why did the chicken cross the road?

This year when my family pulled the christmas cracker my mum got for 3 dollars somewhere in each of them was:

a badge
a roll of coloured scotch tape
a hand made book mark
and a piece of paper with the words why did the chicken cross the road?
and the answer on the other side.
The answers varied, some were boring like:
to get to the other side
or
is the answer in my textbook (how dies that even make sense?)

but i like one which went like this:
To get to the queue for the new H&M store.

i mean, who says it can't be a materialistic Singaporean chicken?

but all in all, i don;t really get these chicken crossing the road jokes.

artsy

today i spent 2 hrs painting animal and crude human faces on a lamp shade.

at regular intervals i wiped some paint on my arms/legs to get that grubby artist look.

then when i finished i just washed it all off.

sometimes i wonder why i bother

red rimmed eyes

for some reason when i yawn now tears spring to my eyes so i have to fake a sneeze so that i can get a tissue and wipe them dry.

WEIRD

who's that knocking at my door?

judgement all. what if i write about someone and that person reads it and is like "hey miriam i saw you write about me on your blog...WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"

i guess its fine if that person is my best friend/sister but other than that...

like the thought that me best friend's/friend's brothers or church people could be staring at this screen perusing my blog and using skills of inference to discover stuff... thats just spooky

my sweetest downfall

today was a total binge day.

After i came home, i ate a whole bag of chocolate covered mickey mouses.

then i had half a pizza for lunch.

in between lunch and dinner i had a few sneaky chocolate santas.

an eggy sandwich for dinner as well as bacon

and then a slice of a most delicious log cake

i can't say i regret it now but i daresay i will tomorrow or even later tonight when i realise my tummy is the same size as kristen stewart's in breaking dawn when she realised she was pregnant.

christmas

This year's christmas was totally and absolutely crazy.
First of all we got home from the airport at about 6 pm on christmas eve.
Then my mum did her crazy i'm a spick and span house wife and my children should keep the house clean thing, so we had to all change our bed sheets and keep out of her way while she mopped and hoovered the floor (not simultaneously, though i bet she wishes she could!) which failed for me since i was about to start baking for cupcakes t bring to church the next day and in my haste i spilled the box of cocoa all over the floor. That was NOT easy to clean up, i assure you, and i had to ask my sister to watch the door and make sure my mum didn't come in to see the disaster.
Then when i finished baking all that i had to cook it in my neighbour sue's microwave because ours very conveniently decided to die right at that moment. But in the end they all managed to cook and only 3 were burnt.
On christmas day we woke up and very excitingly we had presents from father christmas :) i got 2 face masks, promising to relax my face (how on earth do you relax a face?), a kit kat (which mysteriously disappeared last night...), a book about a cambodian crime spree (which i saw my mum buy in cambodia and I had read through half by the time i got back to singapore) a bag of Santa chocolates (which i have been melting in the microwave as a substitute for nutella) and a mug to replace the one i broke earlier this year.
Then we hurried to church (my mum kept complaining that service at 9 am in the morning was probably designed to ruin christmas) and had an acapella worship service that actually sounded amazing.
After that we had lunch with the care group and i got my present from emily which was AWESOME :) i got a little toy orang utan (that reminded me of the late Ah Meng), a hair slide and rose stone necklace from taiwan, a letter M, a giraffe key chain and a VERY interesting letter.
And so my christmas was surprisingly good :) felis navidad everyone and merry christmas (there's still what? 8 days left right?)

war to wonderland

CAmbodia is beautiful. 'nuff said.

Actually, its not enough to say just that because so many things happened and i want to remember them here.

After taking the Mekong express from Ho Chi Minh city to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, we met our tuk tuk (or as my dad says, cyclo) friver at the bus station. He brought us to our hotel and made us promise to take his tuk tuk the next day. He was called Number 9 (thats what he said, anyway) He was very good and i decided that if anyone ever wrote a book about him, they should call it either

a) All in a day's work

or

b)Meet me at the corner of the street (which hannah and mum said was very cliche)

So the next day we went to see the toul sleng genocide museum which (despite seeing it before on a school trip) was still as stomach turning. I still can't fathom how...

