This is weird. Never mind.

Anyway, if Sam thought it was bad she couldn't afford $5.95 on Friday...well. I'll tell you something more pathetic.

Today I was NOT in a particularly good mood. After dragging myself up early, it seemed my mother was taking her time to go out with me. Then she decided to fry some fried rice.

So I fell asleep.

When I woke up at 3 p.m., I asked her to go out again. She asked me if I had enough money to buy clothes. I said that wasn't the only thing I wanted to get; I had to buy a book.

And then she said: "YOU'RE GOING TO ORCHARD?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO VIVO! I'M NOT GOING TO ORCHARD!"

So I sulked all the way to Orchard alone.

My first stop was Topshop, where I finally found my shirt.

So I bought it and was left with like $1.40.

Then I went to Kinokuniya and found my book.

After deducting the 20% discount and a $10 voucher...

I had to pay $3.40.

Two stupid dollars short!!!

I tried to calm down and think of another solution. Maybe I should use $20 worth of vouchers. Which meant the original price of my second book should be around $10.

The cheapest book I could find was $11.85.

What the?!!! Since when did books get so bloody expensive?!!!

So I gave up, returned my book to its shelf, and sulked all the way to Vivo alone.

At Vivo my mother and I shared a Tom Yum mini steamboat, then had 1-for-1 drinks at Gloria Jean's. I had Strawberries and Cream gourmet iced chocolate. After which we walked for a little while along the harbour, viewing the old ship docked there.

Then home again.

Time for my bath. Speaking of time, looks like I may have time to post my Shanghai pics tonight. Hmm. That depends on whether I can tear myself away from Monkey Island.

What? Oh yes, I forgot to tell you what I've been so busy with. Sometime this week (Thursday I think) my Curse of Monkey Island CD-ROM finally arrived in the post!

Thankfully there were no weird errors whilst installing, like the stupid error that keeps appearing when I try to install some of my old games.

But because the game is very old (released in 1996), there were naturally a few compatibility problems running it on Windows XP. Basically the first time I started up the game, the animation went by at super high speed (which is a common problem when playing old games on XP).

So I downloaded a program for running old games, and the opposite occurred: the game became annoyingly choppy and crashed quite often.

So I finally went to research on what was wrong...and turns out you can't run the CD-ROM with the program, you have to copy some of the data from the CD-ROM to your hard disk and run the copied content instead.

So now the game runs beautifully.

And therefore I have been...busy. :P

Bathtime.

Jessica wrote home at 8:52 pm

It truly is the last weekend of the last week. Because soon we will herald

THE APOCALYPSE

I mean, first Sam is let loose on the roads of Singapore, and now brown things are flying around in my living room at night! The world is surely ending.

...Okay. I was just kidding. About Sam I mean. Although yes, she's been let loose on the road so please everyone, stay away from the driving centre! For the moment anyway.

Not kidding about the brown thing though. One just appeared beside my arm while I was on the laptop in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I SQUASHED it. The thing with brown things is that you can SQUASH them. Tell me if you've ever SQUASHED a lizard. :P

Oh yeah, sorry for not updating. And also not uploading my Shanghai photos. Am really, really, REALLY busy. So the pics can wait. I'll deal with the update first.

December 26th - 27th (a.k.a. The Random Sleepover)

It was raining the whole morning so I was incredibly lazy to get to Sam's early, like she had requested. Waited for the rain to let up whilst surfing the 'Net, but it didn't so I had to face reality, pack and leave.

Right before that, however, my sis returned from Bintan so I could finally give her her present, which was actually from my mother and I. It was a long blouse from Pull & Bear. The story goes that on the weekend Vivo opened, she was away in I-can't-remember-where and only returned on Sunday (Vivo opened on Saturday). The first thing she did was ask me if I wanted to visit Vivo again (yes). One of our stops on that trip was Pull & Bear, where she saw this blouse on one of the mannequins in the storefront, but couldn't find it in the store. Just last week my mother and I were in Vivo and I happened to see it in the store, so...

