a brief respite

That's another way of saying "a short break". Tomorrow's there's GP so must know how to paraphrase!

Been studying econs because it's the other paper I'm going to take tomorrow. Today's the last week of the holidays, and tomorrow starts the term and the exams. In one week it'll be over.

This holiday's mainly been fulfilling due to the literature trip I went to. Made a few new friends and also got to get back in touch with friends from the past (like Mark Leong and Phoebe). It really was summer for ten days. Summer has come and passed.

Studying together with lit trip people, choir people, and going back to VS to study like in the past with some of the usual people has been nice too. And it's been one of the holidays in a long time that I did not watch a movie. I guess you don't really have to care about catching the latest movies.

Okay back to econs.

to make you happy

Closer by Travis

mush mug

today went marine parade library to mug with xianyong and did differentiation and was quite productive very long never do differentiation already product rule sia haha a pun ate ban mian for lunch before that i'm quite starting to quite like ban mian since i started eating it this year and i took a nap at first before i started working and the library person woke me up haha after studying in the afternoon with differentiation plus a bit of econs ate the oreo cheesecake at cafe galilee that is quite nice and parents fetched as they just fetched joy from piano lesson so they were around the area went to eat beef noodles that are quite nice but then get sick of eating towards the end then i felt sleepy in the car and slept then i came home and conked out on the bed now just woke up and the very best of vivaldi's playing on the speakers ben play it one and i am going to shower and try to mug some more

the trip

The trip was so good that it was worth it, I feel. The feelings of regret that I had before the trip slowly disappeared as Europe proved me wrong and showed me how wonderful it was.

I can't really say much because I'm forgetting lots of stuff already. And my language won't be proficient enough to properly express how this trip has impacted me. So I'll make a list instead of an account of the trip, and you can also look at the photos. Though I didn't get to take photos of everything as I didn't bring my camera out all the time. You can refer to Mark Thompson's blog for a better detailed and more interesting day by day account.


Here goes:

1. Emirates is a good airline - from food, to music, to entertainment, to tv shows.

London

2. England is beautiful - the fields and the buildings both

3. The Seagull is a play which many of us slept in due to jet lag. But these guys know how to act. Ian McKellen had a minor role

4. Stratford is a rather pleasant place, and is beautiful. Shakespeare's birthplace

5. Roman baths are slightly interesting, but just go once to view Roman architecture, and get a feel of Roman history. Bath (the town) is another beautiful place. Jane Austen's birthplace

6. Stonehenge is majestic, but I won't visit it again, because after all it is a pile of rocks and a long bus ride. Though I am glad that I have managed to visit it (we chose it over Oxford University)

7. The Imperial War Museum is probably one of the best war museums. Sadly there was not enough time to go through the whole museum

8. Westminister Abbey is big and beautiful, with many famous people buried or commemorated in it. Haha Stamford Raffles is commemorated inside. One famous grave, the only one we can't step on, is the grave of the unknown soldier.

9. Big Ben is part of the abbey. It's beautiful at night, though it's not as big as I thought it would be

10. The London Eye, a huge ferris wheel, just saw it from afar. Maybe I'll sit in it if I do get to go back.

11. Shakespeare's Globe - We had a workshop on Shakespearean acting before the play. Rather fun and interesting. Why did teacher's get seats, while we were groundlings? (had to stand on the ground to watch the play, so there was leg fatigue). These people also really know how to act. We watched Othello. And I stood at an entrance where actors sometimes entered from and walk through the audience to get to the stage. Quite cool

12. London is ultimate - many attractions; the shows at the West End theatres, Convent Garden Market Square and its buskers, shopping, food, doughnuts

13. At night you see drunkards, which stare at you, some of which test their level of proficiency of Mandarin or Japanese on us (we look the same to them)

14. During our free time, a group of us went to watch Les Miserables. It's very worth it, I tell you! The singers, the orchestra, the set, the story, the whole experience.

15. It was nice meeting an ex-classmate from VS, Jingyu, who brought us to a nice chinese restaurant which served good lobster noodles. He's the one who introduced the doughnuts too

16. Other than the normal nice buildings, the English like to build and build beautiful memorials to their soldiers

17. London has so much more to offer and we didn't really get to explore it well. But this trip is quite good as it gives us most of the highlights

18. The Thames is beautiful

19. Things I missed in London: the other plays and musicals, Tate modern gallery, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, walking around the huge shopping malls and Topshop, Niketown, H&M, and just walking around.

20. We ended only eating fish and chips once, and of our own choice, when everyone said that you'll eat lots of fish and chips when you go to UK.

France

Another time


21. Card games late into the night. Though most of the time I slept earlier.

22. It's really the friends that make a trip a good trip and I'm thankful for the friends I've had during this trip.

22. I didn't study at all as I originally planned to.

23. I want to thank Dad and Mum for allowing me to go on this trip, and Ta Yi for sponsoring me. I would like to thank Ms Chia, Mr Harris, and Mr Teo for organising, and everyone else for making this such an enjoyable trip.

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After arriving back in Singapore, I was stunned when I saw some choir friends waiting for me. Haha.

When I reached home and finished unpacking, I had a chance to play around with the new Macbooks! Haha Garageband is real cool now I save money on a guitar tuner too!

Singapore didn't give me a chance and the very next day I had to go for choir practice, then there was church service at night. Sunday had cell then had relatives thing at Ta Yi's house at night. My whole family ended up sleeping over.

Today we visited my paternal grandma's house, and it was sad as she could not remember us. Then she tried to share her lunch with us when she was supposed to eat it. It's the first time a visit didn't end well and we had to leave early so that she would eat her food. It's quite sad that she's now like that.

Today in the afternoon I had time to myself and I wanted had to study. But I thought of a short nap and ended up sleeping for a few hours for the rest of the afternoon. So tonight was when I started to organised my notes (I mean find the notes) and revised a bit of chem.

ooh

i come back from my trip and see two things, one white and one black, with some apple symbol on it.

we chose white in the end!