If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And–which is more–you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling



saw this on a GP teacher's blog. haha. as i read and researched on "education", i realised how much i've been missing out on. i think mr kan has done a perfect job in killing everyone's interest in GP. what happened to engaging a class in discussion? or helping us realise how useful/important GP can be in our lives? i daresay even more use than maybe Math or Chemistry. note; by engaging, i don't mean the mere effort of pronouncing someone's name correctly and then expecting an answer from him. i would love to be able to give him some credit by saying, "look, he's tried to engage us by using technology.. a movie or a podcast", or "he tried to make a GP topic look not-too-dry by linking it to our daily life and interests"... unfortunately i can't seem to dredge up any memories of saving grace for Mr Kan. any contributions, dearest classmates? it seems like he teaches GP purely like an examination subject. what happened to the joys of reading and discovering different opinions (eg. in news comments)? or the satisfaction of analysing a text and exposing its "implicit messages" successfully? how about stressing the importance of evaluating an argument, or the rationale of looking at two sides of a coin when dealing with any issue (not only when writing your development paragraphs, hell no)? sigh. granted, no teacher is perfect, and many tutors don't seem to be able to do all the above-mentioned anyway. but i wish i had someone more competent engaging than him. it seems like the World Wide Web has become a better educator for me today.

i'm truly sorry for slamming my GP tutor. its just general dissatisfaction building up over the past 18months and boiling over. OH HOW I'VE WASTED MY 18MONTHS DURING GP LESSONS LEARNING NOTHING!!

hmm.. this post is long overdue.. haha. decided i should wrap up and move on with life. hopefully i'll finally get down to doing my work instead of thinking about things. haha.

okay so on the last day! i woke up really late, 1030 in fact. had late breakfast, went to buy indian snacks with aunt lina, then went to cream centre for lunch with aunt parul and pook's mum. then went to meet rayhan and raghav at mocha. nirvana - strawberry & mint. hahah. then went to raghav's hse. then went home. met leesha on the car home, cos she gave me a lift. thanks!

yup then packed bathed, met aneesha varun jahnavi rea, had dinner. took photos! well then there was this leaving ritual thing where they put a red dot on my forehead. heh. then we left house for the airport! talked to anjali on the phone on the way so even tho we didnt get to meet, at least its like we talked a little. haha. yeah so we parted at the airport.. :( jahnavi was like, "you know its very possible that we may never get to see each other again". becos she may very possibly not b coming to SG. and it really depends on whether i go back to mumbai to find her. oh wells. that made me rather sad. but i dunno, a lot of things can change in 2 years, 5 years. she may become richer. or i become richer. maybe there'll b damn cheap flights to mumbai (like same rates for flights to bangkok or sth). we might even meet on exchange or something. :)

yeap i met this guy called shreyans on the plane. had a gd time talking or maybe listening. haha. learnt a lot of things and felt veryyy young, theres so many things i havent seen in the world, so many things to learn. im reminded to remain teachable and very curious. :) haha.

well so india. what did i take back home from this trip? firstly.. the food experience. haha. the explosion on the palate? sweet sour bitter spicy salty hot cold weird normal nice not nice. flower petals, leaves. everything. haha. it was a welcome change from the usual chinese food, which doesnt emphasise so much on exploiting the wholeee rangeee of subtle tastes that spices give. although i would say i did miss chinese food, when i came back i found myself wishing for a light & soupy bowl of yongtaufoo. haha. oh and also, i love the desserts there, everything seems to be better than singapore's. or else its not found here. basilico and theobroma, i think i wont forget those places. and i'll definitely go back there if i do go back to bombay. :)

& the people! they aren't as anal/rigid/detail-oriented. rather happy-go-lucky? mostly friendly :) and i hardly see any extremely soft-spoken people, seriously. most can be really loud if they want to, if not the "quieter ones" are still expressive to a certain extent. its a loud city. haha. the honking never stops, it took me a few days to get used to it whenever i was on the road. haha. its really different from singapore, the driving is crazy! and the buildings etc aren't as orderly and organised as singapore too. the aircon units arent aligned. the balconies appear at different parts of the building. hardly any building goes beyond 10stories.

wrt cleanliness, i expected bombay to be dirtier. actually its not that bad haha. i think bangkok is far worse. at least i can sort of breathe normally and not feel choked when walking around. although i remember once we were walking out for dinner, and there was sewage all over the road for a good maybe 50metres, it was soo smelly and disgusting! haha.

and, contrary to popular belief, they are not poor. far from it! i think all of my friends there are richer than me. although its true poor people do exist, like those in the slums or the not-so-educated, there are also people on the other end living in India. and they are many in numbers okay. haha. i guess when i tell people "i went to india!" they have this idea that i went to this poor country.. to do missionary work.. build houses, teach english, whatever. please dispel all these incorrect notions. lol. some of them are even smarter than majority of your classmates. hipper, even. like i hv a friend who only shops international, she doesnt wear clothes she can buy from india. lol.