She didn't even remember the blouse. I told you I have a weird memory.

ANYWAY. I reached Sam's at 4 p.m., not 4.30 p.m. like she stated in her blog. :P

I watched the episode of So You Think You Can Dance Sam taped whilst Sam studied her driving. Don't know what audio thing she was playing in her room but is was annoying. :P

Finally YQ came and once SYTYCD ended, I brought out all the pressies and distributed them:

YAN QING:

1. Beijing 2008 Official Mascot "Bei Bei" Keychain

2. Beijing 2008 pencilcase

3. Beijing 2008 "Bei Bei" mobile phone strap

4. Oriental Pearl Tower keychain

5. BONUS! "Mother Hen" pin from Topshop

SAMANTHA:

1. Squeaky stuffed penguin from the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium

2. Beijing 2008 "Huan Huan" mobile phone strap

3. 2007 calendar from the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium

4. Beijing 2008 emblem pin

5. BONUS! "Health Nut" pin from Topshop

See, it's always good to have a friend with such few friends. More pressies for everyone. :P

After which, we were all starving so Sam prepared dinner for us!

First we shared two packets of Chicken Abalone instant noodles...

...then it was 2 chicken wings each, all kindly marinated with some satay sauce by Sam's mother.

This was followed by a period of bumming around till around 9 p.m., during which time Sam's mother returned from Tampines Central with our 9.45 p.m. tickets for Night at the Museum.

We left quite late and it didn't help that it was still raining and the bus took so freaking long to arrive. We got to Century Square and Sam and I bought a Nachos combo, then we went into the cinema just in time for the movie.

I LOVED THE MOVIE!!! And I loved the Easter Island statue best! "MY DUM-DUM WANTS TO TALK!!!"

...sorry. Got a bit carried away. Remind me to add that to my list of VCDs to get (when it's released).

After the movie we took the bus back to Sam's house. YQ and I had our baths, then she watched some show whilst I was supposed to "help" Sam with Prison Tycoon, which was a failure. Then I tried to help her install Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, following instructions to fix a problem on her computer (the Internet was crazily slow because of the earthquake, but we didn't know that at that time)...which was also a failure.

Finally I gave up and we had my Lemon Bacardi and fancy cupcakes from Coffee Bean (mine's the odd one out).

But we weren't high enough so we decided unanimously on a second round, this time Sam's Raspberry Bacardi. :)

After which we were quite sleepy (well except for Sam) and tried to sleep, but Sam was being irritating and keeping us up.

I don't think I managed to sleep till nearly 6 a.m.

As expected we woke up REALLY late. I got up officially at 2.30 p.m. and YQ followed not long after. Took some time getting Sam up though.

YQ and Sam spent some time dealing with employment issues. Haha.

Finally we decided to leave - but it started raining again. Nevertheless, we had my long-awaited bubble tea at 201 and then YQ left for home whilst Sam and I headed for Tampines Central.

Saw shoes and dropped by MM at Century Square, then went to various places in TM, including playing with one of those crocodiles that snap at you if you press the wrong tooth (I was the unlucky one) at Toys "R" Us.

Then it was time to go home!!!

December 28th (a.k.a. A Random Day Out)

The next day I was up early again to have lunch. Whilst I spent most of the day at Vivo, my mother was at Centrepoint helping me get my Mango rugby shirt on final reduction:

I have a thing for rugby shirts. Wanted to get a navy blue and cyan striped one from Zara last year, but it was too expensive. But that's another story.

Dinner was at some Japanese restaurant. I love Japanese buffets. Because all you do is sit, order and eat. Don't need to leave your seat. :)

December 29th (a.k.a. Another Random Day Out)

Friday I wanted to sleep in but instead met Sam in Orchard. Basically all we did was drop by Borders to get her book, browse through the Mango and Zara sales, spend a lot of time at the Mambo shop (*cough*), buy bubble tea outside Far East Plaza, look at more shoes...then go home. Well okay. Sam went to Marina to meet her parents. I went home to rot.