Then we went to the national museum and the palace which were not very interesting places (though the palace was beautiful)

And then we went to the central market where we bargained like crazy and got chased by beggars (who my poor mother is very susceptible to. I bet she gave at least 20 Dollars to the beggars by the end of the trip) But there was one beggar who stuck in my mind. His face had some kind of condition and his skin on one side of his face hung in folds over the rest of his face. I couldn't help think of the elephant man, Joseph merrick (google him) It was unlike anything i had ever seen in real life and i didn;t know how to respond so i just (as i do to most beggars) turned away.

One dinner (i think it was after the city tour), we went to a restaurant run by an NGO and they sold traditional food like fish amok and roasted tarantulas. When we were waiting for our food to come, one of the waiters came out with something black and hairy in his hands. He went over to the neighbouring table and let them handle it. It was a tarantula. It was terrifying, but fascinating at the same time, like I'd been unwillingly plunged into one of those nature shows where people search out dangerous creatures.

The waiter brought the tarantula over to our table and Hannah held it then passed it to me. It was a curious feeling, the bristly legs of the tarantula felt something like stubble on an unshaven chin, but not so scratchy.

Another day when we were on a tour of the Mekong river we had another encounter with 'dangerous' animals. This time it was bees. We went to a bee 'farm', and we had to stick our fingers into a frame that had bees squirming all over it. Our guide very comfortingly said "As long as you remain calm you'll be fine. But if you irritate them, they will kill you." It was pretty nerve wrecking, but it was worth it in the end because when you drew your finger out of the frame, it would be covered in fresh, Sweet, natural honey, which tasted just DIVINE.

Siem Reap:

Angkor wat was (frankly) exhausting, though i loved the bayon temples with the faces staring everywhere.

One night we went to see Amelia and a few of her friends from an orphanage she works in. We got to the restaurant in the back of a truck, sitting with all of her friends. The food was good and they guys were really funny! Not all were orphans, they just went to the school which was working with the orphanage. When some guys came in late, one of them very politely introduced himself, saying "Hello, I am somethingoranother (their names are so hard to get)"

Then one of the other boys (the main jokester) piped up and said, "well, nobody asked!" :)

After that we ate dessert at this lovely cafe called blue pumpkin before heading to the night market for last minute shopping and then heading home!

shock horror

My brother just came in and said, "can i have the mouse?"
Assuming he wanted to use the computer i said, "sure"
and then he unplugged the mouse and walked away.
i mean, seriously?!

come now is the time to worship

The worship team was amazing this camp and i love them all.
ben was pianist and the most experienced member of our team.
Aaron was the guitarist Ming kai was on the drums and together they were the jokers. Aaron was really skilled and his guitar was 15 years old!!! which means he had it since he was born. Ming Kai was really spontaneous on the drums and later he helped me find another spoon when i dropped mine on the floor, so i didn't have to eat with a piece of Styrofoam torn from the packaging of our food.
Gloria and I were the singers and gigglers (and thus the general audience for Aaron and Ming Kai's antics) Gloria can sing really well, especially the low notes (which i can't reach sometimes)
Hannah was our mentor and she always made sure we were focusing on God and not ourselves or our reputation's.
kevin was our sound man and he made sure we didn;t freak out when the fickle sound system turned on us, and always had wise words to say before we went on.
ALL OF THEM ARE AWESOME.

