(music: I Won't Give Up - Jason Mraz)

Last Friday, the last Friday of 2011, I went to meet Chloe for desserts. I used to call her Chloser 'cos Aaron called her that. #apeje Aaron :P


We went to Udders at Novena, the drawing is so cute! It's a reincow.


I had the Snickers Mars honeycomb vanilla which I obviously love because it is heaps of sweetness. Chloe had rum and raisin which I didn't taste because I've been teetotal for more than a year, I deserve a standing ovation yo!

I think teetotal is a very funny word.

Next, we went to Twelve Cupcakes at United Square where I saw this girl who looked very familiar but could not place her at all. Then she said, "ZA la!" LOL Lyssa and I had met her at the Za dress-up event and I forgot her. I think she's Elizabeth.



We had salted caramel cupcake, peanut butter chocolate and red velvet. Salted caramel was the sweetest. I'm not even gonna tell you which my favourite was.


Chloe and her new spectacles. I give up on spectacles.

*
On Saturday, I went out to meet the Tasties to count down to 2012. We got quite a bit of food (the take-away packaging from The Soup Spoon is adorbz!) went to Promontory@Marina Bay, spread out our so-called picnic mat and exchanged gifts.


This package was from Han.


She'd given each of us a selection of tea, facial masks, lip balms and nail buffers.


The heart-shaped nail buffers.


I'm going to love using this.


My lip balm is sweet-cream-flavoured and it smells and tastes like vanilla essence. The Tasties think I have this sort of disorder that makes me taste everything that smells yummy (as in edible yummy, I will illustrate with an example later).


Shahida baked us a cookie-brownie (or brownie-cookie?). I think brownie cookie!


It's a brownie baked atop a layer of cookie so it's soft and then it's crunchy and it's delicious! :D

She also got us a heart-shaped container. When I saw that Shahida had written us each a letter, I told her "later I read then I cry! D:" and then she expected me to really cry but I didn't, because I'm not that sensitive--

(Lyssa will tell you otherwise because most of the time she is over at our house, I cry once. like on Monday I cried after my mother had hidden behind a wall and given me a huge shock, and it was such a shock that when I screamed, Lyssa who had been holding her phone to film my reaction was also shocked and she shook her phone HAHAHA that was funny, I was sobbing and laughing. on another note, please to not be giving me scares. my heart sincerely detests it. I can only be scared when I'm prepared, like for bungy.)

and because I had make-up on, and I don't cry at EVERYTHING, I just love hyperbole. -.-



Tiqs had gone to Australia for a holiday in December and she got each of us a soap. Fiq's was something mint, Han's was French something something, I don't remember Shahida's at all, and mine is rose geranium! I couldn't smell it that night, because my nose was clogged and the more I tried to sniff in the soap, the more I had a headache so I stopped.

Now I can smell it and THIS smells nice. But it's floral-smelling. And tentatively I don't think flowers are a very culinary item for me, so I don't feel like eating this soap at all.

However, once upon a time, years ago, I was smelling mango body butter in Marks & Spencer (not sure whether it was with Han or I was alone) and it smelt so much like mango and so sweet I was convinced it had to be edible so I licked it and I gagged and my tastebuds died because it was all chemicals.

That's why the Tasties think when I smell something nice, I always want to eat it. Later we have another example that will prove their point.


These are our hopes for 2012.



And these are the fireworks. :)


I love that it was reflected in the buildings.

Heading home was quite a chore, but transportation was better than expected. NYE was nice, but what matters is definitely the year ahead, and many more. Fiq didn't join us 'cos she was really sick. That reminds me, I'm supposed to ask if she's free for Tasties dinner on Friday. Okay done.

*
On the first day of this year, I went for brunch with Bhavs, Ekta and Nay at Veganburg. It was my first time there!


I had the tom yam burger which I didn't really like. It was more of the sour kind of tomyam than spicy.



I like the ambience, very chill, naturally minimalistic.



Ekta gave us gifts and mine was bubblegum-scented soap!


