. They don't use spoons at all. Not even to eat rice. Fascinating.
3. The food portions are HUGE. It's like our lunch and breakfast combined. And the only vegetables they eat are in salad, so I've been having salad every day. I am quite sick of it.
4. Singapore TV has nothing on American TV. I think I've watched more TV here than I have since the beginning of the year.
(P.S. Have had a lot of time to reflect and rest, Daniel :))
jac was here with you
6/17/2004 10:38:00 pm
YJac's Escapades In Virginia
Hello! I'm now in Vienna, Virginia, staying at my great aunt's house, which has Internet, albeit a very slow connection because her sons (my uncles who are both younger than i am) download every game imaginable on it.
Went down to Washington, D.C. on Thursday (it's just next to Vienna). Went sightseeing.
The weather here is crazy. Thursday was hot and humid, just like Singapore, Friday was FREEZING because it was raining and today's been good--18 degrees (which they consider warm). So anyway, we went to this exhibition about the White House because we couldn't actually visit it (due to security reasons--you have to, like, get a permit from your embassy or something). I wanted to visit it, though. to see what the rooms are like and pretend i'm like this visiting princess...oh, all right.
The exhibition was very interesting, though. Saw pictures of the Blue Room, the Red Room, the Oval Office and others. Got to read about American presidents and their families, too. Imagine what it must be like, staying there! Sooo cool. You have your own chefs to prepare your meals and there are fountains and huge gardens...
Visited the Holocaust museum, too, which, in one word, is intense. It really brings to life the fact that people actually suffered under Hitler's Third Reich and that it's not just something that you read in your history textbook and forget. Because it actually happened. I guess you could say it's sort of morbid, too. There was this place filled completed with shoes of the Jews who had to take them off before entering the gas chamber to be gassed (on the pretext that they were going to have a shower). They also had documentaries and interviewed the 'non-Aryans' who had been sterilized by the Nazis and who didn't even realise it until they grew up! It was really very horrible and caused me to wonder why God allowed all these things to happen; allowed these people to die like that. And then it reminded me that God has a bigger plan for His purposes. That His ways are not our own...
Have been shopping the past few days. Haven't found the dress. Tomorrow I'll be going down to Richmond and staying there for a week. Hope to do some sightseeing and more shopping for that useless piece of cloth that i will probably only wear once in my lifetime. I tell you, I'll probably end up buying that peach one in Singapore.
But the shopping here is good. They're having sales now. Crazy sales, down to 60% off, but you have to bear in mind that the US dollar is roughly almost double Singapore currency, so $10 is actually about $18, and that pair of shoes at $19.99? It's actually S$27 or something. So easy to forget.
Went crazy on Friday and bought handbags and earrings but by today I was sick of walking and looking at clothes. Can you believe it? Jac's actually sort of sick of shopping! Never mind, I will recover in time.
Tune in next time for the second part of Jac's Escapades in Virginia!
jac was here with you
6/13/2004 10:53:00 am
YLittle Itty Bitty Babies!
Muiling's pregnant! Daniel and Muiling are going to be parents! WOW!
I have no idea why I'm so excited but I just am. :D CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
jac was here with you
6/07/2004 09:08:00 pm
Ooooooh, good coffee, strong coffee...I need to have some....(ooohhh)...Good coffee, strong coffee...
All right, Jac. Don't sink into the depths of melancholy now.
Second last day in Singapore. It's nice weather today, gentle breeze and sunny skies. Yeah. You can actually hear and see the leaves of the trees rustling.
Just realised that I have holiday homework, so I'm trying to finish them all up before I leave. Math and bio...ahhhh...
The past few days have been pretty good. I've been relaxing, something I haven't done in a while. Got to talk to God a lot. I don't need to escape to Bintan for some silence and solitude; my home is pretty silent now, especially with my brother gone.
I guess I'm sort of afraid that if I get too used to relaxing I won't be able to go back to studying. It's really easy to get used to relaxing.
I hope I have internet access in the US. I think I'd get pretty lonely there. I wonder what things God will teach me there.
jac was here with you
6/07/2004 02:14:00 pm
YWish Upon A Star
Jac's wish list for the moment:
1. To be able to read minds.
2. To not be able to feel sometimes.
3. Shoes, shoes, shoes...
Remedials are OVER! Yay! And I'm escaping halfway round the world next Wednesday :) I think I really do need some rest and recuperation after the hectic first half.
The past few weeks have been really weird. After Chinese O's (which went all right; after all the mugging I did, I knew the five words that came out but totally screwed up the zao jus) I realised I was free until the next day came around and I found myself trapped in remedials. And now remedials are over but I don't feel free because there are still things to do, things to worry about...
I guess you are never really free in the sense that there's always something that has to be done in the near future. And anyway, I thrive on busyness. And stress, to a certain extent (I have to stop using that phrase; it reminds me of social studies).
I guess it's when all this stress overwhelms you when you realise how important it is to be doing things for the glory of God, because if everything is just being done because it has to be done, it becomes meaningless, and especially in ministry, that's a horrible trap to fall into.
Over and out. (hahaha :D)
jac was here with you
6/04/2004 10:05:00 pm