December 30th (a.k.a. A Random Day In)

So today I finally got my sleep-in day. And boy did I need it. I slept at 9 a.m.

Jessica wrote home at 9:06 pm

I slept at 6 a.m. Not by choice of course. Or at least, I could've slept at past 4 a.m. but I wanted to treat myself to some reading time for once.

Anyway my mother didn't tell me what time the lunch was, and since she's been down with some virus since we had dinner at Marina on Saturday, therefore I had to go myself.

And therefore I was late. By nearly half an hour in fact. How embarrassing. But I really couldn't get up. And when I did wake up I was in one of my quirky moods. In my quirky mood I decided the perfect Christmas outfit was a new dark red top and green leaf earrings. How festive.

So anyway, it was the usual Christmas lunch at Han's Park Mall with my relatives. I say it is "usual" but it's always initiated by my aunt who now lives in Perth, so I can't remember if we had one last year.

I gave away the remainder of my designated Shanghai gifts, although to be honest by this time I couldn't remember what was in each package.

I have a problem going for meals with my cousins. Firstly I have nothing to say. And secondly my sister is always busy and not present. And therefore I always end up thinking of how much better everyone would like it if my sister was present instead of me.

But oh well. I can eat. I had a black pepper chicken set meal, which consisted of clam chowder soup, ice lemon tea and a slice of honeydew. Or was it rock melon. One of those melons.

Lunch was over soon and almost everyone had plans (including me) so we all split up and went our separate ways.

My "separate way" was Topshop at Wisma Atria.

Now please don't get me wrong. I am actually quite sick of clothes shopping. Although that's mainly 'cos I'm broke and have to borrow money.

I had a very good reason this time though. Apparently I was fated to return a day early from Shanghai, because not only did I manage to buy my dress and blouse on Friday (the dress was out of my size and the blouse was out of stock by Saturday morning), a check on my email on Thursday night brought to my attention that Friday was the deadline for the redemption of my Shophopper card (with a prepaid $10).

So of course when someone gives you $10 free to shop, who the hell turns that down? I couldn't find anything on Saturday and wanted to drop by Vivo on Sunday evening, but it was raining the whole night and I had better things to do.

Which left Christmas Day itself (the last day to spend the card).

After walking around for a verrrrrrrry long time, I finally got another blouse. Something ruffly and pink and looks like you're wearing a flower. Combined with the storewide 15%, I actually saved $16. Not bad.

Oh and besides my quirky mood, I was also struck by a huge generous urge whilst standing in the cashier queue.

Let's just leave it at that. Although now I am broke. But I think I mentioned that already.

It's raining now and the weather forecast for this Friday is apparently 24/27. The next thing you know it'll be snowing.

Anyway I have better things to do now and I've succeeded in annoying Sam on MSN so it's time to go off.

Jessica wrote home at 1:30 am

Like those who need to know already know, I returned a day early on Thursday night.

We ran out of things to do in Shanghai.

I'm not saying there isn't anything to do there; we just didn't know what those things were. :P

Plus I couldn't stand all that Chinese anymore. By Wednesday I was already starting to think in Chinese. FREAKY I tell you.

It was -2 degrees the morning we landed. Thankfully the weather improved after that. Although most of Monday was spent lazing around the apartment. Tuesday we went sightseeing at the aquarium and the pearl tower, and Wednesday we finally found traditional Chinese handicrafts at Yuyuan. Thursday morning we headed back there for more traditional Chinese stuff, then flew home before 5 p.m. Reached before 10 p.m. and spent some time unpacking. Wanted to blog but as those who need to know already know, my plans were...um...interrupted.

