Tuesday, March 31, 2009

ok ouch ouch my thighs and my butt hurts like crazy! it was Overexertion 101 at pilates yesterday. or maybe i was being too garang. but i swear the pilates instr (i shd find out his name for convenience sake) was out to kill us. or maybe, kill me. rarrrr i feel like jelly. and my deltoids and obliques are hurting as well.

but ah well.. manners maketh the man, muscle aches maketh the body.


------ Sunday, March 29, 2009

yesterday was apparently the international day of francophones. and turns out, it was an international day of francophonie for me..

french class in the morning as usual, where i officially registered for the DELF B1 that will take place in end may.

golf in the afternoon - another aftnn of perfectionist sport, another aftnn of obsession. anyone up for practice sessions on wed evening? ;)

then in the evening, i returned to alliance francaise for the dinner party, and i managed to catch a bit of some ceremony as well. the dinner party started out slow but became pretty quite alright, so much so that i was finding it a bit difficult and a lot slower to speak in french cos the mental translation process defo slows down after 3 red wines, 1 white wine and some ice wine shots.

and then, believe it or not, another french party - jerome's farewell party at his place. got to see a couple of familiar faces there, chatted a bit, then the party moved to KM8. it was the last day of KM8's operations so the crowd was tremendous but the DJ kinda sucked and the party was boring until.... the eye candy of the night appeared. he's french of asian descent, and currently working in shanghai now. he. is. reallllly cute.
anws we left at 1-ish, tired and eye candied.



today- went for my 1 yr old cousin's bday lunch at east coast. it was blazing hot! but now it's pouring cats and dogs outside.. so i guess i will just go take a nap and catch up on my totally insufficient sleep for the past week..........


------ Saturday, March 28, 2009

i was on fire on wednesday after work.. i hit the gym running at a quicker-than-usual pace on the treadmill, then went for yoga and then continued another short session of running after yoga. my thighs were protesting after all the running and balancing on 1 leg, but damn i was on fire.


thurs nite we had a farewell dinner and karaoke session for amy who has now left for stockholm.. we will miss you amy dear, see u in 6 months' time.
but oh the envy... going away for 6 months, oh the envy......................


------ Monday, March 23, 2009

i'm just in here today for no particular reason actually.. i've been feeling like i haven't written many constructive or reflective posts recently.. like last time, i will write down what i feel / think for the day, but it hasn't been happening lately. is it because i'm too lazy to think and feel, or is it because my life simply isn't too interesting?

anyways. golf got cancelled on sat (bummer) so we went for ktv, crab beehoon and drinks. we wanted to head to mellben's for crab beehoon but the queue was so horrendously long, so we headed over to uncle leong's just 1 street away. apparently, like the rochor tau huay brothers, these 2 are brothers selling crab beehoon until they quarelled, then they set up stall really near each other. but really, uncle leong's crab beehoon is really good and according to ln, as good as mellben's..

over drinks at cuppage wine connection, we talked abt many things i think.. about work, if we will too comfy at one place of work, of 5 year plans and i think the most personal topic for me is the endgame. that is, where i want to be at the end. when i retire.

i've always envisioned my endgame to be quiet.. a small town, my own house, friendly neighbours, nothing more stressful than deciding what to cook for dinner. seriously. now how i get to that endgame is another matter.. and i can honestly say that even till now, i have no idea what my life is going to be like. i haven't got a 2-year plan, let alone a 5 year or 10 year plan.

recently, i've been bandying around the idea of doing a masters at insead, perhaps the fontainebleu campus (duh). i think i surprised my friends a little when i mentioned that, in fact ray asked me how come i am thinking of doing a masters all of a sudden.

my answer, i told him, i think i need something to work towards. constantly. elsewise, i think i will lose direction in life. like for french- i am learning it continuously and it gives me something to work towards - a higher competency level, delf qualifications, things like that. i'm already thinking how it will be when i've reached the last AF level. ouch it will be weird. i need to have milestones in life (i collect them in fact haha) if not, i think i will feel lost.
story of my life i suppose...


------ Sunday, March 22, 2009

je l'ai vu quand je retournait à la salle après la pause. il me souviens encore. je sais car il m'a demandé:
lui: sophie va bien?
moi: oui oui, elle va bien..
lui: ah bon, je la cherche toujours.....


