the random adventures of jojo

Zhan is particularly fond of telling everyone how it always rains when I decide to go out and shoot. Pinkie even found a song with almost PERFECT lyrics for that…

And yes, the title of the song is Jolene. *faints*

For the past couple of weeks, every time Pinkie and I made plans to go swimming, it’d rain! Happened again today, complete with thunder. Sighhhhhh.

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Today was merely the start of the third week of school and I can already feel the weight of the work. It’s not that we’ve a lot to do right now, but the amount of time needed to generate ideas is driving me up the wall!

When ideas don’t come and all I do is stare blankly at my empty layout pad, I get super worried that this is it – this is where it all ends because my lack of creativity is going to cause my doom. -_-

The lack of time to do things like hanging out with friends bothers me, but at the end of the day, I wonder how many people have time to hang out anyway. The fragility of relationships is astounding, and some days I don’t even know what’s worth it anymore.

Pent-up frustration and sadness is dangerous, and horribly detrimental to too many things, but sometimes, things really are better left unsaid.

What makes christians so damn judgmental anyway? You’re not on any moral higher-ground just because of the values that are taught to you, you know. I honestly think that christians can be the most judgmental people of the lot, especially towards other christians. There’s a fine line between watching out for someone, and being hypocritical in the very things you say and do. (And before you jump to assumptions, I’m christian too)

I really shouldn’t keep things to myself for months and months on end.

This seems to make it easier when I think of packing up and leaving this place, hahahahaha.
What am I supposed to do?
I’m sick of living up to other people’s expectations of me.

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After an eternity of busy-ness, procrastination and oversleeping, I finally made it to an outing with tweeples! Hehe. This time, it was a photowalk around Queenstown! I was really glad to have been able to make it

In case you’re curious, those who were around were @ctham, @GenkiGenki, @tinyastronaut, @JiaJunStoned, @alkanphel, @avnjl, @hanshoots, @juzferyou, @inrsoul and @ladyxtel!

Wow, that took ages to type out. HAHA.

Turns out I overslept ANYWAYS.. =X Oops. We walked around Queenstown, going past the old cinema and a few blocks around the area. I love old neighbourhoods! Tons to look at and photograph. Queenstown is going to get redeveloped, which I suppose is inevitable, but damn do I dislike new neighbourhoods for their lack of flavour and depth.

It was a really nice day out, with tons to see, in my opinion. I’d love to head back there to shoot again with Zhan, cos I think he’d enjoy it too. Wonder how much of it would have changed by the time he gets back to Singapore.

I brought my favourite lens out – the Sigma 30mm/1.4. I know I should have brought the Tamron 17-50mm out to practice it more but oh man, I missed the prime so much! HAHA.

Here goes!
All posted in the order they were taken, in case you want to know.
(I’ll probably take some from here for my backlog of Project 52 posts. Hehe)

He looks like the rod got rammed through his head and he’s not very happy about it. HAHAHA!

LOL look at his grouchy face! Heh heh.

A shot that’s been done to death, but I love the pattern and colours of the tiles in this image.

@JiaJunStoned with his Yashica TRL. So gorgeous – now I want one!

@tinyastronaut!! Or RACHIEEEE as my brain remembers her. Heh, was good to see her after many years! She was from my secondary school, hehe.

Awww… young love. HAHAHA

I miss these..

And then we got to a playgroung where @GenkiGenki, or Chris, was christianed The Blue Man by the kids. Hahaha. They were all 11, schoolmates at Queenstown Primary (or was it Queensway?) and all so amusing! Haha! They kept running away from the cameras at first, but soon warmed up to us and even followed us around for abit.

HAHAHAHAHA!! He was SO funny, this boy! He refused to sit near the girls because… “she’s a girl leh!!” Haha!

They warmed up after we got some ice cream. HAHA. Pun unintended.
The girl on the left is Joelin, pronounced the same as my name.

Awww! And right after I snapped this, I burst out laughing because the cute boy was doing the whole tap his chest, kiss his fingers and lift it in the air move! HAHAHA

Joelin was telling us that her sweet friend on the left used to not like her when they’d first met. Hahaha!
So cute..