I don't have a lot of photos 'cos I was lazy and I didn't dare take my hands out of my pockets into the freezing air. But I have a reasonable number, especially indoors at the tower and the aquarium. The aquarium photos were all from my phone so the quality may not be that great. I don't know when I can post the pics (I'll post it in a new blog) so you'll have to wait. Lots of things to do first, especially getting proper sleep. However I am in dire need of clothes shopping (since everything over there was winter clothing) so proper sleep won't be easy to get till Saturday night. :P

Speaking of clothes shopping I dropped by Vivo and thankfully they had the dress I was eyeing for the...erm...upcoming formal event. Was a bit afraid they'd sell out of my size before I even returned. And while there I also got a lovely burgundy blouse. (see below)

I met YQ after that at City Hall and we walked around Marina before heading for Orchard. And I saw the most gorgeous pair of heels on sale at Mango (sorry for pic quality)! *drools*

Walked waaaaaaay too much and nearly collapsed at our table at Pastamania. Had the usual.

This was followed by an Oreo Brownie Earthquake at Dairy Queen before we left for home.

But somehow I don't think this was what you wanted to read about. You want to know what stuff I got in Shanghai, right? Here's a sample of the more interesting stuff (I won't list everything 'cos then I'd be giving away what I bought for Sam and YQ!):

I have a weakness for cloisonne objects (as above). Incidentally my favourite purchase from my first trip to China was this small cloisonne plate featuring the Great Wall of China. This time I got loads of cloisonne earrings, a few handphone thingies and too many keychains/Christmas ornaments (knowing full well I don't even have a Christmas tree...). Gave some to my cousins and a pair to my sister. I know Sam and YQ don't like dangly earrings so I GET TO KEEP ALL THE REST. :p

I know there's like no need for a name stamp in this time and age, but heck I've always wanted one. On my first trip to China we were asked if we wanted some made but they were too expensive so I didn't get one. This whole set cost $14 only! The stamp reads "JESSICA" on top and my Chinese name (in Chinese characters, duh) below.

You knew I'd get another one. My mother warned me on Saturday: "No buying stuffed toys ah! You go Switzerland buy dog, go Dubai buy camel, go Bangkok buy elephant..."

So I went to Shanghai and bought a Chow Chow. (There weren't any cute pandas.) I rescued this little cutie (as yet nameless) from the airport right before departure. Strangely enough there was only one shop that sold them.

(Currently I have a United Nations of stuffed animals, when you think about the various Australian animals and the ostrich from South Africa...)

...And last but not least. I bought this from a newly-opened Toys "R" Us, mind you. It's about $7 cheaper than in Singapore. I'm surprised my mother didn't have violent objections about it, but I think she's just glad I can stop pestering her to get me a telescope for my birthday. Plus I think she'd like to look through it too. Unfortunately the weather these days, though wonderful for naps, is quite sad for stargazing, so I haven't yet set the thing up. Not to mention I have no time to do so actually.

Jessica wrote home at 1:26 am

Anyway THANKS to YQ for the purple card and purple envelope! :)

I went out yesterday as planned. What was not planned was Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (the title should sound a bit familiar to Sam) not being in stock, and also that I couldn't go home straight after that and sleep because I was eating dinner out. :P

After a lot of pondering over my To Check Out booklist, and more pondering whilst browsing Topshop etc., I finally decided on Jaclyn Moriarty's The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie and Jean Plaidy's The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. After the $20 voucher and 20% discount, I only paid $14 instead of $44. :P

By the time dinner rolled around I was starving and exhausted from walking the whole day.

Anyway now that I have a long list of books to read, I have to decide which order I will read them in. I highly doubt I can finish all even during my 9-week holiday.

1. Finish Persian Fire.

2. The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie (It's as thick as all the others, but requires the least concentration/comprehension - I mean, the others are all history books...)

