My eyes are burning with fatigue but it’s comforting to know that class will be over in less than 15 minutes. There was no room for classroom napping today coz we had the privilege of getting the CEO of Affin Bank as our lecturer. Imagine that, he was right in front of my eyes, breathing within the same area as me and my classmates… And he was so open to sharing his experiences with us, readily answering all our humble queries. Amazing. :)

Last night I trudged home at 1AM after a session of beer and chips at Ara Damansara’s Station One Cafe. Mr Tung Lee Chuan, Mr Jimmy Lee, and Mr Choo Joon Kong - it was good to see you guys again after so long! Jimmy has just started playing golf, which is an expensive investment but I’m sure the business returns will be well worth it. ;) LC still loves alcohol, so what’s new? Haha. :D And JoonKong drives a Vios now, seems like he’s doing great at Yeo’s.

In between sips of Skol and bites of salty chips, I stared at the laptop and managed to whip up a 1000-word report on a recent class visit to OSK Investment Bank. Pheww. Multitasking is awesome… Who said work and pleasure don’t mix eh? :P

This week has passed by with the speed of light, which is good I think. Thank God it’s Thursday. Weekend, please come quick. :D

Okay so maybe it’s my own fault that I have been suffering from lack of sleep these few days…

Been out for birthday celebrations for the past 3 nights - thanks to the Kym Gang, the SMSJ Gang, and the Brotherhood Gang. <3 you guys long time. :D

Last night was definitely a severe case of madness… We were singing - no, make that shouting - at Neway from 6.45pm to 12 midnight. Omg. It was loads of fun though!

Will (probably) write a dedicated post on my 24th birthday celebrations (sometime) soon. Right now I’m just so pooped from a looooong day at work, and driving in the crazy KL jam, and then coming home to work on 12 pages of grammar exercises AND a 3-minute speech, all for tomorrow’s class. Argh. Need sleep need sleep need sleep.

P.S. Happy birthday to Dan! Been clubbing with this dude since like, 4 years ago? Haha geez, that was ages ago. Let’s go partying again soon, whee!

My birthday isn’t here just yet, but I’ve already received my first gift last weekend. Best of all, it’s a Bumbleebee toy!! - something I’ve wanted for quite some time, but then so did the rest of the population here in Malaysia it seems. LoL So yeahh, thanks to the ex for the present, it was a pleasant surprise.

Somehow this year I’m not dreading the notion of becoming a year older. Instead, I actually can’t wait to turn 24!

Maybe I just don’t feel quite 23-ish anymore. A lot has happened within the past few months, that when I look back at myself, I know I’d come so far from the girl I was last year. 24 just sounds like a more comfortable skin to fit into, ya know?

These days I find myself surrounded by characters of the go-getter type - they pretty much know what they want out of life and they’re constantly driven to get more and more with each passing day. This has given me a huge push to be serious about my own life too.. I admit that previously I hated the thought of planning my future. I absolutely refused to set definite goals. Everything was about “Oh I’ll get to it when the time comes… maybe”. Well I guess the time has come - and if not, why not now anyway, right? ;)

Amidst all the ambition though, these people never fail to have fun. There’s always laughter to be found when I’m with them. It’s those little, simple moments of appreciating a joke, and sharing smiles, and wiggling your hips to a good song, and showing your support during a friend’s important day… That kind of stuff. I didn’t even realize how heavy my heart was until I felt it being lifted bit by bit. On some days, I do feel like I’m walking on pure golden sunshine. It’s taken a long time but I finally get it now when they say that happiness is a choice. It’s a liberating sensation to not depend on other people for your own happiness. Of course, there are certain individuals who help to add on the sparkles, which is always welcome. :)

The most crucial part about my growing up, I think, has to be the manner in which I react to the bad things that come my way. Heh. -_-” I mean, I still get overly emotional I suppose, but there’s also this voice inside that tells me to keep my chin up and rationalize everything out till the problem doesn’t seem quite as overwhelming as before… And I’m better at listening to that voice now than before. ;) At this point it’s probably about fighting my most immediate instinct - instead of reacting in the way that I want, more and more often now I react in the way that I know I should, so that I don’t regret anything about 1 hour after that. Time to give a rest to the flaring temper, and the petty spitefulness, and the childish silent treatments. Wheww, doesn’t that sound like a major detoxification of the soul? :P Haha.

This post might just sound contradictory, since I start out being all excited about a toy, and then I proceed to talk about how I’m going through a maturity phase…! Well, this is where the whole enjoying-the-simple-pleasures-in-life part comes in, yeahh? Being mature is great, but I’d say it’s important to remember to stay young in certain aspects too.. Otherwise you’d end up being as exciting as a jar of almonds (i.e. not very exciting at all). :)

So I got myself a new toy investment. Okie, it really is more of an indulgent splurge more than anything, teehee. :D It has a touch screen, and it swivels 180 degrees too!