It smells really really really really damn nice though. Does it not look like a giant block of Sugus or Fruitella candy?! IT DOES. It smells like it too.



This is me being stupid and thinking that bubblegum-scented soap may taste like bubblegum. You may facepalm my face now. THIS IS WHY you shouldn't give me anything that smells like food. Just give me food.

*
I was really dissatisfied with my first experience at Veganburg, and I really wanted to try their mushroom burger, so.... I went back on Monday! Logical win.


Rebecca bought honey lemon drink for myself and Viv because the three of us were sick! 500000 points to Becca for being so sweet and thoughtful.


I had the creamy mushroom burger and THIS WAS THE REAL VEGANBURG DEAL. Never tasted a burger with no meat that tastes so damn good! It's so yummy you'll forget that it's vegetarian.



Yay for Veganburg! Yummy, healthy, environmentally-friendly! :)



Oh, Becca had just returned from Australia also, and I got a boomerang keychain from her. I will not tell you who it reminds me of, will not say that someone I know had a boomerang on his wall. NO points for guessing who. In fact, demerit points for correct guesses so everybody guess wrongly now!

Okay la. What. He's still a friend. And it's not like he owns Australia. Things only have meaning when I give it meaning. If I stop giving meaning to such things, it will not mean anything. Such is life. One day, nothing will have any meaning. Except God. Hurhurhur! See, I am an enlightened believer.

Anywaaaaay, even though I'd planned to head home after lunch to sleep my sickness away, I got guilted by Viv into following them to Parkway, on account of Rebecca having bought us honey lemon. Chey what only. Becca neh say anything also, Viv so kaypoh go and guilt-trip me! :P

Andrea joined us when we were at Parkway, so thus commenceth the dirtieth talketh.


Me: "Eh, frosty balls. The bear's balls are cold." Andrea: "You must put the balls in your mouth to warm them up!"

We went to Candylicious...


I bought white chocolate Reese's! Never saw it before.


White chocolate (which is not actually chocolate 'cos it has no cocoa content, YES I KNOW) and peanut butter, YUMMM EXPLODING WITH SWEETNESS.

Anyway, Parkway Parade is kinda catered to rich privileged people living in Marine Parade (IDK if Andrea can be classified as one, but she's my friend so I will have double standards :P) so there are a lot of organic/healthy living/natural shops there. We walked past a blood type supplementary store.



I am blood type B - strong immune system! Hurhur see this is why I only fall sick once a year! ;D (should ask the Tasties what their blood types are, sekali it's also B. habis.)

We also walked past a store called... Actually I forgot what it's called! Whoo, go me! Which I would probably have liked and taken forever to decide on what to spend on. So... I didn't go in!



I looked at the stuff from the display outside. It's cute! "Act as if in advert." "Hang on wall and look at." Cute!

We saw a guy holding a "sure-win" lucky dip box, so each of us took a turn and went to Citigems to redeem our "free surprise gifts" and "gift vouchers".



All of us got the star pendant, Andrea and I got the bracelet whilst Becca and Viv got some vouchers along with the pendant. Umm okay can.

I left soon afterwards because my mother was guilting me (she actively enjoys doing this) and also because I wanted chilli crab for dinner!







Along with chilli crab, we also ordered two dishes too many because my mother never listens to me. We had steamed fish, kung pow chicken, hotplate tofu, sambal squid, sambal kangkong and tom yam seafood soup.

The next few photos are taken by Aqilah using my camera.



Nah, this is one of my 1001 unglam states you can be caught in.


I'm eating chilli crab with painted nails. The last time I had a manicure and ate tulang merah, I wore plastic gloves.


This is one of Lyssa's 1001 "WHY ARE YOU TAKING MY PHOTO?!" faces.


This is Arina doing something stupid like one of the many things she does to warrant our side-eyeing forever, except we don't really give Arina the side-eye forever, sometimes we go to sleep. This is the side-eye coined by either Andrea or Viv. -._-. (the dashes are eyebrows, the dots are eyes, the underscore is the mouth.)