3. Marie Antoinette: The Journey (I'm dying to read this pink book. PINK!!!)

4. The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine (reading order possibly interchangeable with no. 3)

5. The Name of the Rose (Because without a doubt it's gonna give me the biggest headache.)

AND now for the most important part of this post.

I WON'T BE IN SINGAPORE TILL FRIDAY NIGHT!!!

I'M FLYING TO SHANGHAI PAST MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND WILL PRETEND TO BE MUTE THROUGHOUT THE TRIP!!!

Au revoir!

Jessica wrote home at 4:43 pm

I only managed to get up today because of the McDonald's breakfast. Chose to lug my laptop to school at the very last minute, so was late after all the packing.

Had hotcakes and hashbrown and iced milo. Actually we spent more time eating and talking than doing MPP work. Which meant we didn't get to present our corporate blog analysis in the end.

Which meant I could've slept 3 hours earlier last night.

Anyway, our invitation card was chosen for Communication 101 on the basis that ours was the most general. Looking back, what on earth was I talking about? I wasn't only the copywriter, I designed it too! Jasmine technically only brought it to life on Photoshop. And just because I was the copywriter doesn't mean the mistakes in the copy were mine... :P

Oh well. It means we have to return to school on the 3rd or something to finalise it. Blah. I was planning on hitting the shops on that day. You know, with all the kids back in the school and everywhere wonderfully empty and stuff. BLAH. Some things just aren't worth it.

And back to why I brought my laptop to school. Basically we were supposed to discuss our PRMP project and let's face it, nobody can be bothered to go squeeze in the crazily-crowded computer area. Rather just hide in between library shelves yes?

Eh so freaky. Looks like a storm brewing outside.

Erm. Yes. But I didn't know how to change my wireless settings to detect the SP network. After trying for an absurdly long time, I finally gave up and went to ask a librarian. Apparently they have PowerPoint slides to teach us. Haha.

So now the settings are configured and I can access the Internet from school.

Except there isn't any school for the next 3 weeks.

I repeat.

NO SCHOOL FOR THE NEXT 3 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jessica wrote home at 11:58 pm

There. I said it. And I'm still in a bad mood and I still want (need) to sleep and I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

Oh yeah something interesting did happen today though. I had lunch with my UCCD group and one of the random things we talked about was what we wanted to do after poly (my favourite topic, yes). Anyway one of them said they wanted to save up to go to the US and do............medieval studies!!!!

Wahhhh. Never knew such a person existed. I WANT TO DO THAT TOO!!!! (Medieval studies I mean, NOT go to the US.) I was going to squeal about me wanting to do that too, but the cleaning lady just had to choose that EXACT moment to interrupt loudly, "You're all going to return your plates and utensils to the foodcourt right?"

Blah.

Anyway after UCCD I met my mother at Vivo's Mango, where she had been wandering around for like 2 hours with a selection of sweaters. The Vivo branch actually has more interesting stuff. My mother got a skirt and sweater my sister asked her to get, whilst I got a Bailey green cardigan and a chunky navy blue sweater (well I think it's navy blue. It's so dark it could be black or dark grey). Wanted grey but they didn't have my size.

Well at least today's outing was a bit more productive. Suddenly can't wait for Saturday. Finally came up with a shortlist of books to get.

Jessica wrote home at 9:33 pm

Well it wasn't all that bad. I missed the first 3 hours of classes on Tuesday again. PRMP lecture I deliberately skipped...then the bus wouldn't come on time for me to get to the PRMP tutorial. So too bad. Haha.

I was half an hour late for spec dip, which was not very intentional. We'd seen the posters advertising the peer mentor programme thingy and wanted to speak to the lecturer-in-charge about it, but she wasn't in before AM tutorial so we had to go after that.

Turns out we were in her office for a full half hour. And she actually remembered us. Well I think she remembered me 'cos she didn't seem to register any recognition until I walked in. Hehe. We "interviewed" her last semester for FW when we couldn't find any lecturer we knew.

