hmm.. seems like im not the only one blogging! yay, happy that huili is blogging too (:
yepp.. its the small things in our everyday lives or rather my everyday life that makes me miss everything american.. ): like what i was telling chris just now, i went to Holland V just now and had cold rock creamery ice cream!!
I've heard alot about it previously, about how nice n unique it was. hmm, after trying, i really liked it.. but, how can it compare to COLDSTONE CREAMERY ICE CREAM!!!!
yea.. n i thought back on all the tuedays when we RAN all the way frm the dorm to coldstone jus to grab it cos there was a one-for-one deal. -.- hahaha!!

rain, sun, steamy roads, swimming pools all remind me of lifeguarding.

my many bottles of body lotions remind me of VCU dorm.

argh.. n the one thing that i really REALLY miss: SAXBYS COFFEE! rarrrHHH!!! why do they not have it in singapore?!?! it's really the best coffee with alot alot of unique flavours. hmm actually the other coffee shop in VCU was not bad too..ermm.. forgot the name. but saxbys' really the best. haii..i miss it every morning when i smell coffee on my way to school. ):

anyways, we still have gatherings quite often, but exams r coming soon, so i guess gatherings will stop for about a month? wahaha, i've been mugging and doing crazy stuff with shimin lately, miss all of them!!  yepp.. gd luck for everyone taking their exams!! (:

yiyu (:

omg! I almost forgot the password to login..that shows how long i havent been blogging..
yup but juz scrolling down the photos brings back tons of memories.oooo...i miss KD, the travelling part, the people, the days where we have no worries or in fact, we dun even have to think about anything..
everyday is the same..wake up groaning about whether to "call in" (take MC), go to work unwillingly, scan water, back to VCU, gossip session, sleep..
How i wish life can always be as simple as that..

Since school started we have had quite a number of gatherings with the WAT ppl..REally fun to be able to gather like what we had done in the past, but unfortunately everyone is busy with both school and work..so these gatherings are diminishing over time.
Ok maybe because i havent been to many of the majong sessions thats why..haha
I have been really caught up with so many things
Projects really suck!
They are capable of sapping all your energy and time..year 2 is really so challenging!!
Ok there i go moaning about projects again..

Alright,i shall face reality, there is no escaping anyway..haha..
yes i will never forget WAT2008 in which brought me so many happy and everlasting memories..

Love
HL
PS: Jay's new album really rocks the second time you hear it!!

hello everyone n hello to our blog! (:

hahah, been some time since we last came here, for me, i think its a waste that this blog is left to rot n disappear from the face of the earth, thus i've decided to save it! hmm, mayb i will do some random ramblings here n also update the blog on WAT things perhaps? n i will definitely tell zj, hl n the non-existent sm abt this revival of half_inverse, ask them to also blog at times.

hmm.. so far, work n travel ppl do still meet up regularly to gossip n catch up (at least once every wk i think). yepp, mayb not as frequent as when we first came back from USA but still, i think the current situation is really gd! haha, about 10 of us headed down to chomp chomp 2 days ago to indulge ourselves in the local food! YUMMY! after tt, me, chris, jianwei, curtiz n jeanette had a game of mahjong in curtiz's hse. lol, chris was the biggest winner, n i won like $3?! so little!! but i was losing all the way till the last round, so not bad alr. hahah! n jeanette was slping throughout the whole thing on the sofa..!

okkk! picture time! all the WAT gatherings frm the day we got back till now! (:
 

WAT debrief (everyone who went)                                           Dolphins!! XD

@ SMU settler's cafe                                                              dinner after tt (w/o me)
Jamie's 21st bday! (:

what we like to do the most! haha, n it evolved into a whipped cream fight!

presents for jianwei n shimin: 2 photoframes + home-baked brownie by us! (:

we then had dinner at tampines mall's fish&co.