While on the topic of family, let me introduce you to Aqilah's strengths. She is a natural-born mother, like our mother, I reckon. Lyssa, Arina and I will never be as motherly as Aqilah.


She treated her panda plush as a babydoll, placed it on Arina's neck cushion, wrapped a blanket around it, and there's even a finishing touch.


There is a tiny dog toy placed beside the panda that is supposedly its teddy bear.


It's so cute, I want to slap her. -._-.

*
Yesterday I met Khalis for lunch before our drumming session. I initially didn't recognise him at the bus stop because he'd cut his hair. In the 1 year and 5 months that I've actually met up with him as friends, I've never seen him with short hair, it's always been long.

Then I realised the guy with (relatively) short hair was him! It's even shorter than my hair now! *gasp* :O

In my opinion it's very nice! I was really surprised to see he had short hair, plus I thought it was a very nice haircut and he looked very.. nice and good. It's quite cool ah, I think he has an undercut on one side (although I'm not sure if it's an undercut, do I look like I know anything about hair? mine's always a mess) and the other side rather longish.

I liked it 'cos it's cool and he looks very nice (OMG VOCAB, SARAH) with it and it's so unlike any normal boring guy haircuts. But he doesn't like it. *shrug*

Anyway, we had lunch and he was talking about music being watered-down and indie singers singing like they're lazy and watching some BBC show about the seven ages of rock and Lady Gaga capable of doing more but only doing what she's doing because she knows what sells and she's doing just that and people like Bruce Springsteen writing real lyrics and not just repeating one line as a hook like Gaga does and Khalis, in his talk, was going all over the place like this paragraph.

I tried to ask him what his point was, three times, and he'd try to go back to the main idea, but halfway through, he'd move on to something else, and I said "what is your one line of thought?" and I think he made it to "the direction that music is taking is the opposite of what it should be, it shouldn't be about streamlining it towards the audience so it's more listenable/sellable."

Music Critique 1003: A+

And then we started drumming. While we were drumming, the owner of the studio popped in and tried to give us tips on playing and learning, because Khalis didn't wanna tell him that he was a professional drummer, so I kept trying not to laugh nor look at Khalis.

Then when the pakcik guy left, Khalis was muttering about "I don't like, you know, this kind of people --- waste time-- don't know what they're saying - I know la" etc etc. It was funny but I didn't wanna laugh lest he got pissed at me, too.

I played for the first hour, and then it was Khalis' turn to play for the next hour, so I Tweeted in the meantime (logical, right?).

Khalis started doing the things I do when I get frustrated with myself while playing the drums. He rolled his eyes, and muttered "bodoh nak mampos" to himself, and hit randomly and he kept saying "guess who?" and he did the same stupid things I do like go "egrurghhh!" and I got annoyed because I KNOW the things I do are annoying, he doesn't have to mimic or mock me.

So I kept Tweeting and apparently flooding people's Twitter timelines (y'all have got to follow more active accounts yaw, try @rightclick5ave/@azaleaful and you won't think I spam, ever again) until the end of the session.

On the way down, we saw a dry riser, and Khalis was explaining to me about how the fire hose has a female and male end, and the male end goes into the female end (HAHAHA WHO THOUGHT OF THIS) and how dry risers and wet risers work.

Firefighting 1001: A+

Anyway, then I went off to Pasir Ris for a chalet, but I received a text from Khalis saying he'd gone to my Twitter after the drumming session and he was sorry for being annoying and "thank you for letting me teach you".

So I got really flustered because I didn't see that coming, and I'd just woken up on the bus at Tampines. Half the time I'm on transportation I am groggy with sleep. The other half I'm Tweeting.

I don't know why, he sounded dejected. The only other time I remember him being so dejected is this time when his architecture coursework hadn't received a good grade and he was getting disillusioned with the tutors and on the one hand, saying they wanted to see creativity, yet cookie-cutter work was expected from students.

Regardless, I think I'd made him feel like an incompetent teacher by Tweeting that I wanted a new drumming teacher. He is nothing incompetent. He is brilliant, and his lessons nothing short of amaze and thrill me.