It has a face!

Tried out Rachiee’s Nikkor 50mm f1.8.. love how it renders the bokeh, love the contrast from the lens! This photo was edited slightly, though. Now I’m even more determined to save up for the 50mm f1.4! Hee.

The only reason I’d buy the BBF is the gorgeous shade of hot pink it comes in!

@inrsoul, or Kevin, our emo supermodel for the day. Hahaha!

@GenkiGenki, or Chris, against an awesome bright wall! He very kindly lent me a compact film camera to try out and bring to London. Excited to try it out!

& yes, I was a very happy bear that day!

The lovely day I had ended with an AWESOME dinner at my favourite Indian restaurant with Lee Teng. It was her first time there, and I think I made one more person fall in love with the food there. HEE HEE

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Headed out for lunch with Lee Teng today, and I’m happy we got to meet up again before I leave! I love random meals with her cos we just end up chatting on and on and on. In fact, I think my throat started hurting by the time I got home. HAHAHA.

We went to hunt down the famous claypot laksa at Alexandra, and I was super excited cos I’d read quite a bit about it last night when I was trying to track down the address of the original stall (but to no avail)

super thick laksa gravy!

Looks good, huh? We were so excited! HAHA. I loooove thick laksa gravy! In fact, when I am not having Katong laksa, I usually order my laksa with kway teow or meetaimak, just so it will soak up the gravy and make it seem thicker. Not a big fan of the usual thick beehoon used in laksa because it doesn’t absorb the soup!

The bowl we ordered was the medium one, priced at $4.50 and it’s a decent portion, but definitely not enough if you are starving.

It was served piping hot and looked promising, but I must say that I was a tad disappointed with it – it was too spicy! I know it’s laksa and it’s meant to be spicy, and I am the worst judge of how spicy it is because I don’t take chilli, but I felt it was a bit much because the level of spiciness took away the richness of the taste of the gravy.

I couldn’t taste much of the ingredients of the gravy because I was busy trying not to let my head explode, and I guess I prefer my food to be flavourful rather than just spicy fullstop.

It is worth a try though, and I believe a lot of people would enjoy it. I just hoped it was less spicy, and more pang. Heh.

The stall is located at Blk 119, Bukit Merah Lane 1, Alexandra Village.

After we were done with lunch, we headed to Ikea which was just nearby. I’d initially wanted to get ice cream and I fully regret seeing a sign showing off their cinnamon pancakes with honeyed apples for kids.

Ikea’s so-called cinnamon pancakes with honeyed apples

Most. Disgusting. Meal. At. Ikea. Ever.

First of all, how is that a pancake!
After tasting a bit of the flour and apples, I gave up. That’s how my plate looked all through the time we were at Ikea.

The pancakes (if you can call them that) were completely tasteless, and they didn’t have maple syrup. The honeyed apples were….. really really reaaaally bad. I can’t even begin to describe how they taste. Ugh.. I wish I’d just stuck to getting ice cream. Meh! Never again!

Aaaanyways, I loveeee my new camera!!!!! HEE HEE HEE. *hops about*
Despite the weight, that is.

Random peeks that do not make much sense but are pretty and make me smile anyways hahahahaha…

Photo walk this Thursday with some Tweeple! Any other tweeple want in?

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After spending hours and hours ranting to myself in my head about people I detest, and concentrating on holding it in so that I didn’t flare up, my mood was pretty bad, to put it mildly.

But then my dad came to pick me up at the MRT station, something he usually does when I am headed home after work because it’s a 5 minute drive versus a twenty minute to half an hour bus ride. After I got into the car, I realised that he had actually paid for Starhub’s telecast of the World Cup!

And then I realised that he was actually at home watching the first match but he left in the middle of it just to pick me up.

That simple realisation made me feel immensely loved, and the frustration from the entire day just went away.

Right now, I’m going to make a hot cup of milo, get some buttered bread and dip them into the milo! I’ve missed doing that.

