am i sick?

die.. weijia just sent me this article.. people who shop too much.. may be sick!! ahhhh... the article can be found here.

here's the excerpt:

Can't stop shopping? You might have a disorder
-
The Straits Times


Compulsive buying is just as common in men as in women, a nationwide telephone survey has found, and in its extreme forms, may be a psychiatric illness

(hmmm....)
...

...

Dr Lorrin Koran, the study's lead author and emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, said compulsive buyers commonly suffer from other psychiatric disorders.

(oh ohh..)
...
...

'Compulsive buying, like pathological gambling, may lead to bankruptcy, divorce, loss of employment and even suicide attempts,' Dr Koran said.

(shit.. =X )

bla bla bla.. (article goes on..)

seems like i'm in a pretty bad shape.. i shop non-stop!! lol.. never go shopping center also can shop online at home! hahaha...

okok... i'm just joking.. if you read the full article, they said that these people just dun care what they buy.. they just spend money for the sake of it.. I'm different. I sniff out good deals before I buy muahahahahaha..

so... I'm not sick!! (I hope... ok.. let's just not go any deeper >.<)

Thanksgiving at Angela's Place!

YES!! I celebrated thanksgiving twice!! this time at Angela's house. We got to know her through the Monte Jade Seminar. She works for J&J, executive marketing officer I think, not too sure ^_^ She's a Singaporean just like us! hehe.. So we could really get along well :) Angela is such a nice person, invited us to her house to EAT ALL WE WANT hehe..

outside Angela's house

me, niki and gean in her pretty house! :)

me and niki ^_^

Pacey trying to play the chinese "gu zhen" haha

mouth watering appetizers!!! :D



that's Angela! (with our turkey~ XD)


our turkey~ YUM! ^_^

stupid lawrence~ guess u wanted me to eat the whole turkey by myself haha :p

me and andy with our beloved turkey~ awww.. (shh.. u get 1 drumstick, i get the other~)

lol.. me and law checking out the turkey as andy removes the stuffing (waiting to prance n eat the turkey already haha)

our thanksgiving dinner!!! muahahahahaha~~

Pacey cutting the turkey while Andy steals the drumstick haha..

and andy succeeds lol..


andy and gean with the turkey's wish bone (with law being so extra haha)

it is said that the person who holds the wish bone of the turkey can get his or her wish come true haha.. since the turkey only has 1 wish bone, gean and andy had to fight for it lol.. andy want a gf lar, and gean confirm wan her bf to propose asap hehe.. in the end, when the wish bone broke, andy got the main piece, which meant that his wish will come true! poor gean lol.. gean dun worry lar.. ur bf preparing ler!! XD

our remnants haha..

the turkey was SOOOO delicious!! yum yum~~ (but char and adrian, yours still the best though! ^_^) we simply stuffed ourselves with food haha..

ate the whole night..

we had to!

cos we were preparing for a marathon..

the one and only:

BLACK FRIDAY MIDNIGHT MADNESS SALE AT WOODBURRY!! WOHOO!!!~ :D

black friday is the day after thanksgiving, it is a tradition where all the shops have amazing sales, but starting at the stroke of midnight after thanksgiving hehe~ me, law and pacey had been planning for this shopping trip for months!!! this is one of our last crazy shopping trips at woodbury (i hope =X lol..)

but before i start on our race, we helped angela to wash up and pick out the rest of the meat from the turkey, cos angela was gonna prepare for us her real famous dish.. turkey porridge!! i've heard so much about it from adrian.. last time when he visited her, she also cooked turkey for them and turkey porridge in the morning.. now it's our turn to try it!!

all of us picking on the juicy succulent meat~

helping to clean up

that's angela's bf Eric btw, he's a very nice guy ^_^

okok... midnight madness sale!! here we come!!! :D

traffic jam

it was a horrendous traffic jam to woodbury, everyone were on their way there too haha.. (if not then just their luck to be stuck there :p) and then the UFO came down (as seen in the pic) and offered to teleport us to woodbury immediately if we would help them get good deals.. so we declined.. this is not the time for mercy!! good deals for us!! lol..

nah, i'm just kidding haha..

anyway, when we finally reached woodbury after getting stuck in the jam for 2 hrs, we still had a hard time finding a parking lot.. when we did find a parking space, some korean guys tried to fight with us for that space.. rude horrible people.. they even spat on geans car after we let them take the slot.. but nvm.. it's shopping!! muahaha..

we started shopping at 2am.. the crowd was simply crazy!! queues were everywhere, all the popular stores had long queues to enter.. we ended up spending most of our time queueing to go into the shops lol.. but actually the stuff there were really quite crappy lar, that's why they were cheap.. good stuffs were still original price sadly lol.. in the end, i only bought 4 items for myself.. totaling of $270!! this is because, i spent on the biggest buy for the first time in my life...

super duper long queue outside COACH..