I love the fact that I must be learning at a really slow pace, and he still consistently encourages me and tells me "good job" and he doesn't tell me off, and he just lets me have fun while at the same time making sure I take away something new at the end of every session.

Yesterday, he let me try playing open hi-hat. The weird thing was I'd just Tweeted about wanting to try it a few days prior, so I was pleasantly surprised (IDK if he read my Tweet about it, IDK how many of my Tweets he's read).

He's so sweet, like he lets me learn what I wanna, and he's flexible and all this time, he's imparting knowledge that could earn him money but he does it for free. And then he plays during his session and I get to watch and observe him. Whatever he says or seems to believe, he's a professional drummer according to what I see, so I appreciate his time and effort.

The only thing that gets to me is when he makes fun of me by doing all those nonsensical things I do, that I feel very self-conscious about. It really annoys me that he mirrors my annoying actions, and it doesn't help at all. It's like a slippery slope, a cycle.

I really hope my new drumming teacher (if I manage to engage one soon) is as lenient as Khalis is, but less annoying. If I wanted to be annoyed, I have one constant source.

Just in case it's not obvious enough, I roll my eyes mostly because he makes me laugh even when he annoys me, so I roll my eyes to distract and detract from the fact that his stupid annoying things are actually amusing me and making me laugh.

(This is an exception, the rest of the time when I roll my eyes, it is because I really want to and many people are deserving of it, yep.)

Khalis, sorry ah. Sorry. Forgive me? Favour ah. I buy you chocolates. Reese's peanut buttercups. Anything you like. Ice-cream? Swensen's! Apa-apa ah. You need to return my DVDs anyway. ;P And I'm sorry for saying all that ah, you so sweet seh. And so nice. Thank you for everything. And of course, even though your school semester is starting, if you have time, you are still my default drumming teacher.

Okay can? Okay go.

If you're wondering, I don't know. I don't know what Khalis is to me. He's my default go-to guy, but I don't know if it's because there's nobody else, but it's something I will never know. Okay there's Tim but Tim. I don't know. Just, Tim. I don't know if Khalis is my good friend or a casual friend or a best friend or a drumming teacher who no longer is my drumming teacher. He's there.

I don't even know what I would call a best friend, but there is some stuff that I have now told him that I don't know if I'll ever get to tell Blob, things I haven't even told my best friends the Tasties, things about my family, etc. So, what? I don't know what either. Don't ask me what.

Wow. If you read all that, you must be Huda. HAHA, I hope. I don't know why anyone would read so much text.

Now, for the chalet! We went cycling to White Sands.


We cycled and then had a new person join us from White Sands back to the chalet, so somebody had to tompang another person. At first it was Mike letting Atiqah sit on his bikeframe, poor girl, it looked like it was very uncomfortable.

Because it looked like it hurt, she ended up getting her own bicycle back and one of the guys would give the new guys a seat on his bike.

Mike played the guess the next lyric song, with Tiqs and Haikal and myself and it was fun despite sounding lame hahaha.


Apparently Fitri took this photo while we were cycling. I don't know how he does it, with just his iPhone and Instagram but some people, like Atiqah could take a leaf out of his photography book. :P

We played cards.


We took about 10 minutes before even playing the first game. The first time the cards were dealt, we were missing a card, so we sorted the deck out and realised one of the cards was stuck behind another. The second time it was dealt, we were still missing a card, and despite checking every single card, there was no stuck card.

We were getting worried that "somebody" didn't want us to play the cards and we weren't meant to play, but finally we found the missing card under Mike's butt, he'd been sitting on it after we found it the first time, I don't even know how. O.o


Mike (upon opening the fridge): "ANAK SIAPA LETAK GAYUNG DALAM ESBOK NI?!"

It was fun, even though Tiqs and I didn't stay over. My mother was actually surprised I went back home. -.-

Okay for the first post of the year, this has been quite long. Have a good 2012, y'all!

Labels: drumming, good food, khalisation, most dysfunctional family ever, nye countdown, the tasty bunch