And of course, there’s gonna be Chandler and the rest of his friends (including annoying as hell Ross) to make me happy too.

Tomorrow, I am headed out for lunch with Lee Teng, and we’re gonna try the claypot laksa at Alexandra Village! Slurrrrp! I’ve heard that that isn’t the original one but I couldn’t find out where the original one is so if you know drop a note okay! Heh.

My brother’s commissioning parade is next Saturday, and he just got his sword today! So cool. He also was informed that he’s gonna be a platoon commander.

No more work next week, freelance or part time.
It’s just time for me, and meeting up with various friends before I fly off, as well as a couple of photo walks!

Life seems pretty damn awesome right now. Save for the fact that I haven’t packed and am panicking more and more everyday!

I can’t believe it’s 10 days before I board that plane for a trip that I’ve been hoping for and anticipating for well, the past three years. ♥

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“if she is a bear, she must be one of those mixed blood pariahs of the bear society that is 95% rabbit.”

*breathes in* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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Hello there, stalkers.

I know I haven’t been posting my Project 52 photos, and trust me – I am feeling very guilty about it!

It’s been an insane past few weeks, what with being sick for close to a month. I was in school waving 4 MCs about, trying to get my various lecturers to sign on them and everyone was shocked at the amount of MCs I was holding. Which reminds me, I really should get them submitted.

I received a love letter from the school the other day. They misssss me, and wanna see me more! Aww. So sweet. Printed on very nice paper too.

After dealing with stupid selfish people last week, I was rather bothered and upset by everything. But it did reveal how nice some of my classmates are.. for comforting me and repeatedly reassuring me, and then dropping me text messages to let me know that they’re around for me. OMG.. *melt*

I also met some nice people yesterday, and after everything I realised that perhaps that’s why I’ve been so grouchy of late. I think I lost a lot of faith in people, because the things that they say and do just reveals for self-centered they are.

How many people are nice just for the sake of being nice anyway? Or is your niceness and concern for others (even people you claim are your friends) attached to a price tag? Why should there be a limit to how much you care and show concern for others?

I was chatting with Fendy online and then it struck me that when people are nice without reason, it makes me happier and well, makes me have more faith in people. Hi Fendy. I know you are reading this.

Tsk, he also revealed that he has been reading my blog since last year! And never commented! Pft!

All you stalkers…..

Anyway, final assessments are in about 3 weeks time. And there are still a few bigger projects to finish up in the next 2 weeks. Ughhhh. And then there’s reworking a bunch of my previous work and attempting to update my empty CPJ. OHMYGOD. *head explodes*

I can’t wait for the holidays!!! If not to sleep and take a break, then to get away from seeing one of the most selfish _______ (insert whatever word you deem fit) I have met in quite awhile.

2 months and 25 more days! *hops about*

But for now, forever21.com will have to keep me happy and afloat.

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I literally have to repeat that to myself over and over through the course of the day, to remind myself that there is something huge for me to look forward to at the end of all this craziness: a nice long trip to London, and finally finally finally getting real hugs from Pinkie.

The past few days have been hell, and I’m not sure they’re getting any better.

I’ve been feeling nauseated and throwing up a few times a day for the past few days, as well as having chest pains which had progressively gotten worse over time.

Finally went to the doctor’s over the weekend after putting it off for a couple of days because I thought it would just go away. Besides, I was really sick of medication after being drugged out for the last two weeks from the very bad bout of flu I got.

Doctor says all this is caused by stress and anxiety, which I don’t disagree to. He gave me medication for my vomiting and a muscle relaxant for the chest pains. I hate taking them because the stupid pill is huge and makes me more stressed thinking about taking it.

I took a pill that Pinkie’s doctor gave me the last time I saw him for chest pains, because they used to work wonderfully. Big mistake, because that just caused my heart to beat very hard for a few hours. Scared the crap out of me but that’s fine now.

I feel better physically today, I guess. I spent the entire Monday in bed, forcing myself not to think about anything at all and it kinda worked I guess.