AND.. i was one of them ahahaha...

my new COACH bag~




this is the most expensive item that i own in my entire life.. paid $172 for it!! >.<

actually the situation which i bought it was quite screwed up.. me and gean spent more than an hour queueing up to get into the store and when we finally got in, we checked out all the stuffs and sales there.. gean took 2 items while i got this bag. i was thinking to myself that the bag was so pretty but yet so ex.. people are paying so much just for the brand! then gean came up to me and said: ok, let's go pay up! i was like O_O"!!!

i said: "but.. but.. i'm still thinking!!" (refresh: thinking about why people pay so much for brand)

so gean said: dun need think lah, next time go work sure will use 1.. good investment..

lol.. and we both went to the cashier to pay up while i was still pretty stunned ROFL... oh well, doesn't matter, i really love my new bag, so chic!! falling deeper and deeper in love with it! ^_^ (yes, i still love u more dear hehe~)

other stuffs i bought:

Calvin Klein bag to dump all my books ^_^


Ralph Lauren Classic Polo Tee~

costs a BOMB in Singapore btw hehe~

my French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK) jacket! :D

also a sudden buy bcos of gean lol.. but i shall not expose how i decided to buy it here ahahaha...

then i helped my friend, Annan to help him buy 2 watches. here they are! :)

Fossil watch

Michael Kors (refurbished)

although the MK watch is refurbished, it is nonetheless a great steal!!!!!! $30 (before tax) only!!! wohoo!!

Annan: please tell me you don't like the MK watch.. i'd gladly take it! hahaha..

then i also bought some other gifts, including Alicia's advanced bdae pressie ^_^ wanted to help char grab the stuff she wanted, but unfortunately, the stuff she wanted ( 2 tees) were too crappy, so decided not to buy.

anyway, we literally shopped till we dropped.. me and gean shopped till 2pm the next day lol... we were simply so exhausted!! law, pacey, shamir, niki and grace (angela's daughter who joined us) couldn't take it and went to the car to sleep much earlier while waiting for us haha.. andy and rex came back slightly later than us ahaha..

after the long marathon, it was time to get back to angela's house.. to our long awaited.. TURKEY PORRIDGE! ^_^


yummiest porridge i've eaten in my life.. and i really mean it!!!

the porridge was simply so good.. i've never tasted anything that nice before!! it made me and gean touched to the verge of tears haha.. angela even prepared lotsa dumplings and meatballs for us! and she had a bottle of chilli sause!! woots!! so good!!! i couldn't stop eating haha... simply amazing food~ mmmmmm~ ^_^

then we had dessert!!

yummy~~ :D

all of us with Angela, Eric (her bf), Grace and JJ (her kids)

we had a great time together, chit chatting about all the stuffs in singapore (local jokes haha) and with andy and pacey keep making lotsa sexist jokes haha.. oh well..

what a great thanksgiving. ^_^ a real memorable event in my life :)

Chestnut Thanksgiving Dinner ^_^

Somewhere in Oct, me and char were looking through some magazines when she spotted this article with the recipe on how to make roast turkey.. so we decided that we should make our own turkey to celebrate thanksgiving!! :D

fresh grocers, the supermarket near our house had a special offer whereby you can get a free frozen turkey for every $100 that we spend. so we went crazy and just keep grabbing stuffs to put into our shopping cart to make up $100 worth of goods ahaha... deliang just kept throwing candy bars beside the cashier to top up to $100... lol..

the frozen turkey supposedly needed 2 days to thaw completely, but we weren't sure how to, so in the end we just took it out of the freezer 2 days before and thawed it on our kitchen table.. however, at the end of 1.5 days, we woke up to a stinking turkey lol... ok.. so that showed that it was the wrong way to thaw the turkey haha.. and charmaine had to go down to frogo to buy another turkey.. sian.. so much for trying to get a free turkey haha...