@ sentosa. celebrate chris' 25th bday! muahah so old!! n we bought him a riverisland hot pink top + topman's boxers

had dinner at vivo's secret recipe after tt. hehe, me, jeanette, curtiz, sicong n wangzheng only joined the rest quite late..

okk, think thats the end of it! actually got loads of photos but limited space to post. argh, blogging is actually quite tiresome.. haha. anyways, abt some latest news for WAT, i heard tt KD is not one of the companies offered for WAT 2009, quite sad right. :( i do miss the ppl there at times.. esp when its raining. we had to guard the waters even if it was storming or hailing! hehe okk, till the nxt WAT outing! (:

love,
yiyu (:

forgot to tell u all abt this fateful Bank of America day?? then a lot of pple came to the park...

was scanning at the tidal wave... and i couldn't really see the pavement of the grass patch... and i was thinking if i have to do a rescue i can't even find a spot to jump in... and there was soooo many pple that we din turn on the waves... cos whenever we turn in on there will be a rescue... think those pple cannot swim in the crowded pool...no space to move... and i heard that there was chaos at the north side and a lot of rides were closed... and the bridge almost collapsed... and the security guard blew the whistle wrongly... creating more chaos... pple had to leave the water park by the back door cos they stop letting pple into the water park cos really tooo many pple alr...

then there was a lot of lost children.... first time i handle one... then a lot more came... all crying...then very cute cos they trying to talk and cry at the same time cos i ask them where they came from and stuff... all very cute...

anyway today is independence day!!! saw fireworks at KD...

long story... at first we were working extra at ecology... ie clean toilet... but we wanted to catch the 1030 bus to go back... then firworks start at 10... tot it ends at 1015 but realise later that it ends ard 1020+++

so we left our brooms and spots and pretend that we were not working anymore... off duty... and went to a wat we tot was a good spot to watch... then start alr... saw the sky brighten but cannot see the fireworks at all... so we run and find good spot... almost bang into a lot of pple along the way...

we is me and sheila... btw...

the fireworks was very GOOD!!!! wow... really...tml still got but i going campgrd... hope i can catch the fireworks display...

anyway we watch alr... then realise no time alr... then decided to go back and say we can work till 12 cos thats when the nxt bus is... so we worked till 1130 ( like 12 hrs of work today lor...) and we were sooo hungry and tired... but i think quite a fun night... cos we were thinking of all the stupid reasons to say if we got caught... and i think we did... but we ran away... hopefully they din see us... exciting night lor...

LOL, huili actually said that those are the things that happened recently. hahah, we went to VA beach like 1-2 weeks ago. omg. after the VA beach trip, we went to Washington D.C. 2 days later. We also had a party at Casey's last friday followed by a stayover at his place on sunday to tuesday morning. (: hahah! soo.. these are the more updated events that happened recently. OHHH and we both caught the EURO finals at some place called Extreme Pizza with shaun! woohoo! our sick leaves were totally worth it, hahah, SPAIN WON and on a sidenote, the match was a good one, with both sides attacking and defending well. (:

D.C. Trip:

a really nice n artistic picture of me and huili captured in a round mirror by me! but not everyone agrees.. cj said that i look very round in it.. :( D.C. is all about monuments, buildings and museums. There were a whole lot of museums there and one day really wasn't enough. Hmm... i would strongly recommend the holocaust museum and the museum of natural history, the air and space one was not as good as i had expected, maybe it was because we were running out of time n not much was done.

after all the museums and monuments, how can we forget the white house. hahah, talking about which, it was quite a disappointment because we could only see it from afar. and it was really quite far away! i had to zoom in many many times to capture that image of it. we also had dinner at chinatown and not sure about the rest, i personally felt that the food was bad, not worth the money we paid to get it. canteen 5 zichar is way better than it.
There were really a whole lot more pictures taken of the D.C. trip, but i guess it would take ages to upload.

On to the party at Casey's, it was held last friday after work. hmm, it was supposed to be a dolphin and stingray (dolray) thing because casey wrote it on our rotation sheet, but nicole's clique went too, and in the end, there were more internationals than locals. it was quite fun, we drank and ate doritos and hash brown. haha, casey and brandon were very good hosts, even though they were younger than us, they took care of us, with all the tucking us into bed thing and cooking breakfast for us in the morning. (:

steven, me, shaun n ben (heheh, they look drunk!)                such a cute pic of them (:

me n lawrence                         steven again + casey's flatmate, josh

belbin is a gone case....                                                       so are lawrence and shaun

i just realised that i don't have any photos with casey and brandon! think they're all with nicole because she was also taking pictures that night. Yepp, in all, it was quite a fun night, some of them slept early and the rest just sat at the balcony talking. Next morning, casey made breakfast of bacon and mashed potatoes for all of us while i continued taking more photos! (: Brandon's kitten, Jack, is really cute! the last picture is tracy and me, she likes cooking alot and the dinner we had the previous night was cooked by her and huili.





casillas! hahah yepp, this is the tv in Extreme Pizza where we caught the Euro Finals. We were so glad when we managed to find a place to watch the match, americans really don't like watching soccer. Bad point: no place to watch soccer cos' they're showing football and basketball games instead. Good point: plenty of space to sit, no one will be vying with you to get the better seats to watch the match.

we then went back to VCU to drop josh (singaporean) off and pick cherie up instead to stayover at Casey's. Monday, we went to downtown Fredericksburg and these were taken in chipotle, the burritos were huge! And those people are Casey, Brandon and Josh(american). Can u believe that they are only 19 years old!!

