ultimately:

the people you spend(t) the most time with / love(d) the most

hurts you most.

not good

notice how people are only nice to you when they want something from you?

like, you never really hear from them, and suddenly they start talking to you... and somewhere between the fourth and fifth sentence (if they're tactful enough), you realise that it's because they want something from you.


thank God i still have friends who are nice to me just because.
not everything needs to have an ulterior motive.

today

today is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.





like seriously... have you ever felt a day go so well that you feel as if you can't contain it all in?


today is one of those days.

tomorrow might be crap, but for now, i'm going to enjoy my beautiful day as best as i can.

i think being near flowers and trees and grass does that to me.
it makes a good day terrific!


ahh i feel loved, rejuvenated, filled with a sense of purpose, and the weather's pretty darn fantastic.
my cup runneth over.
what more can a girl ask for?



(taken in feb. how time flies)


maybe a tall handsome someone...?
haha nah jokes.



i'll have the hydrangeas though.

why do christians still choose to praise God, and believe in God when bad things happen to them?

they get sick just as non-christians do, they get into accidents and sometimes die, they get demoted in their job... they encounter problems just like everyone else. so, if there is a God, why is He letting all of these happen to them? aren't they supposed to be His children? so, in other words, aren't christians getting the short end of the stick?


i was watching this video someone shared on facebook and it hit me...

we don't praise God for all the good things that He has done for us.
we praise Him because He is WORTHY.


there're so many things that we don't know/ can't answer about life... (eg: why bad things happen to good people), but i can tell you why, despite all the bad things that happen to us, all the taunting from tv and people, etc, i still choose to praise God.

it's because He is Worthy.

happiness is really a state of mind

the good news is yay i'm done with exams! for the year. now i can legitimately concentrate on slacking off, having fun and not focusing on my books.

unfortunately,
a lot of my friends are still having theirs. life's less interesting when you're free but your friends aren't.

and it's raining on guy fawkes!! i guess this means no watching fireworks at new brighton pier now. ishhkkkkkk... annoying. the weather is always good when i have heaps of things to study or assignments to do, but when i plan to do something outdoors... it always rains!


i have a list of things to do during my last 2 weeks here (for the year) to keep myself from feeling bored. but i think i do things a little too quickly. i've already finished clearing out all of my books in the morning. now all i need is a box to put them into.


meanwhile... something amusing i found in my pantry drawer the other day.


simpson's cookies! see it even came with a little note. so sweet!


and that was what was inside. i only found homer and krusty inside.


but they still tasted great. now i actually know what yellow "people" taste like.

hair is hair is hair

my hair is in bad shape.

split ends everywhere and i have more bad than good hair days. ah woe...
i soooo need a haircut! snip snip haven't cut my hair in 9 months (the horror)


am now toying with cutting my hair short.


something like these.

but of cos, being asian, it'll probably end up looking slightly different from what i envisioned it to be.


but then... just when i got my hair to be long... and the growing it out process is quite a pain.

so... i don't know. what do you think?

something cool


time to cut down perhaps?

figure it out as you go along

i'm getting lazy...
have had 2 papers already and my last one is in 4 days time. and help me i'm running out of steam! do you think burning my notes and drinking them ala bomoh will help? haha do let me know... ;)

denise ong! your mugging and cramming and whining and sitting in friggin cold computer labs on fine weathered days, will end in precisely 4 days. so quit complaining and buckle down and stardeee.

speaking of cold computer labs, i have no idea why the place is like at least a few degrees colder than the weather outside. dahlah the wind outside is killing... when you go indoors expecting it to be cosy and warm, you start freezing up all over again. feel like a vegetable in the fridge sometimes... minus the greenness, that is. another minor annoyance, (yes i'm whiny about the weather, what else is new?) is how the weather turns so fast... it can be really warm and sunny one moment, and a few hours later you're shivering and having backache in the thin sweater you put on because you stupidly thought the nice weather would last. seriously, chch weather is so pms-sy.


but i guess that's just the beauty of life. it's unpredictabilities and quirks. you think you've got it all planned and sorted out and wham! life lands you something unexpected and throws you out of balance. or maybe just a little wind that blows and musses up your previously combed hair.