our initial idea was for me and char to roast the turkey while adrian baked all the yummy desserts that normally comes along during thanksgiving (or so adrian's boss said hehe~) unfortunately, i was too caught up with work and had so many long project meetings that i hadn't had the time to help out. in the end, it was just charmaine and adrian who made the humongous feast! we had the feast 1 week early on 18 Nov.







pretending that i helped lol..

adrian and charmaine stayed up almost the whole night to prepare all the food. adrian stayed up for the first part of the night.. he just keep bathing the new turkey in water to thaw it while baking a lot of mouth watering cakes!! then charmaine took over in the morning to help make the turkey. all in all.. i think they spent like 24hrs to make ALL the food.. let me show u..


craneberry walnut bread

apple cake, yum yum~~ ^_^

sugar coated cinnamon pecans!!! YUMMY~ :D

left: poppy seed cake (in rectangular pans); right: pumpkin pie~ (in round pans)

ok, let me highlight something.. POPPY SEEDS ARE BANNED IN SINGAPORE!!! muahahaha... so none of u in SG can get to eat this!!!

next thing to highlight..
THIS IS THE BEST CAKE I'VE EATEN IN MY LIFE!!!!
and i seriously mean that.. i really dun like to eat cakes, but this is 1 cake that i simply cannot resist!! dunno how to describe it.. but it's really super duper yummily delicious!!!

ok, let's just pray that i wun get addicted to opium..

ok i admit.. I'M ADDICTED TO THIS POPPY SEED CAKE!!! AHHHHH...


the best turkey i've had~ muahahahaha...

really really the yummiest turkey i've eaten.. the meat is moist, tender and juicy~ and the stuffing is sooooooo delicious~ *salivates~ but then again.. i've only had those i got from cold storage in singapore, so that's really no competition haha..

our dinner feast!! no 1 really seems interested in taking pic lol.. all of us were eyeing to get started with the long awaited meal ahahaha..

let me introduce all the dishes on the table, starting with the 1 deliang is eyeing haha.. that's just all the extra turkey stuffings. we are supposed to make extra stuffings as those that do get in the turkey is too little for all of us. going clockwise, next up is of course the turkey!! ^_^ and the pot of brown stuff is actually the turkey sause, super duper yummy man!! haha.. ok, i'm out of vocab with so many yummy food =X.. next up at the far right is the cranberry sause for the turkey as well haha.. below the sause is the apple cake, then the green pot is spinach salad, then cranberry walnut bread and lastly, the mashed potatoes ^_^

ok fine fine.. proper family thanksgiving pic! :p

all credits to char n adrian ^_^

seriously, if not for charmaine n adrian, the dinner would not have been possible. thank you sooooo much!!! ^_^ of course not to forget, thank you so much to pacey, alicia and kai an for cleaning up the huge mess in the kitchen after the dinner. really appreciate it! :) and thank you law and adrian for scrubbing the black stove haha.. and charmaine for cheering them to scrub it cleaner wahaha..

okiee... now to give thanks.. :)

MUM and bro: thanks for all the love and care that you've showered upon me, giving me all the best that you could, and even trying to give everything else up just to provide the best for me. thank you so much and love you all dearly ^_^

darling alvin: thank you dear for sacrificing so much for me and loving me with all your heart. (gotta stop here or i'll never stop lol..) i love u!! :)

weijia: thanks for sharing 5 great months with us. you really brightened up our house. ^_^

deliang: thanks for organizing all the roadtrips, made all our journeys a memorable experience.