------ Tuesday, March 17, 2009

thanks guys (and girl) for letting me know i'm not the only crazy obsessed one here..

anws i persisted with going for pilates for monday and ouch ouch ouch i'm hurting all over from my palm (ah hahh edmund my palm hurts!) to my shoulder to my back to my butt to my calf... ouch ouch ouchhhhhh


------ Sunday, March 15, 2009

golf is good! fun! seriously, i never thought i'd want to pick up a sport that i thought was boring and sedentary (in jiahuan's words) but golf is NOT sedentary at all. my arms and back ache a little and i swear my left palm is a bit swollen cos i scuffed my last shot and hit straight into the ground with the 7-iron. ouch.
but seriously, i'm crazily obsessed with correcting my grip and posture and swinging the right way. i'm crazily obsessed thinking abt golf gloves and golf balls.
so i guess now i finally understand why golfers like to talk non stop abt golfing. crazily obsessed bunch of people, they are.





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euh et oui, aujord'hui nous nous sommes vus encore. il est venu à la salle et a redonné les examens à ses étudiants d'I6. mais la premier fois, il ne m'a pas vu. il retournait à la salle un peu plus tard, m'avait vu et a dit: et toi, bonjour, je t'aime. hahaha.
mais euh en fait il dit "je t'aime" à tous ses étudiants lah. ce n'est pas du tout spécial...


------ Tuesday, March 10, 2009

today is a pretty good day, i cleared some admin stuffs at work and finished my stuffs in good time. i also managed to come across 2 statements that amused me today:

i got to hear a smart person talk today, and he talked about the.... credit crunch and economic crisis. when asked about what he thinks really caused the meltdown, whether it was down to the fed's incompetence under alan greenspan, he commented (not fully accurately but approx):

"I happen to think that Mr Greenspan is a very smart man, one of the most brilliant minds..... not entirely his fault because then, people don't expect the regulators to interfere too much, that the market is supposed to self-correct..... he has his faults...... no one in the world knows exactly what they are doing..... it was a lot of factors coming together..... like a hydrogen bomb, everything is fine until the critical mass is hit, then boom the world is gone.... i think the meltdown is like that - everybody played a part and has their fault, and things just reached a critical mass of incompetence."

well said! a critical mass of incompetence indeed...



and also, i chanced upon this facebook group called "Tu sais que tu viens de Rouen (76) quand ..." (You know that you come from Rouen when...), and the last statement was -
pour toi , un repas sans camembert c'est comme un kinder sans surprise
--> for you, a meal without camembert (a type of cheese from normandy), it's like a kinder without surprise

HAHHAHA

and oh yes, did i mention, i'm on leave on tmr and thurs!!! yipeee!!!


------ Monday, March 09, 2009

actually when i was reading what i wrote in my previous entry, i am reminded of something i once wondered about sometime last year after i came back from exchange.. i wondered when the day will come where i am able to write an entire post in french..
i guess that day has come.. i am able to write a short post in french quite easily, and for longer posts with (inevitably) more difficult words, i use wordreference (and learn from it) and google language tools for a rough check.

the feeling.... is quite good i guess. kinda empowering, next goal will be to listen and speak with more ease. that will be the ultimate measure of how far i've come.. nearly 2 years and counting, time flies...


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Imagine ça - tu est allé à une entretien avec les "anciens élèves français" de l'Alliance Française (en fait une groupe qui consiste en 2 professeurs de français et la directrice d'études a l'AF).

là, le première question était - vous pouvez presentez-vous? ah merde, tu déteste ce type de questions, où tu dois commencer?? alors tu a commencé avec "bonjour, je m'appelle JH." et puis tu marquais une pause. tu a voulu de dire ton âge mais.. quel âge tu devais dire? 24? mais non, tu n'avais pas avoir ton anniversaire! 23? mais... 2008 avait finit.. en fait.. MERDE en fait tu n'a pas voulu de dire ton âge! tu a senti très ancien!
alors tu a continué: ma famille a 4 personnes..... hein.

en suite, il y avait une petite conversation avec un d'eux dont il t'a demandé où ses parents doivent aller si ils viendront à SG?
euhhh little india, geylang serai, quartier du chinois, sentosa.. bien bien...

et finalement, un petit jeu de role. tu devais inviter un ami à une fête mais en fait c'était une fête surpris pour lui. tu devais le convaincre d'y aller. le professeur jouait l'ami.