amazing (g)race

During youth camp, we have this great game called amazing race where we run around Singapore doing crazy things.
So my group first went to a place near the esplanade, where there were alot of break dancers, and we had to create a line with anything on us (save for taking off our clothes), and my group actually surpassed the 'limit'! then we had to limbo, and once again, we surpassed the limit. :)
After that, we ran to raffles city mall, and the group split into 4 to do 4 different tasks. The first group ran to accessorize to find the price of a sparkly hedgehog clip, my group ran to M.A.C make up shop to get a swipe of Russian red lipstick on our hands, the next group had to do something else that i forgot, and the last group had to style 2 of their members into a paikea (gangster) and an emo kid. So for Toby, who was the emo kid, we put stripes of red hair gel on his wrists to look like he cut himself, and tried (and failed) to make his hair stick in a long fringe across his face. Nic2 was the paikea, but we couldn't spike his hair because there was already wax in it, but we still got the points :)
Then we ran to the merlion where we had to draw the merlion, with our shoulders, using toothpaste. Of merlion was facing backwards, and some random spots of toothpaste had to be hastily disguised as the 'sea', but we did a pretty good job, if a say so myself.
Then we ran to the Singapore flyer and threw toilet paper blindfolded over a goal post made from 2 of our group members.
Then we ran to the youth olympics place where 4 group members went into a human hamster wheel and rolled from one place and back.
And lastly, we ran back to the esplanade and did a game which required us to have only a certain number of certain body parts on the ground, like 5 legs, 10 chins, 4 noses and 6 arms, or something, before getting to the MRT station and taking the red line back to sembawang.
On the train, i gave up my seat to this sweet old man who later thanked me :)
we got off and waited ages for the bus, and when we finally got it, we drove off just as the other team got to the road they had to cross to get to the bus stop. So we waved to them from the bus :)
AND....
WE GOT BACK FIRST
YAY my group won for Amazing race in youth camp :)

measure for marshmallow

Every youth camp we play this traditional game called candlefight.
Each person has his or her own candle.
Each of the 4 group's have an upturned table with raffia string tied across the legs. The other teams have to try to burn through opposing teams raffia strings to make them fall.
But you can blow out other people's candle as long as yours is still lit. If yours goes out or is blown out, you have to relight at a common station in the middle of the playing field and you can't blow out other people's candles while yours is out.
During candlefight i blew out kevin's candle and the shock (i suppose) made him drop the marshmallows he was holding. It was really funny because he was like "MY marshmallowssssssssss" and then after staring forlornly at the fallen marshmallows, he said "right miriam, next time, blood will spill" He was meaning it literally of course, just that now he would take revenge.
So when we played last man standing when the objective is not to get your candle blown out, he came straight away to blow mine out, and after a while he succeeded. but the funny thing was, when he blew mine out, his was blown out by the wind. SO FAIL.
By the way, kevin was a really awesome person to me this camp because he was games committee member and sound man, but he never complained, and he always explained to me stuff from the bible and helped me understand my songs better so when i sang them i could truly appreciate God, and of course he saved us countless of times when worship was going crazy. The whole worship team was so thankful to him that we all wrote him notes thanking him for being our quiet hero.

modern day miracles

God is truly amazing, showing Himself to me slowly. At last year's youth camp, He spoke to me, prompting me to lay down my pride and go to the front to ask forgiveness and to welcome Him into my life again.
At this year's youth camp, God once again really showed me his power, because he worked a modern day miracle. I was worship leader, and on the first day that i was leading worship using my set (i.e the songs i chose), almost everything went wrong.
firstly, that day was amazing race, and the person who had the keys was in the last group who came back, so i couldn't shower.
Then, when we finally stared practicing, Ming Kai (the drummer) was sick, and worse, just about 5 minutes before it was time, Aaron Fong's guitar broke down.
That was when i realised how our human plan's are just so easily thwarted, how helpless we are.
But then, God worked.
Ming kai decided to play even though he was sick.
And Aaron managed to find a guitar from the other camp that was staying in the same campsite.
We had originally been complaining about the other camp, thinking they were a nuisance, but you see, God put them there for another special purpose.
And then since we had to return the guitar at 7.20, before it went i shared with the campers about this crisis and how God brought us through, and i'm sure most of them were amazed.
However, once again we were guitar-less. But thankfully God moved Caleb to drive all the way from Sembawang to James' house to get his guitar, so that Aaron could continue to play.

Wow.

