Thursday, May 26, 2016

Twenty-two Years of Education,

Hello, future Eileen!

Five years down the road, you may be reading back to this post because you miss your school life so much while trying hard to cope with your stressful work. No worries, this blog is for you to walk down the memory lane when you feel tired of your working life. Be thankful that you graduated with a Bachelor certificate, despite the number of obstacles you've met along the way, when you did not have any intention of pursuing degree back in Polytechnic. This post will be a long yet sweet memory of your education life.

Today, 26th May 2016, is the day when my last academic result is out. I've never thought that. It's been a long 22 years of education since nursery! I've been through nursery, kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, polytechnic and now university. You can read my a bit of my journey here in Secondary school (or even times before this because this post has only photos of prom night), Temasek Poly (1) and Temasek Poly (2)!

I wasn't a bright student to start with. Everything I did was because of rewards. I fared pretty well back in Primary 4. Dad promised me a discman if I were to get into EM1. But no, I was streamed into the first class of EM2 instead. Despite that, Dad still bought me a Discman because it's the "first class" of EM2. LOL! Things started getting tougher as time flew. I couldn't catch what the teacher was teaching, especially Science and Math. My cousin even took time to travel from her workplace to my previous place (Sengkang) to teach me Math and back to her place at Pasir Ris. I scored well for that period of time but because we shifted to Yishun, I no longer had this advantage of playing "Math" game during my tuition sessions. I rmbr there was once when my cousins took time to design a game that's similar to Monopoly. The only difference was, they hand drew it in Pokemon theme with different Pokemon! I love Pokemon that time and yes, because of this, I rlly loved Math! But it was only for a moment! I did not do well for my PSLE. It was lower than what I expected. I thought I wasn't affected until I stepped out of the hall the second time. The reality hit me hard.

I entered the Normal (A) of Anderson Secondary. I love their pinafore and therefore, this school. This was my first choice after going rounds in Dad's cab to see which school is nicer and such. My parents rlly took the effort to tell me "this school would be good because ...". Despite being in a good school, I got influenced in a bad way back in Secondary 1. I did not like the systems nor the teachers. All I wanted to do was to play. I think I rlly disappointed my parents that time. The only things I did not do were smoking, fighting, and skipping school. I skipped supplementary lessons though. I picked up a lot of vulgarities and I got slapped a few times because I uttered it in front of Mum when she was scolding me. Yes, rude! And I hate the past me TBH.

Started to change for the better in Secondary three when I got together with the guai-er group of people. Hahah! Not saying my babes aren't! They are too smart for me. K, I kid!! It's just that it's easier to hang out with people in your class as the timetables and all are the same. N Levels results were pretty good but not my O's. Though there were subjects that I did well in, there were also subjects that I did poorly in. I decided that I should retake 3 subjects for my O's instead of going to a course that I didn't want in Poly/going to ITE. I studied harder this time because I felt that it's rlly a waste of money to repeat subjects and going through the same thing again! So yep, with that, from a 20+ score for first O's, I improved quite a lot. Despite that, my English result was still the same. Of cus, I didn't give up. But, I told myself that if I were to get the same result agn for the third time, I would just heck it alrdy.

I proceeded to Temasek Polytechnic, again, with not the course that I wanted. I did very badly for my first two semesters because it's mostly about Physics and erm, A-Math? I did not learn Amaths back in Secondary school so I thought it was frigging difficult. Anyway, that was also when B came back to my life. He taught me Amaths (till he frigging wanted to puke). Anyway, that's not the point. I graduated from TP in 2014 and thankfully, I did not have to retake any modules. Yes, needless to say, I applied for Business Management in SIM-RMIT. It was a short 2 years of studies but the stress level was high enough for me to think about dropping out at a point of time. Whenever my results were out, I could see how happy Mum was.

It took me 22 years to complete my education. I was and am still slower than others. I take a longer route. I take a longer time to understand things. But, I'm thankful for the people around me especially my parents who did not give up on me once. Not when I had to retake my O's. Not when I complained to them about my assignments and such too! Oh, how can I forget about this!! Throughout my 22 years of education, Dad will send me to school no matter how early or late it is! I love my family!

I saw this image that Bro shared on FB ystd... Thought I'd share it here too!

“Just because you took longer than others, doesn't mean you failed. Remember that.”

Thanks for giving birth to me in this family on 23 years (2 months more to go)!! We aren't rich but our parents will always try to satisfy us as long as they can do it! :)

Now, I'm looking forward to our family trip that's gna happen in June!! 

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Taiwan Day 8: Cafe x Lover's Bridge x Shihlin Night Market

In the midst of revising for exams but memory work is rlly too dull for me, so here I am!! Back to where I stopped for my Taiwan travelogue! :)

Day 8:



On this day, if my memory didn't fail me, we were still deciding whether to follow our planned itinerary. We first headed down to Ariel Le cafe at QSquare.

Hahah, I think we headed there a bit too early and most of the shops weren't opened yet. But anyway, we still went forward for our brunch at Ariel Le Cafe. It was a cafe that we chanced upon when surfing the net on the first day of our trip. But at that time, we didn't add it into our itinerary until we walked past this cafe on day 7, which is one day before this.


Their desserts

Me being me! I started using phone after ordering our food and Baby was busy snapping. Just look at the photos below with me and my food later!



Cassis

Banana Chocolate Waffle


I give no shit when there's food in front of me!