But I’m not sure what happened today because I woke up feeling scared, for no apparent reason. The stupid feeling is still hovering around and I hate it. I hate hate hate hate it. I get these bouts of fear once in awhile and it scared the crap out of me. It’s like this nagging feeling that just refuses to go away.

I know that I have a long summer break coming up in about 4 weeks – and I keep telling myself that. The problem is that right now, I can’t even see myself getting through the next 4 weeks. Argh. Horrid vicious cycle in my head.

I know that the main source of stress is school, but I’m not sure if that’s all there is. I don’t know. I haven’t had proper sleep in ages – I take forever to fall asleep, and when I do, it’s plagued with multiple dreams, leaving me exhausted mentally and physically when I get up.

Sigh, how am I going to get up for a 9am class tomorrow?

DO NOT bloody come and talk to me and ask me to think positive, take control yada yada yada because you know what? It doesn’t help. It just makes me more stressed, and rather stupid and incompetent.

But you know, thank you so so much to the darlings who have been around trying to cheer me up.

Thank you Timmy, for asking if I’d be free for a couple of minutes so that you can drive down to give me a real hug. *hugs* You’re an insanely sweet boy.

And thank you Daniel, for making me laugh like crazy, what with class tee shirts and the like. Heh! Thanks for being there to listen to me rant and to let me know that things will be okay.

Thanks Yang, for letting me know and reminding me that we’ll all do this together, and that we can do it.

This is really insane, because I feel damn stupid for being so stressed out because I know that these stuff can be done. I’m just really tired, and today it shocked me because I’m feeling the similar feelings I get when I am slipping back into mild depression.

I just really want to see familiar faces.
And hugs.
And Cadbury Mini Eggs.

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Instead of working on my CPJ, like I obviously should have been doing this entire week, I spent the time today editing my birthday photos instead. Oops?

Anyways, looking at my photos just made me happier this gloomy Sunday evening. I miss my camera, and I wanna go out and take photos soon! Anyone wants to go this Friday afternoon? Hee.

More details about my birthday can be found on last week’s Project 52 post, if you’re interested.

I started the day with my ex-colleagues at my favourite brunch place!

hhhhrrrroy. HAHAHA.

taken by andee

andee and his white ep-1!

eggs florentine that made me very happy!

and the most awesome pancakes everrrrr!

taken by andee

taken by andee

taken by andee

taken by andee

so cute, his ep-1′s super small lens cap! haha

my coloursplash flash sitting atop his ep-1.
notice how it is black. it was supposed to be pink, but mistakes and irresponsible blogshops caused it to remain black as a result of their folly, lack of following up, and my TOTALLY CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO CHASE THEM-ness. ahem.

ep-1 meets gf-1 meets Kiera, my d5000, and hroy’s new iPhone with Sigma lens =P

drowned in maple syrup

We headed to get drinks and pedicures, squealed at some dogs and cats before heading to get dinner at Da Paolo’s. I loveeee the king prawn pasta. Slurrrp. It was better than I’d remembered, like I’ve mentioned before, and now I’m craving for it again!!!!! Meh.

Dawnie came by for dinner, and looked scared by Andee who took this picture haha

Clara, otherwise known as my mad best friend, also came by though she was feeling abit sick. Loveee!!!! <3

Oh, but she had her revenge…

* I actually turned 24 lah. *sulk*

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silent contentment…

This was taken at my birthday dinner at Da Paolo’s on Saturday. I like how calm and serene it feels, and perhaps, that mood and photo effectively sums up how I felt by the end of my birthday.

Saturday turned out to be pretty great, which was rather unexpected, judging by my ranty emo outbursts the week that proceeded it.

Brunch with the ex-es at my favourite brunch place, incidentally introduced to me by them, was the perfect beginning to that day. Good food, and great company! It was nice catching up, and laughing at the various senses of humour that I’ve missed terribly.

I got a pedicure after that, with Charm and was pleasantly surprised at the expansion my now-favourite nails place has undergone. It’s now even more comfortable than before, and of course, there are few things that make me happier than getting my nails done.