To God be the Glory.

tide me over

i shall be fasting from computers until christmas.
unless there happens to be an internet cafe somewhere in cambodia or vietnam.
so...goodbye goodbye, good friends goodbye (hey that reminds me of this song...)

just for you

a boy in my primary school who used to have a crush on me made me a MMV (i think that means maple music video) to the song i still by the backstreet boys for my birthday.
it was one of the sweetest things someone has done for me and i was really touched, but it was kind of awkward because i had no idea how to thank him.
anyway, that is beside the point for the topic of this blog post, i was just reminded of that because it had this scene in when the effigy of me and the effigy of him walked past each other and totally ignored each other.
I was thinking (having just being to a wedding and all) of how sad it is when 2 people like each other but go around ignoring each other because of embarrassment.
it reminded me of the movie remains of the day when the butler and the housekeeper are in love, but the butler is so stiff and formal that he never manages to profess his love to the housekeeper and she gives up (thinking he doesn't like her), and marries another man.

The said birthday present:

ding dong wedding bells

today was Kang wei's and Xiu hui's wedding.
it was really pretty. the bride's maids were dressed in different dresses of the same light pinky colour, and the flower girls were just adorable. they had wreaths ( ahhhhh )
there was a funny video of the proposal (the proposed in the garden tomb in israel!!!) and then the bride and groom made their vows and kissed. they kissed like people kiss in weddings in movies. awesome.
Then there was food (including really yummy chocolate cream puffs. i had 5. my whole family's share) and i talked to bethyukimori (beth) and encouraged her brother (isaac) to keep torturing her
it was super hot (31 degrees celcius) and i was wearing a wooly cardigan on top of my dress to hide the heart shaped cut out so i was melting like crazy.
Auntie peng also had to keep her wrap on and later i found out why :) she had a temporary tattoo on her arm from a work party!

scram

I am now scrambling to finish my homework (history essay/ commentary on the korean war+ 2 chem worksheets on (blech) organic chem) before 4 because my delightful mother had to schedule her Friends children to come play with us at that tie and then for us to go out fishing.
really.
by the way, the word 'scram' always reminds me of the vermicious (or as autocorrect says, verminous)  knids in willy wonka and the great glass elevator.

who can it be now?

Just for fun, i typed miriam bluebeard blog, and horror of horrors my blog, this blog that you are reading, was one of the search results on the first page.
this is actually quite cool and all, you know, GOOGLE recognises me :) but still...
danger lurks all.
now, people (christy i'm eyeballing your brother) may be able to find this place where i write stuff i want some people to see but not all people.
what i dread most now is a comment on this blog saying "haha miriam i found you at last!!!! ~toby"

tippy toes tonight

good bye ballet, see you again on the 3rd of January :'(

contradiction

and those my friends, are known as oxymorons, and are in fact frowned upon in most societies.

(in fact i'm not too sure if they ARE oxymorons, but they are probably close enough to be related so, there you have it.)

typical muggles

Today i lunched at Han's with the worship team and me and gloria spotted this man who was obviously bald, yet he chose to plaster this strip of fake, shiny black hair diagonally across his bald spot.
why do people do that? why not admit you are bald and not try to hide it in a way to abysmally lousily that you are subject to giggly teenage girls' laughter?
it is the fallacy of human nature i suppose, to hide whats truly there and pretend you have something (or are something) you aren't

hippos

http://goannasvencoop.com/stoked/coop/SvenCoop/sounds/mw/11Feat_English.wav

This had me laughing SO MUCH.
my mum asked me, "miriam do hippos roar?"
now how am i supposed to know a thing like that, so naturally i checked up on the computer and
that is what i heard.
i think its more of a groan.

blast it all

why won;t people be more upfront about their feelings (of course, this is myself included)
its so irritating when you wonder "does that person like me?"
"is that person irritated with me?"
"does that person think I'm too happy all the time?"
"should i be less boisterous?"
A few days ago when i came home from the sleepover, i wanted to express my happiness at returning home so i was high spirited and helpful and over happy like a ray of Arctic sunshine.
My dear mother told me to "calm down and don't be so boisterous Miriam"
so then i pretended i was all sad and weighed down, and i went around moaning and groaning and looking as if i were about to burst into tears at any moment.
and no one took notice.
either I'm a bad actress, or (horror of horrors) my family has gotten desensitized to my drama.

you are beautiful no matter what they say

Sometimes i wonder if this is true.
because beauty is in the eye of the begolder.
so to others, i may look like a sick, jaundiced, scrawny little individual falling out of her clothes
OR
i may look like a lightly tanned, slim young lady that wears hand me downs effortlessly.
I do hope its the latter.

the hobbit

Yesterday i dreamt that i was Bilbo the hobbit and i was trying to hide from evil goblins by slipping on the ring that made me invisible, and then squishing myself with contortionist talent into a tiny golden box.