Anyway. Yeah. So I turned up half an hour late and our class that day involved just acting. First was this activity where we had to stand in circles and just improv, then take over someone's role in the middle of the whole thing. Not exactly my strong suit, especially since I had to start the ball rolling for one of the turns.

After that we acted out more scripts. Shall not go into that except that the script was long and had many characters and we couldn't read from the script. Oh yeah and I was the main MALE character. Gee.

Wednesday was okay. I was late as usual for EOF and we managed to make progress on our report. Yippee. After which was break and then off to do PFP. Surprisingly we finished very early. I don't feel like i contributed a lot (apart from research) but oh well. I mean, I had to miss my UCCD group meeting at the same time.

Speaking of UCCD, we're meeting early later and I didn't have my nap just now so I better go off to sleep. Tata.

Oh but before I go, I just got my sister to purchase The Curse of Monkey Island online!!! Unfortunately it's money order again. Money orders suck because they will delay its arrival. Blah. Anyway I was gonna pay her and she said she would just count it as my Christmas pressie.

Now, that's nice and all that but...wasn't my Kino card supposed to be my Christmas pressie?!

*walks off and whistles nonchalantly*

NB: The above was for literary purposes only. In other words, I can't whistle.

Jessica wrote home at 2:00 am

Feels a bit like I've been taking too much time off, except that I don't use the time to blog. :P

Well this is the last week of the 12-week-long term and MAN AM I SICK OF IT. Especially these four weeks. Unfortunately what I thought would be a one-presentation week became a bit too busy...

Firstly had to discuss more MPP stuff after school today ("after school" meaning "before spec dip", which was of course fine with me) and tomorrow will be discussing/preparing for Thursday's UCCD presentation. Means no break for me tomorrow at all. Blah. I am so skipping the PRMP lecture. Stomach can't hold up that long.

Speaking of food, I GAINED 1.5 KG!!!!!! This calls for a celebration everyone!!!!!! :)

Anyway. Yes. Wednesday morning will consist of discussing our EOF report; afternoon will be rushing out our PFP project.

Thursday is the UCCD presentation of course. After which I will go out and celebrate, you can count on that. :P

Friday we'll probably start on next year's EOF project, which means I don't get to skip AM lecture again. Boo.

Oh well. The weekend was crappy. I spent most of Saturday out, but if it wasn't to pass Sam her necklace, I think it would've been more productive to stay at home. Everywhere was so freaking crowded and I didn't see anything i wanted to buy (or rather, didn't buy anything 'cos I didn't have the money). I spent quite a long time in Kinokuniya actually. Apparently the new edition of Noughts & Crosses (*cough*Yan Qing?*cough*) includes this short filler story that takes place some months after the story but before the sequel Knife Edge.

So of course I read it. Man was it good. Basically Sephy is six months pregnant and on Callum's birthday, his older brother Jude goes to kill her out of revenge. Instead of surprising her and finding her scared, Sephy tells him she knows he's been following her and she's been expecting him. She continually provokes him to shoot her, until Jude realises that by killing her he'd be doing her a favour, so he gives up and threatens to harm her child, then leaves.

This makes me want to read Knife Edge. Except that it isn't in stock. Nor is A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient World. Bloody hell. Now what am I supposed to buy with my sister's $20 voucher? (Which she gave me for Christmas last year and is expiring in slightly over a week's time.)

I tried to find another history book to buy. Sometimes I really hate wandering into the history section. There always has to be a stupid guy who always has to glance up with an "Excuse me, you're in the wrong section. The gossip magazines are that way." look. #$%^&*!!! You think only guys read history or something?!

Anyway. Have to go back this weekend to actually buy something. Blah.

Oh yeah. I discovered something really cool about my laptop. Well actually I think most computers these days have this feature, but remember, I've been using a crazily-outdated desktop for the past few years. The cool thing is the Language Toolbar!