Yes, this. Bcos Baby spammed way too many photos. Hahah!

Anyway, I would recommend Ariel Le Cafe because their waffles were good!! :) Can't remember how much we spent though. Headed down to Tamsui old street next and ya, they say you have to try 阿给 when you're in Tamsui. But tbh, we don't know which is the recommended stall so we just anyhow whacked! HAHAHAH! 






Till today, we still don't know which is the one that we should have gone to! Maybe it's the one near the pier cus it was rlly crowded when we reached there later on. We wanted to try but my stomach wasn't giving me any space. So, nah! We proceeded to buying two tickets to go over to Fisherman's Wharf/Lover's Bridge. We bought return tickets as the last train back here would be at 7pm and we doubt we could rush for the last train. 













Back and proceeded to Shihlin night market. And ya, I would recommend the fried ice cream. It's pretty easy to find the stall actually. Just have to walk straight from the "game stations" and turn right at the first turn. The fried ice cream is da bombz that I bought two that night! Hahahah! 






We continued walking and also finding food to stuff our stomachs. Hahahah!




Anyway, we found this fried milk cubes that Bro was saying. He told us don't try this at all because it's gross (according to him). So, out of curiosity, and also because we managed to find it, we decided to give it a try. And erm, he was right. HAHAHAH! I don't like the taste and texture. Not sure if we did finish it but I don't rmb eat more than 1 cube.





In our opinions, we think that this Shihlin big chicken cutle is not very nice :/ Too many bones and the meat is rough. Sorz, but opinions differ!



And, that's the end of Day 8. I should go back to study now! Goodbye!! :)

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Day Trip to JB,

Back to blogging. School has been crazy. Hectic schedules with tons of assignment to catch up with. Felt so out of breath at times because of the packed deadlines.

Travelled across the border in end January for a day-trip with the boyf because I had been telling him for many times that I wna go JB for their cafes. So yaaassss, he gave in and we finally went there on a Saturday! Ahhh, the q was horrendous! We took a total of 4hrs to step across the JB custom okay! No joke!! Recommended to go on weekdays! We were famished while q-ing to get our passports stamped!!

MACO VINTAGE
Jalan Ibrahim, 80000 Johor Bahru, Johor




Oreo milkshake


Spicy Tuna

Croque Madame





I like my croque madame!! It was salty at first due to the salt and pepper on top of the toast. But I personally love anything with crispy toast. So yep, it sort of offset the saltiness in it. The only disappointing part was that the yolk was a bit cooked. No runny yolk :( Anyway, I ordered smth small because I wanted to save space for later. Overall, it was good!


Maco Vintage wasn't where we wanted to go initially. We had a hard time finding the cafe we initially wanted to patronise. We gave up after searching for abt 10 minutes because, like I've mentioned earlier, we were famished and the sun was blazing hot that day!

Total damage: RM55.70


By Grace, Trus
 9 Jalan Trus, Johor Bahru


A place that sells soft-serve ice cream in charcoal flavour. There are a total of 6 flavours in-store (including CNY Special. I'm not sure if there still is now!). Anyway, as usual, being a chocolate lover, I decided to go with chocolate! HAHAH! #whatsnew! 

I love my decision because it was so yummeh! Just look at the generous amount of ingredients they gave!! Oh, the most interesting part is... There's foam on our soft serve and it's edible! I forgot what it's called. The staff was kind enough to introduce us the different types of chocolates in our cups. But uhm, it was too long ago and I've forgotten what they are called. I only rmbr that there's my favourite chocolate bits!





Total damage: RM17.90

Soon Soon Heng BKT 顺顺兴肉骨茶
 43, Jalan Serigala, Taman Abad
80250 Johor Bahru, Johor Malaysia


Finally, it was near dinner time! Time flies!! Headed for BKT after spending some time at KSL Mall. It's very convenient because this coffeeshop is located just opposite KSL Mall. I read reviews of this saying that we've to queue. But there was no queue on that day so I guess we were a bit lucky? Bcos we were freaking hungry by then! 

I love their youtiao! Baby gave me more than what he had. I think we over-ordered because we were sooo full after our meal! We ordered meatball, golden mushroom (I know it's not called this!), mushroom (again), taukee, youtiao and 2 bowls of white rice! Not forgetting the meat too! Hahahah! We were like "shit! think we ordered too much!".




Overall: 4.5/5
Total damage: RM33

Oh! Ice Cream
KSL City Mall 
LG-10, JB


Headed back to KSL City Mall for dessert at Oh! Ice Cream. I was attracted by the appearance when I chanced upon it via Instagram. So yep, here we were!!




But sorry to say that, this cannot be judged by its look. It's a 好看不好吃 kind of dessert. We chose cookie monster (or smth) for the ice cream and added marshmallow and rainbow rice for the toppings. Nope, I'll nvr go back for this. We threw half of it away because it was way too sweet. Both YZ and I don't have a sweet tooth. But yalah, I admit that it's actually quite Snapchat worthy. HAHAHAH!


Lavender @ City Square


This was recommended by Bro's girlfriend. So yep, bought this back for my family's breakfast! It's actually very fluffy and most importantly, IT'S NOT DRY AT ALL!! I like sponge cakes that aren't dry on the inside. Quite particular about marble/sponge cakes actually because most of us will find it hard to swallow if it's too dry.



The end. Back to my assignments again! 3 more weeks to my first paper and I'm running out of time. Goodbye!