Dinner was a quiet affair at Da Paolo’s with the ex-es, and Dawn and Clara who came down. My pasta was yummy yummy yummy! Even nicer than I’d remembered it to be, last I had it.

My Holland V walks are now complete, with the opening of Daily Scoop at Chip Bee Gardens!

Up in the Air with Clara after everyone left was awesome. When I last saw the trailer, I thought it was a typical Hollywood movie, and it totally confused me when it was mentioned that they were nominated for Best Picture!

Totally no regrets catching it – I was impressed with the movie. In fact, I really really love it! The editing and directing were both good, with a feel that was real and yet surreal at the same time. The script was good, with intelligent and funny dialogue. I hate slapstick, have I mentioned that before?

Acting was good as well, and George Clooney is just easy on the eyes. I adore his laugh lines! Sexy.. mm.

The movie was easy to digest and yet, so real but not in a sickeningly pretentious way.

Watching it, and being filled with the knowledge at the back of my head that I was going home to end my birthday with a conversation with Pinkie was just…. I don’t know how to put it. I just remember feeling totally content with my life at that point.

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I’ve come to realise that insincerity is shown and felt most vividly in actions, or lack thereof. It’s true, you know, that when push comes to shove, and when you need support you can truly see who is around and who chooses to fade away in the distance.

I know I sound like a stupid 15 year old bitching about how her friends aren’t there for her like they promised, but whatever.

“Being there” has lost its meaning when it escapes the lips of some people.

At least I know there are still some that I can count on.. I love the lot of you very, very much. Heh. Thank you for dropping messages and calls to check on me when I wasn’t doing okay. They’re really, really greatly appreciated.

You don’t need a quarrel for friendships to lose its meaning. Sometimes all you need is your world to come crashing down.

Goodbye.

…….. Aaaaaand don’t assume. Or ask.

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If I were to be accused of one of the seven sins taking over my life, it’d either be gluttony…. Or sloth. Goodness knows that if I had my way, I’d sleep at 4am and wake up at 3pm the next day, have lunch and then proceed to nap.

Oh, who am I kidding? That happens every weekend, much to my undone homework’s dismay. Don’t know what’s up with this semester but everyone seems to be sluggish about getting work done. I think it’s the 2 month Christmas break. Haha.. That has got to be the only drawback of long breaks.

Every Saturday, I’ve been forcing myself to sit at the dining table and get some work done, but I usually end up feeling guilty and pressed for time on Sunday. Haha!

I did manage to get some work done today, though! Still have another piece of work on today’s agenda so I suppose I’ll start on that soon.

School’s been alright, for those of you who’ve asked. It’s just a ton of work that I am new to, thus taking forever with each piece. Haha.

On a sidenote, my parents just got home and they forgot to buy me the dinner they said they’d get!!!! OMG WALAOEH I AM SUPER HUNGRY. I could have cooked noodles half an hour ago if they hadn’t said they would get dinner for me la!!! *EPIC SULK*

But they both were super nice and gave me money to get my CNY clothes so I shall just go and cook dinner nao. HAHAHA.

Before I disappear and ease the dizziness from hunger, I’ve overdue photos from when Zhan, Malcolm and I went out to shoot. We had brunch at my favourite place for brunch before that, and Felicia Chin was at the next table! SO CUTE. I have a crush on her, kthksbai. Hahahaha!

big bear paws!!! that’s an iPhone in his paws

poor tree…

malcolm has hair that is totally awesome to photograph!!! HAHAHA.

rarrrr!!!! hahahahaha

oh, shoo!

I don’t have proper photos from that outing because I hate the shots I took. Blerughhh. We didn’t go out to shoot this week either, so as of now I have no photo ready for Project 52. Ack. Shall see what’s around tomorrow.

Things have been a lil better at the home-front, albeit not knowing what is going to happen. Trying my best to leave everything to God, heh.

as with so many other things, i don’t expect you to understand. just keep the judgmental subtleties out of your tones.

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