lawrence: thanks for being the great CEO of our house, i'll hire u next time haha.. but thanks for the great advices that you've given me. really appreciate it :)

pacey: although you always like to bully me, i know that it's precisely because you treat me as a real friend that you do that hehe.. n of course, you were always there for me when i needed help. you and adrian are the nicest guys around. when everyone else left me in the lurch, you 2 were always the ones who stayed behind. thank you from the deepest of my heart. and thanks for being always sincere and true, not just to others, but to yourself. they are traits of great people in our society :)

adrian: thank you adrian for always letting me bully u haha.. u're seriously the nicest guy around. thanks for always giving me loads of information in every single conversation we have lol.. u are a true walking wikipedia plus excel spreadsheet lol.. will approach u more for help XD but seriously, thanks for being such a great friend, for always being there for me just like pacey. i'm very proud to have you as my friend ^_^

charmaine: thanks for being my best roommate! you've given me the best taste of what it's like to have someone to shop like crazy with haha.. =X no lar.. thanks for being a great companion, for sharing with me all ur pretty clothes, for standing by my side when the guys bully me.. and actually just simply for treating me as a real friend and trusting to confide in me when you needed help. :)

alicia, estee: thank you for all your great company and great advices!! let's hang out more together! :D

andy, tim and wayne: thank you guys for working so hard for 446. especially andy for treating me so well and always caring so much for ur totally clueless project mate =X hee..

to all my other friends: thank you all for making my life such a great one with your presence ^_^

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Deal or no deal

Me, law and adrian were the only people having dinner at home today.. the rest were out. Great time for me to cook spicy food! muahahaha.. yum yum~ ^_^

during dinner, we were watching the game show, DEAL OR NO DEAL on NBC. this game is about 26 boxes, each with an amount ranging from $0.01 to $1,000,000. at the beginning of the game, you'll choose 1 box to keep. this is the box which you think most likely has $1,000,000, but you do not open it so you don't know the value. then throughout the rest of the game, you just have to keep opening up the rest of the boxes and eliminating the values. and while you try to eliminate the boxes, there will be a banker who will calculate the chances of the box that you have contains $1,000,000, or any high value if $1M has already been eliminated. so whenever you eliminate a box with a big value, such as $500,000, then the banker's offer for the box you chose goes down, since the probability of your box containing a high value is lowered.

there was this girl who was crazy.. she played till there were only 3 boxes left and the values were $10, $750,000 and $1,000,000, 2 boxes to eliminate and 1 box that she was holding. the bank offered her $502,000 to buy her box and she actually had NO DEAL! there was so much to lose.. if she eliminates a box containing 1 of the big values, the offer from the bank will drop drastically.. and there was also a 1/3 chance that her own box contained only $10! but she was super super lucky.. the next box she chose to eliminate was $10!!!!!! this was a history record in the show as this was the first time that a player can go home with NO LESS than $750k!! only 1 box left to eliminate and her own box that she was holding, the banker offered her $880,000 to buy her box. but i guess she had nothing to lose.. even if the box she was holding was $750k and she eliminates the last box which was $1M, she could still keep that box with $750k. in the end, she did not take the deal of $880k from the banker. she went all out for the $1M. unfortunately, the last box that she eliminated was $1M, so her box was $750k. she was still very happy with that amount. ^_^

trying our luck, we tried playing the game online. you can play it here. i started playing the game first. i chose box number 21 and started eliminating the rest of the boxes. i had some big values left, including $1M, and a few small values. the bank offered me $300k or something, so i took the deal, not wanting to risk having the bank offering a lower price if i eliminate big value boxes or that the box i was holding was one of the small values which i hadn't eliminated.. in the end, it turned out that the box that i was holding did contain $1,000,000!!! the highest amount in the game!! muahahahaha.. i'm such a pro.. too bad lol..

anyway, lawrence played next.. boring.. he took the banker's deal and sold his box at $400k, and his box turned out to be some small value, so good deal lar. XD

then came adrian.. which is the only interesting part of this post actually hehe..
i've never seen someone with such bad luck as him.. even players in the real game show had never displayed such uber luck lol.. he chose a box and during elimination, all he did was eliminate the biggest valued boxes, so the offer that the bank gave him just kept decreasing wahaha... until the last 2 boxes.. 1 to eliminate and 1 he kept.. the 2 values left unopened were....

$1 and $50!!!

ahahahahahahahaha ROFL!!!!! and the banker offered him $28 to buy his box lol.. in the end, his box was $50 XD

he was upset, so he tried to play the game again! this time was slightly better.. after he eliminated all the high valued boxes (yes!! again!!! :p), he was left with..

$50 and $100..