If I remember correctly, Wayne has the same model too… ;) *high fives*

All rite, I’m off to configure and install more stuff on it. There’s a really funny story behind the whole buying process of the laptop coz of SCG who came along, so I’ll blog again soon to share the amusement… if my laziness permits that is!

P.S. Even though I didn’t get to go, photos and one (ahem) very sexay video of the Phuket trip are up at Ivan and Joanne’s blog, do go check it out. :D Wish I’d been there, guys!!

So I feel like I have about ten thousand things to talk about today. I could just chatter away paragraph after paragraph’s worth of words. So hyper! Hmm.

My tummy is still full after the yummy bak kut teh dinner I had a couple of hours ago at SS14… oof! It was a spur of the moment decision for me and SCG to go for BKT after class, encouraged by the cold rainy weather. :P Oh, something else happened before that as well - silly clumsy me managed to knock my car into a van at the parking lot while reversing out of a particularly tricky spot. =/ *slaps self hard* Thankfully there was no visible damage done on either vehicles, but after that SCG took over as the driver while I sat sheepishly on the passenger side and surrendered to SCG’s nagging. Can anyone say traumatized? Hehe sighh.

I guess I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be driving anyhow. I mean, I went to bed at 4.30AM the night before and reluctantly dragged myself up at 7.30AM..! -_-” I was at Starbucks last night, working on a Flash presentation and some posters for the upcoming English Awareness Campaign for all the students. SCG was gracious enough to lend me his laptop, and so there I was clicking away as he sat down and got to studying one of his many strategy books. We be Starbucks fans - it’s just such a comfortable place to get work done. Ooh ooh ooh, and I have to profess my newfound adoration for their Tazo Tea… ‘Tis awesome! :D

Then I sorta took a break and left Starbucks at 11.30PM to go for a movie at Sunway Pyramid… LoL Well, I’d already said yes to L Change The World earlier in the day, and I was too lazy to cancel on it at the very last minute. Ahahah. So yeahh, the movie’s pretty all right but I definitely preferred the previous 2 Death Note flicks coz they were funnier and more gripping to me. L Change The World is full of doom and gloom, even the 2 cute kids look kinda depressed. :P

It was already 2.30AM by the time I reached home so I promptly proceeded to finish up the Flash presentation. Rushrushrush. Yawnyawnyawn. All in a day’s work eh? At least it involved design though, which is something I still hold dear and enjoy despite not being in the creative industry anymore. :)

Oh guess what? I just realized I was actually awake for 24 hours last Saturday. My day started dark and early at 5.30AM all for the sake of this thing called The Rat Race. Blehs. Basically what it entails is - 300 bleary-eyed faces showing up at the Darul Takaful building in KL (where we have our classes every day) at 7AM, scaling the staircase in groups, from ground floor all the way up to the 25th floor, and then back down again. It could’ve been a potentially torturing situation, but surprisingly most of us managed to get it done in under 20 minutes, and only 4 people collapsed. LoL

After some more group activities and lunch, we were finally released. Made a stop at Times Square for drinks with the Forever Brotherly Trio (Bryan, Justin, and SCG). Later on I rushed home for a quick bath before driving out to Pyramid to catch 27 Dresses with Carmen and HuiChin. My MMU friend, LapCheong, came down to KL from Penang so I met up with him for dinner (Sushi Groove YUMMMMMM) and arcade gaming (Daytona) and movie (Ah Long Pte Ltd). The final agenda for Saturday was clubbing at Barcelona, to satisfy the itch for dancing! Thanks to Dan for the invite into the VVIP Room, otherwise Garick and I would probably get crushed by the unbelievablly massive crowd in the general area. Pheww. We ended the night by mamaking at Darussalam… and then it was hello blissful bed at 6AM. :D

Honestly this week started off on a horrible note for me. Upon receiving my exam results in class on Monday, all I felt like doing was to sob really hard and to chain-smoke 10 sticks of ciggies. But then I figured I should probably try to act a bit more grown up… so what I actually ended up doing was to puff on just one ciggie, and then shed a few uncontrollable tears in the car after that. Heh. Arghh I’m such a crybaby sometimes. ;( Is it an Asian mentality kind of thing to get so worked up over mere grades?! Though it wasn’t so much of what I got, it was more of what I didn’t get. :( :( Yeahh I was disappointed to say the least, but I guess SCG The Sudden Personal Counsellor was right in saying that it was over - all I can do now is to work my butt off a lot harder for the rest of the papers in May. That’s that.

It’s Friday tomorrow and I’m that much closer to the end of a rather strange week. I say strange coz there’s been a string of out-of-the-ordinary happenings. It’s like breaking an egg and finding two egg yolks in it - it’s not anything bad, but you’re just not sure on what you’re supposed to do. Let’s wait and see what happens next then…

Whatever tomorrow brings I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes, yeah
–Incubus (Drive)