mmm. i cant really think of anything else for the moment. i will post photos soon! but i need to get down to studying, so more stuff after my mids! ciao! :D

hello again! on wednesday.. woke up at 9odd, aunt linna brought me to gateway of india to "sightsee"? and tk pics. went to the taj mahal hotel as well. then went to cotton industries, this place where indian handicrafts etc are sold. bought a few things from there. then we went to basilico (the italian cafe i went to on sunday night) to buy some herbed sandwich bread. to make sandwich for neo and i during afternoon tea break. haha i seriously feel like i eat nonstop here. then we stopped by theobroma for dessert. theobroma - food of the gods. altho it sounds almost like idol worship, the food here is really phenomenal yah. the brownies are like perfect, i wld say even better than the one at takashimaya basement1 brownie shop. the coffee is passable too. and the cake, oh man so yummy. chocolate orange. with cake base soaked in rum. topped with truffle. i know im gonna go back to singapore and search for a similar cake and find that none can match up to theobroma's standards. haha.

well then we went to roman store, this little minimart kinda thing, but it has good stocks. i mean its really kinda international. chinese, japanese (WOW.), indian instant, spices, nuts, etcetc.. haha. oh btw they only have one japanese restaurant in the whole of bombay, in the taj mahal hotel. haha. so i was rather taken aback. but i rmbered jap is all like seafood. majority of the ppl here cant eat it anw. yea so uh after that we kinda headed home. was almost 2pm already! ate my lunch.. by then i was really stuffed with all the gd cake and coffee already. but i cldnt resist the okhra/bhindha with rice.. =p

then chilled and stuff.. waited around.. neo came home at about 3odd. waited for her to finish her work then we went to clothes rack. got my rusty dress and two shirts for bro. then on to twinkle and viva.. got my grandma sth! yeah then.. shoots i suddenly rmbered ive yet to get the magnets!! arghhh. ok then we made our way to swati snacks for south indian! pav bhaji, (soft, buttered bread with tomato/vegetables gravy), sev puri (crackers with tomato "gravy", potato, sev, onions..), pani puri (a crispy, egg-like pastry which u crack and then put in sprouts & chana, then put in 2 kinds of watery sauces), panki (salty pancake eaten with chutney), dosa (thosai, eaten with coconut chutney. YUMS this one was), & ice gola. ice gola was the most special man. its like, crushed ice clumped together onto a stick, then dumped in a cup of syrup. i had the khola khatta syrup, which was purple, had some unknown spices inside, and tasted sweet and a little sour. nvr had anythg like that, haha.

yah so went home! it was already like, almost 10pm. bathed and got ready, talked to neo =) haha then rayhan & his frens came in his car at about 11. there was nikhil, rayhan, raghav, akshay, avisha, jahnavi and i. haha. supposed to go a club called ra, but akshay and i werent allowed in cos we looked underage. so in the end we went to a rather lousy club downstairs and i dont even rmb the name. azziano i think. haha. music was quite ermm... hahaha. but the drink was good. kingfisher beer! i think its supposedly indian beer. haha surprisingly good, i preferred it to tiger even. mm. im starting to talk like the indians. okay then the club closed at 130am. its a ruling there, so then i reached home before 2am. soo.. they said bombay nightlife is actually not that bad. haha. ok i shall believe them. altho i wld say i'd rather club in singapore if im out for fun (like music or whtever). then talked to raghav on the phone til 330am and actually was really tired by then. but i cldnt sleep til like 530!!

then today i woke up at 9am cos i need to leave house by 1015 to go to neomi's school. observed and i saw loadddsss of differences which i wrote down but im too lazy to blog here. the most impt is the participation level in class. no extra brownie points are given if u participate actively, but everyone's just eager to give their answers. and whatever question they have they "buey paiseh" just shoot the teacher. if the class laughs, the person will mayb laugh along or ignore, then continue asking other questions again after tt. amazing lah. haha. and there were moments of chaos, i think a riot cld hav broken out. haha ok that was exaggerated. but seriously there was one time when nearly everyone was arguing with the teacher, and ppl were banging their tables, one guy was standing up and gesticulating and "championing his cause", blablabla.. i was stunned. hahaha. its funny. i love the people here they're so different =)

yeah then had PE. so hot. haha. then came home in the school bus. ancient school bus. & hv been slacking ard ever since becos the cathedral boys said we wld go to mocha but they didnt call me! so i was kinda like ok whatever lah. raghav was still promising and everythg. but this is indians for u. at least, the indians i know. hahaha. plans form and disappear in 2mins.