like how today while on the way to the teacher's college to study (it's so much quieter there), ning and i got talking with this really sweet elderly guy. and get this... he actually knows where msia is (lordy it's a miracle!), and not only that.... he actually lived in penang for 10 years. AND he raves about the food still. ahaha! to all those who said that penang food is overrated... if a gweilo can say that he misses it, you can form your own conclusions lah!
i love unexpected encounters with lovely people.

on the way back we got yelled at by some guys in a car. yeah, the irony. they should seriously consider coming up with other ways of harassing the asians/ arabs, i mean... isn't the old shouting from car trick getting pretty old? i guess it's just too much to ask to be treated with respect regardless of race around here. i'm not asking to be liked, all i want is to be treated as an equal. not as someone of lower class just because i have small eyes, black hair and yellow skin.

some people need to get a life.

food: for... against?

i get all these forwarded emails from my parents about how some kuey teow are made from chopsticks, and chicken from rats, and now... bananas dipped in some kind of toxic chemical to preserve their yellowness.
seriously, what can you trust nowadays?

even if those emails lack verification... just the thought of people deliberately doing all these for profit just sickens me. we're just so screwed honestly. who knows how much hormone-pumped chicken and beef i've been eating? or how much insecticide-doused vegetables i've had throughout these years?

if only people could just survive without eating.
lol i can't believe i, the girl who raves about food, just said that. but think about it, eating is a waste of time. and of money as well. you waste time AND money to eat, and during output as well. you KNOW what i mean. then being fat or thin wouldn't be attributed to food intake or metabolism etc. no more problems of girls (and guys, guys are getting much vainer nowadays) becoming bulimic or anorexic. diets; a thing of the past! now wouldn't that be exciting...

but then again... AHA! you knew there'd be a 'but', didn't you, you smart arse.

(psst... an arts degree challenges you to think from both angles and to justify your present ideas by effectively arguing them out in a logical way)
sorry... exam fever getting to me :(

as i was saying, there is always another side to the coin. or so they tell me anyway. i honestly can't tell which is head or tails. ANYWAY... without the need to eat, there'd be one less thing to enjoy. and (i'm speaking on behalf of all the foodies out there) really, food IS something of a pleasure for us. i mean, almost half of our day is usually taken up by eating, talking about food, looking up food blogs/tv programs about food, cooking, or just planning what to have for lunch. i mean, if you have to do it, might as well take as much enjoyment out of it as possible right? besides, i'd have nothing to placate me when i'm stressed/ bored/ sad. sugar is always a friend then.

also, without eating, we'd have one less thing to do as a family. i don't know about other people, but one of the only times my family does something together is during mealtimes. usually dinners. otherwise we're all over the place, doing our own stuff. without meals, gosh! what else would we do as a family? besides going to church, shopping, traveling that is. plus, eating is a good bonding time for friends as well. where on earth are we going to hangout after... well what is it people do again if they don't eat?? i don't really feel it so much in nz cos here we do other stuff which require less eating more often. i mean we DO hangout and eat and talk about our adoration of anything gastronomical (especially their obsession of babi, not mine), but it's much less than what i used to do in penang. back home (home meaning the little island), we'd go for dinners and after-dinners right after that. yeah nothing much to do besides hanging around food places really.


so, conclusion...
i think i've had too much to study. what started off as a random of how disgusting some people could get, inventing new ways to kill people, turned into (what appears to be) something resembling an academic essay. just great denise.

oh and... despite the high probability of contracting weird and horrible things from the look of the land... i'm still in favour of eating. not that i've much choice or say in that matter la. haha.

this dog kinda smiles like me! hahahaha...

and that's my cue to go!

The Holiday

i think 'the holiday' is a great post-break up movie to watch. corny and sweet and touching... perfect excuse to cry. not that i need one. but you know... another random from denise ong. might come in handy someday.

but i like the movie a lot. not a great like notting hill but nevertheless... pretty good.


so, i guess i'm into sappy corny storylines now. and gossip girl.
have to make up for my not having much of a life at the moment right? exams are such a pain.

you know what would be good right now? a massage... and maybe a hot guy or two... ;)
oh and aceing all my papers.

oooh 1am already. time to go!