ROLL ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING UNTIL BACKSIDE PAIN.. HAHA..

and it turns out that his box was $50 again XD

adrian.. just resign to fate lar.. hehe :p

!!!

why didn't you tell us?? if others didn't tell me i wouldn't have known!! why u so stupid??? do u know what i have been through and how miserable it is to be in that position?? argh... you dunno what u're putting urself through.. well, guess you'll find out soon how it feels to be in that shit...

Response

In response to Pacey's post:

i agree with you. you are more than right... many nice guys out there are being taken for granted.. and there are many jerks and sluts out there who likes to make use of them. all so true! however, not everyone is a jerk or slut out there, and it is not just nice guys who are bullied. nice girls are bullied too!

ok, let's start with why nice guys are losers and boring. it's weird why you put it that way actually. because you can be nice n yet not be losers and boring. but it just so happens that many nice guys are losers and boring lol.. but not all! my bf is a nice guy, but he definitely is not a loser and not boring!

the reason why many nice guys are losers and boring is because many of them do not have the attributes that make them winners and entertaining. those who DO have them are loved by all.. most other nice guys just lack the art of human interaction, interactions that will engage the attention and interest of another.. some nice guys may be hurt too many times and become too jaded and pessimistic and make conversations with others even more unbearable.. so no one likes to talk to them.. vicious cycle.. i'll elaborate further later..

next, we'll go on to.. why do nice guys get the girl last. ok.. so why is it that if a guy is nice to a girl, the girl must give herself to the guy?? is that what a guy demands of a girl if he is nice to her? this is 1 thing which i don't like about some people.. they just put 2 disparate things together like that's the way to go. and if the girl doesn't fall in love with the guy because he was nice to her, then he would need some rethinking. most guys in this situation will get jaded and cynical, thinking to themselves: "why did the girl not like me?? i was so nice to her!! next time i should be a jerk like her crush so that she'll like me.."

you see.. courting a girl and getting her to fall in love with you is not solely through niceness. u want her heart to beat for you you need so much more than that. u want to catch her attention and charm her, being nice is not the way, at least not in most cases. i agree that there are many people out there who like to exploit people's kindness, making them do this and that for them and never feel a tinge of gratitude or appreciation. but i still wanna say that not everyone out there are like that. me for example, am a helpless girl.. often needing help from others. i am indebted to many people, these people who had helped me, but i've not repayed them, in monetary means or my physical being (which i strongly oppose to of course), but they get my gratitude and appreciation, even though i do not say it out..

everyone is selfish. even when a nice guy does something nice, although they would say that they want nothing in return, just for her to be happy, they are sad, because they did not get the girl's love in return.. i dun think there's anything wrong with that, it's just human nature. but i don't think it's right to say that one is altruistical on one hand but yet bitch about how their altruism is not repaid on the other. that's just oxymoronic..

take me for example.. what will catch my heart first is not niceness, but intelligence. i want the sparkle in the eye.. i wan the witty (BUT NOT CRUDE) remarks , and of course humour to entertain me. these are my personal 2 criteria that will make me fall in love! if you make me frown with ur attempted joke, u're a goner hehe..

ok, using my criteria as an ANALAGY (MY HEART IS SEALED..), one may be the nicest guy in the world, but if you fail to charm me with wit and humour, you will never get my heart, well, not totally.. a jerk comes along and charm me? well, he may catch my heart, but his "jerkass" is not why i like him, but his wit! and i definitely won't appreciate his meaness to me.

my bf is the nicest guy in the world, AND.. he's witty and funny! ^_^ AND... i really appreciate his niceness. his niceness comes in handy to maintain a great relationship. there's no crying like most couples over "CAN'T YOU SPARE SOME THOUGHT FOR ME AND CARE A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME??".. lotsa trouble in most r/s where a girl gets together with a jerk.. and they break up..

moral of the story: girls want to be treated nicely!! just that nice guys must learn to charm the girl!! hee~
nice guys please buck up on social skills and save these damsels in distress lol..

Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion, and i still do believe that there are lotsa jerks out there who like to bully nice people, taking them for granted.. i'm just talking about some other issues that should not be neglected on certain rare situations. ^_^

Funny

some ppl are just so free at work.. can surf for crappy stuff on the net all the time hehe.. but at least he's a maven n shares all the good stuff lah.. i shan't mention who :p

so... true! LOL..

thinking of going to a beauty salon for a slimming session? think again.

just some cute sheep video.. =X