so now its 7pm and im waiting for dinner to happen then i'll probably go to sleep or sth. oh wells. hahah. tmr's already my last day already.. i really hope i'll spend it well, fruitfully. bah. ok til then.. think my next post will be written in singapore! and how apt it'll be my 100th post. =) marking the end of my indian trip. i find myself wanting to stay on here.. and not leave.. i totally dont look forward to leaving. ive settled so nicely and adapted and all already. sth totally unnerving happened one morning/night. i was lying on bed and thinking of how it feels to lie back in my bed in singapore. and you know sometimes when im not at home and i think abt home, i feel so comfortable and cosy just imagining the feeling of home's beds and covers. but to my.. surprise? home's bed & covers actually felt like a foreign feeling. not familiar and comforting. its like my way of life here has become like natural already. what does this mean? firstly, that my indian hosts have been so hospitable and fantastic. they really are the best hosts i've ever had na. not that i've had many, but still. and probably also that i really like bombay, despite its shortcomings (like scary road conditions, poor transport options). oh wells. i shall leave the reflection to another time.. til then, cya all in singapore!

my 5th day is a tuesday! ok soo. i woke up really early like 8am, to "see neomi off" to school. haha. then i read kiterunner.. all the way til almost 10, stopped for breakfast with uncle nishith. and cont reading til 11. bathed and then aunt lina brought me out to go change money. cos rmb i was only left with S$4 worth of rupees. haha. exchanging money here is a difficult affair man. in singapore, every mall you go to theres a moneychanger. but here you have to go all the way to the business districts, where all the banks are, to get ur money changed. and you'll nd ur passport to carry out the transaction.

yeah then went to the cathedral school to meet the cathedral guys for lunch. reached at like 130 when our arranged meeting time was 12. zomg they waited soooo long. but they were like cool about it. in india.. punctuality's not really a big thing. haha. everybody's perpetually late. seriously. except for school i think, but thats cos they have school buses to fetch them so they have to be on time. yeah then we went to cafe churchill for lunch! nonveg western food! it was yummy cos it was a change from the usual indian spices and stuff. so it was like rich, cheesy, meaty, mushroomy. btw i had thought that mushrooms wld be an impt part of a vegetarian's diet. but aunt lina told me that its a relatively new food item (western/modern too) and not in the traditional cuisine of the indians. so yah, i haven't had mushrooms in the house yet. haha. for awhile i had thought that mushrooms weren't allowed in their diet. (eggs aren't, btw.) so yeah i had chicken at the cafe.

then we went out and walked around.. varun had to go back to school for house meeting i think. proceeded to this place called curio cottage, along colaba road. bought 2 pendants, there were many charms but i haven't started a charm bracelet so i decided not to buy any. even tho i found the concept of creating my very own charm necklace/bracelet then and there really tempting. so yeah we walked ard trying really hard to find rayhan's car and driver. hahaha so funny lah. drivers here have no handphones so we hv to search for the cars. well so we made our way to this corner store selling sugarcane juice. i tried 2 sips cos i didnt dare have too much. um, i'm having diarrhoea now so im wondering if its cos of the sugarcane. hhaha.

well then we finally found the car.. and made our way to moshe's! this italian cafe/restaurant. had gooey chocolate cake and coffee with hints of apple and cinnamon. was really good & unique, cos i havent come across such a concoction in singapore. yet. my battery died somewhere here so i cldnt take any more pics. left the place at around 430-ish, dropped raghav off first and then rayhan dropped me at neo's house, then he had to go back for tuition. had a fun time chilling and talking at moshe's haha.

then i continued devouring kiterunner!! its a reaaallly good book i think. by Khaled Hosseini if i didnt rmb wrongly. like what the reviewers commented. he really has a gift for irony. and you know how sometimes, when writers describe a scene/feelings, they sound so phony or cliched? its so natural for this writer. haha. its good. i think this has been a great holiday thus far.. a rather gd balance between activities like shopping, eating, and passive things like chilling and reading. just that it would have been even better if there was another singaporean here with me. haha. we can go crazy tgt na.

yeah then neo came home from school. she did so well for her papers! congratulations! tho i doubt she'll see this. haha. i think she'll top the class or sth. =) well yeah after she bathed we went to rea's house for dinner! met jahnavi there too! hahah so the 4 of us from SYC reunited. woo. the vivocity gang. hahaha. had sooooooooo much fun talking and laughing and jumping ard. and eating and playing phase 10 and reading someone's inbox. there were like tons of dishes!! paneer, cauliflower (rea pronounces it differently!) special cucumber/zucchini kinda thing, potatoes, roti, fragrant rice, salad, curd... not forgetting the essential dal and roti. hahaha i dont rmb all man. and its like my camera had died so i had to borrow neo's cam to tk photos. so i didnt take everythg. oh wells! oh, aunt parul was there too! =)

yeah then we had to leave at 930 cos they had school tmr. so my day ended there! yup. anw neo's home so i shall blog about today tonight or sth. yup. SEEYA ALL!