With it I've been dictating through the microphone on MS Word. The sentences are always screwed up, but it's funny. Even more fun, however, is the Voice Command option. Basically I just highlight a paragraph of text, then shout, "Bold! Underline! Italics! Center! Justify!" and watch a bit of technological magic. Hahaha. Just amused my mother with it just now. In fact I was so amused last night I barely got enough sleep 'cos I was busy playing with the function. :P

And speaking of my laptop, I give up installing my CD-ROMS. Blah. Write, Camera, Action! works perfectly well on my desktop, but there's no sound. On my laptop I encountered one problem after another. First I didn't have winspool.dll and had to download it. Then I had to adjust the compatibility settings. Then there was this problem with midimap.dll. I didn't have the .dll file so I downloaded it, but nothing changed. BLAH.

In the end the only game I've been able to install so far has been Creatures. I've said before that this is my 8th year playing the game...and of course I'm pretty sick of it. :P Please let me find The Curse of Monkey Island...

Lastly for this post, today I had to write in way too many birthday cards. There is a very detached feeling that comes with wishing people a happy 18th birthday when you know your 19th birthday is just one month away. What's it like to be 18? I don't think I know.

And my mother keeps reminding me that I'm getting old. Gee thanks.

Jessica wrote home at 10:30 pm

I mean, considering I don't exercise (and don't tell me the whole world doesn't already know that!)...I haven't had a sports CCA since primary school...the problem started latest in mid-secondary school...

Hmm.

Then again it could be all my jumping around. Face it, I used to love jumping over my couch. Of course now the couch is against the wall so too bad.

Blah. Why am I bothering about this.

Anyway, UCCD report is due tomorrow but I'm assuming the group can get it out on time. Apparently they met on Wednesday but no one had my number. Hahaha. Little Miss Popular, I am.

Speaking of being Little Miss Popular, guess what my PFP lecturer called my group?

"Timothy, Xiao Ling, Patricia and...her."

Gee thanks. Considering I've attended more classes than they have too.

AM presentation was okay. I was talking complete rubbish at the end though. And after that I skipped spec dip again. Which was a good thing, because the next day I found out that they'd read out my script.

Oh how embarrassing. But I heard my script's all right (as in, no ambiguous directions, etc. - NOT that the dialogue was superb...especially since there was so little of it...) so I guess it's no big deal.

...Hehehe. I'm still wondering who acted it out. I suppose they just read it out only (as usual), so pity about the part where Sam collides with Derek (yes, I changed "Chris" to "Derek").

Violence is FUN!!!

Sam and I were discussing PC games because I'm looking for one to play on my new friend. (Sadly, I only have educational games or life simulation games like The Sims and Creatures...and Barbie games but please ignore that) She was mentioning the CSI game and how it would be so fun to catch the murderer.

I, on the other hand, didn't agree. "I don't want to catch the murderer, I want to be the murderer!!!"

I want a game where you get to keep shooting people in the head. Serious. Unfortunately I tried a First-Person Shooter and...well, you don't want to know how pathetic I was at it.

And I'm still looking for The Curse of Monkey Island. They used to sell it everywhere but I don't see it anymore. Blah. I played it when I stayed at my cousin's home in Sydney when I was 10. Was difficult but super fun.

Anyway enough about games.

Sam and I progressed on Windows Live Messenger! We can now do video calls! Which is really very interesting because you can talk AND blast music through your headphones at the same time and the other party won't hear your music playing.

But it's more irritating than interesting.

I slept for 12 hours last night! I just couldn't get up to do my work. All thanks to a crazy long Wednesday. But Wednesday was fruitful. I bought a dress at Zara! For $29.90! Is that the height of cheapo, or what? :)

Don't think I'll wear it to the event though. Doesn't feel formal enough. I am currently pestering my mother to buy something very nice to wear to it. "After all," I said. "I worked so hard to get you there!"

Meaning I had to go to school early to submit the form, but obviously she didn't get it.