Later that night, we went to visit cemeteries and the battlefield, haha, Casey was so excited about spooking us out that he brought us to the place where many soldiers died during the American Civil War. The walk was quite creepy and i was rather spooked out, luckily the national cemetery is closed after dark and we cannot enter it. *phew*

Alright, i guess that's all. Woah.. can't believe that i wrote such a long entry, see people, i do update at times, stop complaining that i never blog. -.- Hehehe, i'm enjoying my day-off now while the rest are under the sun, scanning water. Heard that there's a dinner tonight, not sure of the plan but hope that i'm not left out of it since im not working today!! (:

love,
yiyu (:

ok yay i finally managed to compile all the photos of events that happened recently..

First : Random lifeguarding photos. Nope i mean after work life guarding photos



Dolphins!!! + Sicong
Zoom Flume---Love it or hate it
I have to admit that it is one of the easiest ride to be in charge of BUT recently the conveyor belt of zoom flume has been breaking down so its kinda tough to have to get ppl who have climbed all the way to the top and queued up for the ride, to climb down again.


 
This is pipeline peak. Territory of sharks, but we sorta invaded their territory to take these photos.
Talking about pipeline peak, hurray, recently i got checklisted for pipeline so that means i will be able to do something else besides zoom flume and splash house.
Gosh talking about splashhouse!! Splash house is really terrible. The kids are really quite cute and adorable i have to admit, but young kids are oblivious to their surroundings.SERIOUSLY. One moment you are trying to measure the height of a kid on one slide, the next moment, another kid squeezes past the line to get down on the other slide. AND, they do not respond to whistle blasts. And hurray....another grake fluke.



Drop tower: Apparently one of the more scary rides in KD, but i have no idea why i have lost the thrill of riding roller coasters---no feeling of heart racing
Dominator: Newest and Longest floorless roller coaster in ...( not sure where exactly) Yup but since its long, it will be definately worth the wait. We took this coaster 3 times in the row 
since there wasnt anybody



Scooby Doo: Kiddy ride--We didnt take this ride but the sign was kinda cute so we decided to take a photo there. Our clique of girls living on the 18th floor
outside the ride Flight of fear: Indoor roller coaster-- i like this roller coaster a lot !! And our cute italian supervisor in the middle.



Some river ride (cant rmb the name of it) Well not very fun and the water was really dirty



Crazy guys from dolphins. Josh, Vincent and Chris. missing: Steven
Jumping photos at the entrance of KD.. One of my favourite photos, the angle and the height is perfect! We even got the Eliffel Tower in the background
Nirvana jump by the guys (Charles, Chris, Gavin, Kelvin) and photographer.... ME !!!



Everyday bus trip..Crowded KD bus whereby ppl are forced to sit on the floor.. But the situation has improved greatly over the past few weeks. Sicong looks really pissed!! HAHA

Our trip to VA beach..


Just finished opening a Bank of America accoun and eating Crispy Cremes, this super nice donut in US all thanks to Chris:) 
O and i want to take this opportunity to express how pissed i was with Wachovia. The pin they gave me for my card was wrong!! So i was almost totally broke for a week.. Had to live off my friends. Haha



My first road trip was to VA beach. ok it was sort of a last minute decision for me to go. We rented two cars and altogether 13 ppl went.



 The weather was really nice. It wasnt too hot actually. And the sea is really nice and blue from far but when we got into the water, it wasnt as nice as we thought it was. We rented an umbrella to put our stuff
Clockwise from bottom left : Jianwei, Jeanette, me, Yiyu, Charles, Esther, Chris, Jialing, Kelvin, Gavin, Chen Ling, Curtiz)



Fingers!!! Chao-ta fingers

Nice blue sea. Perfect for taking photos. 2 shades of blue--the sea and the sky. 
We did many things that i will never expect myself to do in Singapore. Like burying ppl and adding extra STUFF on top, doing cheerleading stunts, dunking ppl into the water, swiming against the waves (aka wave training like what we do in lifeguarding), played beach frisbee on scorching hot sand. We sang, laughed and made so much noise at VA beach and someone actually asked whether we were dancers judging from the stunts that we tried to pull. The locals were amused by everything that we did. Perhaps they didnt expect asians to have a nosiy side??Everybody had a great time and nobody acted their actual age( adapted from Yiyu's dictionary)









Success after a few failed attempts



Really gross!!! Highly censored



Oldies singing session. K-ge da sai. We sang almost all the oldies that have connection with the beach and the sea. Ppl were looking at us but nobody cared. 