WEE!!

i think its my 4th day today! had a relatively late morning (930am). ate super yummy breakfast. baked beans on toast. sounds urgh, but there was tomato, onions, and coriander in it so it tasted yummy. oh plus cheddar cheese sprinkled on it. haha. then kinda chilled and read a book by Francine Pascal. yah i know that author has like tonss of books. read on of them. took a few stupid pics with neo hahahaha. then aunt linna brought me out for indian outfit shopping! bought one at $32 which is like real cheap alr cos everythg i saw that was nice, and which were "acceptable" as indian wedding material, were all like $80odd. haha.

so yeah then i headed back home, it was 145pm and we had lunch tgt. curried potato with cauliflower! as usual there was the mango puree thing, but i forgot whats the name of that. well then i continued chilling as neo did her work.. read my book, the title has "kites" in it im too lazy to check now. bought it at a nearby bookstore called Crossword last night. its a great book i already had goosebumps at the 2nd chapter. haha. yea then rea called! she brought me out at about 4-ish? we went to ClothesRack, bought 3 tops there and blew like 1000rupees (about $40). im spending money like water. uh-oh. not a gd sign na.

then we went to barista! for coffee! the best coffee i've had in mumbai so far! haha hazelnut frappe. it was such a gd time catching up with rea. like "reuniting with a little sister". haha. yea then she dropped me back home cos she needed to go home and prepare for tuition. aunt linna then brought me out again, we went searching for pics for neo's project but i cldnt manage to find any =/ so yea then we went home again, and i sat in the garden for awhile! it was nice, peaceful, serene. haha. time alone. went up for awhile then varun called. start of the night out with the boys! haha.

yea after spending like ten mins trying to decide where to go, we finally started walking to our destination (i forgot the name of the place). i thought it was just round the corner. but we ended up walking for reaaallly long. maybe 25mins. hahaha. but it was a real gd time la, catching up with them and just talking. saw those roadside food stalls too (tho i didnt eat frm them) and veggie stalls and beggars. had a lebanese chicken wrap (NONVEG!!), met simone, another of raghav's best friend, and their schoolmate. =) she's so friendly and warm!! yeah then uh. raghav told me about the beggars and how half of them are actually trying to con you. and you cant tell the difference so dont give them anything anyway. argh it just kinda felt difficult and maybe i felt helpless. yeah then we cabbed to gelato italia for gelato in an indian flavour. lol. and then varun sent me home.

so thats the end of today! i think this was one of the most fruitful days so far. i guess its really better to hang out in small groups and talk to different people at different times. like i got to catch up so much more when alone with rea, or with a small grp of those guys. as compared to like that day at pizzeria when i think i didnt even talk to anyone. haha. not really anyways. yea. so tmr is a new day! hope it'll be great too. take care everyone!

oh and i'm left with S$4 left of rupees. and i owe aunt parul S$20. yes thats hw much i've spent within 4 days. about $370. oh dear.

HELLO!

my 1st day at mumbai just over! the girls (neo and jahnavi) are supposed to wake up at 9, but i woke up at 830, so here i am online. checking email talking to my bro and blogging. haha.

okay! i stayed home most of yesterday cos neo had to do her projects and go for tuition. while i settled in and slept a little. took a lot of pics so far! random pics. haha. didnt take photo of the airport though, cos it was very obvious i was alone and people were looking at me alr. haha. didnt wanna attract more attention.

oh yah. on the plane, i met this nice person (uncle michael). a businessman frm SG! yupp then we talked and i didnt feel so alone in the plane! its like a temp father looking out for my stuff and me (when we were going to immigration). haha. so thank God! and also as i read the cards.. i realised it'll be a real adventure only if i walk it with God. yepp.. haha.

oh and THANK YOU gladwin wanlin cheryl for coming down!! very sweeeet of u all. i rly appreciate it yah. xiexienimen! =) =)

okay so i ate gujarati (guju) food for lunch at neo's house! done by auntie linna! yummmmy. post pics up next time. then just slack ard at home.. and we went pizzeria in the evening! met up with the rest.. there were neomi, jahnavi, rayhan, varun, viraj, raghav! got to eat meat.. haha cos of varun and viraj. but was reaaally full. pizza's okay la. then we went mocha, this coffeeplace nearby. got to try sheesha!! finally. haha. it wasnt as bad as i expected it to be. i.e. i didnt choke and choke and choke. haha. nicee.

yea then it was very late already (11pm?), yeah and neo's mum dont like us to reach home so late. so went home! =D and i had a great time with the Lord! when they were sleeping and i got a room to myself to pray. so thank God for blessing me with His presence =) and thanks all you people for praying for me!

will update again soon! watch this space! =)