toi: salut manu! est-ce que tu est libre ce week-end? il y aura une fête chez moi et tu dois y aller!
lui: ce week-end? mais je prendrai mon chien au vétérinaire. il faut que je le prenne.
toi: euhhhhh... ah mon frère! il est très très libre! il peut prendre ton chien au vet pour toi!
lui: et moi? je le suis aussi?
toi: non, non, tu dois aller à la fête! euh tu te souviens Sophie?
lui: (il jouait le jeu) ah oui oui!
toi: elle est juste retournée du Japon et elle va rester seulement 2 jours! donc il n'y a pas un autre jour pour la fête!
lui: ah d'accord..... mais pourquoi tu m'invites? pourquoi?
toi: euhhh... euhhhh... euhhh... en fait... elle t'aime! elle t'aime beaucoup!
lui: VRAIMENT?
toi: mais oui, bien sur! elle était celibataire pendant 2 ans.. à cause de toi!
lui: ah oui? vraiment? d'accord ça marche! j'y vais.. pas de problem!
toi: bon! alors samedi à 19h, c'est bon?
lui: c'est bon! j'y vais!

et tout les gens riaient... ça, c'était pas mal à la fin...


alors samedi dernier, je suis tombée sur karen et manu dans le couloir.. manu m'a vu et crié très fort: darling!
puis il prennait ma main, la baisait et la tenu.
je t'aime! je t'aime!
et moi, qu'est-ce que je pouvais faire d'autre? je pouvais seulement répondre: oui oui moi aussi.. je t'aime...


c'était très amusant........


------ Saturday, March 07, 2009

so i shuffled some things around and now, my french class is on sat morning 9am-12pm. omg that's early.. but i decided to go ahead with french cos of delf B1 that i am aiming to take in may. n i do want to join back my classmates from a2 onwards.
so now i have to wake up early on sat for french, then golf at 2. i'm gonna be a good girl for 8 weeks - no late nights on friday!

yet another fren said my life is fulfilling.. am i the only one who finds a difference between "full of things to do" and "full"? there are things to do, but it's different from being fulfilled.. argh i give up, it's time for bed - it's already 12.30am on a friday!


------ Sunday, March 01, 2009

after 2 weeks of skipping classes (and feeling a bit guilty at that), i turned up for the test today and.... it was bad. 2 weeks of not speaking french and i'm shot. damn! the test was actually so so but i just couldn't put my mind into it. i'd blank out and go with my instincts, with what feels "correct".

aujord'hui, quand je voyais mes camarades de classe, je leurs ai dit que je ne continuerai pas avec la classe. je vais arrêter pendant un semestre parce que je vais apprendre jouer du golf. mes leçons du golf vont commencer samedi prochain de 14h à 15h.

karen et yash (je sais pas comment ça s'écrit) m'ont dit que ce n'est pas une bonne idée (je le sais déja).. karen m'a rappelé que je vais oublier beaucoup de chose si j'arrête pendant 2 mois (je sais aussi) et particulièrement lorsque le DELF approchera bientôt.. donc yash m'a proposé de m'inscrire au supérieur 1 le samedi matin pendant 1 semestre et puis, rejoins notre classe pour supérieur 2.

je pense que c'est une bonne idée.. mais hein, je dois me lever tôt sur samedi aussi!


anws it was good meeting the oldies for dinner and settlers' game at daryl's (huge) place. daryl and i, we could've sprung a surprise victory if our plan had worked out. which goes to say, sometimes the best laid plan simply loses to traditional work. oh well hehe.

life's pretty ok now i guess, been trying to fill my life up, or in jem's words, lead a "balanced life". been gymming at least twice a week, eventually hope to step up to thrice. then i'm also trying to attain external and internal harmony thru tcm (trying out a bit for now haha).. then french and golf (for the next 10 weeks) on sat. yes u read right. golf. never thought i'll be taking classes for a sport i thought was boring.

but somehow it never seems enough? like i was telling jem in the car, i don't seem to find my life very fulfilling? but how much more must i be doing to get some satisfaction? i'm quite tired out by the end of each week already! sigh in the words of chris martin, "nobody said it would be easy". i just don't understand why some ppl find life so easy when i find life a constant fight..... is it good to be never satisfied?


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