Right people, at the right place, at the right time. That made my day:)

last time it was jian wei...

now its jeanette....

so sad lar...

too sudden alr...

will miss u guys....

missing u all alr...

Once again, random ramblings from me because i can't catch tomorrow's match between SPAIN and RUSSIA!! ARGH! why do i have to work?? :( haha, but both huili and I have decided to take sunday off to catch the euro finals, we both believe that spain will meet germany on sunday! (: Coming for this trip may be a once in a lifetime experience, but i certainly am missing out on alot of things. Yepp, here's a list of things i will and had already missed due to WAT2008:

- EURO 2008 (been waiting for so long and its really rare to see spain doing so well!)
- Hall 1 senior camp and FOC (intended at first to go as a fake freshie)
- bike rally 08 and SU15
- SPMS FOC 08 (though im not really keen, but ohwells.. haha!)
- my mum's, dad's and sisters' birthdays (yes.. all of them have their birthdays in the 3 months that im not in singapore)
- organising and taking part in night cycling organised by some AJC ex-students
- the many x-physique outings (or perhaps you guys don't go out anymore?!)
- ex-classmates gatherings (gossiping and catching up sessions!)

blah blah ... the list goes on and on. Ohwells.. whatever will be shall be, i love lifeguarding in KD too! Although this week is a rather boring week with only a few of us internationals working. Bahh.. so many of them went to NewYork, Florida and Las Vegas! Jianwei has ended work too, guess we won't see him around anymore. :( Okays, on to updates, last wk's days off, i went to Potomac Mills on wed, Virginia Beach on thurs and Washington on Fri. All of them were really fun trips though i was really tired after those 3 days, weird that we tire ourselves out even more during our days off. =X Anyways, the photos were fabulous! Muahaha, check them out on facebook and i will load them here soon! (:

love,
yiyu (:

went there today... went to the holocaust musuem... to get the tix first. a it sad we made it our last stop and had too little time for it... it was like one of my priorities,,,, then we went to national museum of natural history first... saw all the dinosaur bones/fossil and stuff... but think they are not real... cos they all put in bracket cast... then tried to take pic but a bit dark... then got insects, bones, gems & crystals.... blah.. a lot of different section lar... but no time to walk ard much...

oh ya... we drove there... Chris drove... then we got a bit lost... the GPS was a little complicated....

then we went to the air and space museum... then also no time... walk a bit.. look at stars, moon, apollo....

went to visit the US capitol and the White House, and drove past pentagon.... lincon memorial, WWII memorial... couldn't find the iwo jima memorial though...

took some pic with the washington memorial? too bad we din go near it to take a closer look... tight schedule...

dinner was at Chinatown... some Chinese restaurant that served lousy food...

soooo tired... tml got in-service... the one i missed on thur cos was waiting for Huili... then omg... dun remind me of the disappointment...

anyway overall a very rush trip... din get to see much things... like take my time and understand and read... sad...

white hse was mini lor... cannot go near... so we were really far away... at first we still tot the capitol was the white hse.. then so gan dong...

oh... we went to take pic of this castle also...

and the congress library... that place... wow... the decor... and the books... kept in specific temp and humidity... then got digital books that u use touch screen the flip the pages... like the first bible, and the independence stuff...

too tired now... wil give a more detailed entry soon....