Eh. Half an hour before I have to sleep. Need to speed up my insurance policy reasearch. And I haven't started MPP.

P.S. Oh, and Build-A-Bear Workshop finally opened in Singapore!!! I was so surprised (and ecstatic) to see it at the connection between Vivo and HarbourFront. Basically how it works is you pick from a range of bear, dog, or rabbit outer covering (i.e. without the stuffing inside), get the toy filled up with stuffing, choose from a huge range of clothes for it, then name it.

The first outlet I visited was in San Francisco. I wanted to make a new friend but only ended up buying a pair of dark green overalls for one of my existing bears.

This time I have my heart set on making a husky! Yes, they have huskies!

$38.95 if I'm not wrong, and they have magnets in their mouths to attach a baby husky (sold separately, $9.90).

Soooooooooooooooo cute.

*HINT*HINT* (ahem...the BIG one...)

Jessica wrote home at 2:09 am

ANYWAY. Happier news please. Since today was not particularly an enjoyable day, that means we shall backtrack to over the weekend.

Well, how sad about Saturday. That was the first time I didn't turn up for a 4A gathering? Yeah well, who asked them to pick 2nd December. I mean, of all weeks. I was free last last weekend and will probably be quite free this next weekend. But NOOOOO, it had to be last weekend. :P

Or last Saturday to be more specific. Because unfortunately I had something of utmost importance to do on Sunday.

The thing of "utmost importance" was to drop by SITEX 2006 at the Expo. Don't know how many thousand years I haven't been there.

Anyway, I didn't go there for fun. I had an agenda. The agenda was to get this:

A Lenovo 3000 V100.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Finally no more "This program can only run on Windows 2000 and above" and NOW I HAVE POWERPOINT!

...Which means I'm supposed to start on my AM presentation at this point of time.

Oh well.

Oh and another perk is I can bring this anywhere so I can go out and eat instant noodles whenever I want. :P

Anyway it cost $2,129. Which is reaaaaaaaaaaaally cheap as compared to the normal retail price, because we managed to get an extra battery along with a whole host of freebies (including a carrying case and headphones) AND upgrade another 512 MB of RAM for only $30.

And best of all (well sort of)...there's a built-in webcam. :)

Basically we all arrived at the Expo late in the afternoon and made a beeline for the Lenovo area (which was quite near to the entrance). I wanted to stand there and just stare at the V100 because it was so perfect...well sort of...I mean, it has a 12.1" screen and I'd already decided I didn't want anything larger than that.

(Although the laptop still seems rather large...)

But my sister decided we should look around a bit more so we dropped by Fujitsu (well at least the laptops were thinner) and Toshiba (the smallest laptop was white, which is quite hazardous when you realise JESSICA is using it).

Finally Sony. Thought of getting the VAIO C (the one that comes in pink, green, grey, white and black) although it was 13.3"...but there were only offers on black since it was the slowest-selling.

Not to mention pink was SOLD OUT!!! What the.

I WANTED A PINK LAPTOP!!!

:P

Anyway. After which it wasn't a very hard decision on which to pick. Since after all the Lenovo had a webcam and more freebies. :P

After which we lugged the thing down to Marina to have dinner. Of course before that I had to drag my mother to DP. She bought some nice purple top and I bought something black. (Yes I know I don't wear black but the other colours weren't nice. :P )

Then it was home to finish my UCCD. *grumble* And very much later my sis helped me fix the wireless network settings or whatever that is.

I didn't finish my work till past 4 a.m. and went to bed thinking of something (can't remember what). I was still thinking about it when the alarm rang.

#$%^&*.

Jessica wrote home at 11:00 pm

Unfortunately, right now I have 12 min to edit my stupid script before I submit it and take my 2 hours of sleep. (Yes, I finally just finished the stupid national culture part of our UCCD report.)

So the explanation will have to wait.

Mwahaha.

Jessica wrote home at 3:54 am