I had several near escapes (the goblins had dogs that could smell me despite my invisibility), but somehow throughout the dream i wasn't very scared.

except for the part when the giant spiders were trying to eat me as well. Now that was scary.

Rise and shine

When i get married, i'm going to try and wake up with a smile on my face every morning, so that my husband will know that i'm happy and grateful to be alive and with him.
(thus is strange i know but i was just musing over how so many couples these days don't really realise how much they love each other until its too late)

toeses noeses

When i went shopping iwth emily, i felt an overwhelming urge to buy socks.
Thick, wooly socks that i could wear and curl up in on my arm chair with just a baggy sweater on and feel cosy while drinking hot milo and watching the rain pour outside.
Its at times like these that i can pretend i'm back in england and that my grandma is jyst about to pop in through the door and say, it is raining outside! 

cow tow

i realised i may have seemed a little apathetic in the previous post
simply issuing platitude after platitude
and moving through what really was 3 fun days with astonishing alacrity.
but i cannot simply put into words everything so it will, for now, simply remain in my head.

sleepover

Last thursday to friday to saturday, i had a sleepover with emily.
We'd been planning a double sleepover (one night at my house, one night at her house) for ages ages and ages.
At ten to midnight my little brother timothy betrayed us by "boo!"ing us when we thought he'd been asleep for and hour, when in actual fact he'd just been lying down, waiting for the perfect moment to scare us out of our wits.
The next day we went shopping after spending about 20 minutes searching for emily's wallet (which was under her bag)
I bought so much that i felt horribly extravagant.
Emily bought even more, but it was her mum's money, so she didn't have to worry about how many weeks it was going to take to save up that amount of money again.
In my case, it is 6 weeks. That's almost 2 months worth of pocket money.
I'm going to start the new year in debt.

oh joy.

a stranger in the night

Last night i was dreaming about trying to identify a murderer (courtesy of reading miss marple late at might), when i was suddenly awakened by timmy, who said he could hear a rat squeaking. I was kind of apathetic at first, because i was still half asleep.
THEN i realised he said rat.
now let me explain a little.
the rats at my house aren't the cute, cuddly domesticated rats you see scampering around in the pet shops. the rats at my house aren't sweet genius' like ratatouille.
the rats at my house are big, mean and greedy. When they last attacked, they bit potatoes (a few, and they didn't even finish one potato before they bit the next one.),so we couldn't eat them. They gnawed at onions and herbs in our herb and onion box. They skulked on top of plastic boxes so my mother got a frightful shock when she went to  get something, because those rats don't budge for no man's pleasure. These rats are like the disease carrying rats of elizabethan england. they are intimidating, like ratatouille's dad
AND WORSE, these rats could carry diseases that could kill us if they bit us. or at least drive us insane (literally). which is why, of course, after i got to my senses, i felt really scared.
The sensation of fear (in me at least), is often accompanied by the urge to wee.
SO, i needed to use the toilet, at the dead of night, with a rat possibly creeping about and waiting to sink its teeth into my leg.
NASTY
i asked timmy to come with me to the toilet.
he refused ( :( )
so i held it in, woke my mum,  and THEN timmy realised that the rat sqeaking was actually the fan squeaking.
what a palava.
anyway, i could then use the toilet without fear.
as they say,
all's well that end's well.

sugar overload

I just baked the PERFECT chocolate chip cookies (true to the recipe they are now may "all time favorites") and now i'm baking brownies. now the brownie recipe calls for 600 GRAMS OF SUGAR!!!!
and 5 eggs.
i can't believe it.
600grams was like my whole sugar box.
thank goodness i bought some more before hand
but now we only have demerara (i think thats what its called) sugar, which my dad buys for his coffee.