I didnt expect myself to blog today but something really nice happened today that made me want to mention this...
Today, there were too many people on duty at both zoom flume and splash-house so they decided to send some people back home.
Well luckily there were 4 other ppl from my team who were sent back too. We hitched a ride from both our supervisor and another fellow colleague (thankfully they both agreed to fetch us--so nice of them:) and we went to Ashland to have chinese buffet which was really worth the money--6.50 bucks including taxes. Gosh and i really couldnt stop eating.
After that we had a choice of taking the restaurant's ride service back to Kings Dominion for 20 bucks but we rejected them as we didnt really want to spend the money on transport so we tried to hitch a ride by standing at the road side. I think there were almost 50 cars that passed by us and nobody stopped to help. Finally when we were almost on the verge of giving up, this couple approached us at the carpark and offered to give us a lift back to Kings Dominion. This really was a delightful surprise as never would i expect that somebody will offer help at their own accord. 3 of them went ahead on the ride while 2 of us stayed back to find another person who could help..None agreed perhaps because Kings Dominion was in the opposite direction from where most people were heading. 
Subsequently, both of us saw a lady in ride operator uniform and we intended to wait outside the carpark till she finishes with her grocery shopping before trying to hitch a ride from her. But she took a really long time and suddenly a car stopped in front of us. The couple who previously gave my other 3 friends a lift actually came back to offer us a ride!!!! OMG can you believe it!!! Such a kind gesture is really hard to find nowadays seriously. Apparently, the lady is a teacher teaching internationals english and an active member of a church who is frequently involved in helping others, and they were on their way to help an old lady before they helped us. We tried to offer them tickets to Kings Dominion which is the only thing that we could give, but they kindly declined as they said that they hav been to KD too many times. They made me realise that helping others should come from the heart and not for something in return. 

I know that its impossible for them to read this entry but i would still like to express my most sincerest gratitude to them for being such nice and kind souls

Yepp, finally, a day-off for tomorrow! soo.. decided to blog tonight and update some photos. I was just looking at all the photos taken so far and i must admit, they all look really nice! haha, so i must upload some here n actually, alot of my photos are in facebook, uploaded by chris and cherie (they're my teammates from DOLPHINS!)
Hmm.. last thurday's off i went to potomac mills, and i'm going back there again tomorrow! The other time I just browsed through real quick, guess I'm gonna buy more stuff when i go down tomorrow. hmm.. photos of that trip:

road map of virginia and interstate 95                                     my newly-bought slippers!! (: [aeropostale]

before.......                                           and after!


jian wei, jialin, me + car we rented for the day                   inside the car (:

We headed down to Short Pump's Cheesecake Factory all thanks to Chris S. after work last week. HAHA! food was really good, the cheesecakes were really delicious and the portions were big! 5 of us ordered 2 main courses and 2 cheesecakes. Below: me, Chris S., jialin, huili and the photog Charles

even the menu is nice                                                      chicken something + mashed potatoes

Being clever as always, i bring a camera to work everyday, so that we could start snapping away at any opportunity we have. (: hahaha! sooo... random photos of DOLPHINS and what we do during work.

Dolphins but with a few ppl missing                                   me guarding the water (scanning the water!)

cherie and vincent                                                          yepp.. visor, whistle n rescue tube
kelvin n chris right on top      posing randomly (huili, me n charles)       KD's eiffel tower + moon

At times, being lazy, we will just settle our dinners at nearby eateries like Good Taste, Little Caesars etc. Next, our favourite thing: GOSSIP!! and then, pack up and sleep. Pictures as proof.

today i went to work extra hrs at merchandise... first time at a diff dept... then omg... its sooooo boring can.... stand whole day... really.... and i got the keys to the changing room lar, (dunno why they must lock their changing rooms...) then when pple need i help them open the door lor... other times just talk to the cashier (cos the changing rooms are nxt to the cashier) or just stone lor

whole day just stand and stone... still tiring lar... cos stand mah... remind me of mini toons time... anyway.... its in the shade...so good lar... relaxing day for me... its my off day anyway... but went back to work... $$$ no enuf leh... i scared lar... most likely impossible to cover the trip fully... but i want to at least get back a bit....

anyway... did i mention i got called up for the random drug test one of the last few days... then i wanted to slack and take my time to walk to the first aid place...but liang xin guo bu qu... so i walked very fast there... only to find out i need my id.... so walk all the way back (long walk can....) then walk to 1st aid again... then so tiring alr... cos before that doing beach guard... after the test go back and do barefoot... walk even more... one of the lousier days that i must comment on...

oh... it father's day... so... HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!! i noe u got read lor... so hopefully u read this also... theoretically its no longer father'sday in spore... but u also not in spore... and here its still 15th june... so its ok.... I LOVE YOU K!!!! normally too paiseh to say out loud... hahaha.... in case mummy also got read... which i highly doubt... I LOVE YOU TOO!!! nv say doesn't mean i dun love u all... hahaha..... MUACKS!!!