spring forward
mood: lazy
i've been a bad girl. Nope, i'm not gonna confess my deep, dark secrets. It's just that i haven't been blogging. boring right? Well, this inertia that i've been feeling has been affecting other aspects of life as well. I haven't done any work the past 3 days..*sighz* Today was yet another wake-up-late and chill-on-my-bed day. Highlights? Cooking lunch, cooking dinner and er..checking email. Also, eating really sweet mango, drinking a yummy cup of hot chocolate lovingly prepared by Yoekie, and melt-in-your-mouth-delicious egg tart from faith. mmmm...u must be training to be a good housewife rite? =) sadly, i am no where to be seen enthusiastically taking up pots and pans and indulging in domestic homey affairs. hey, c'mon...why can't he do all that?
Almost forgot about daylight savings today. Woke up and my computer cheerily reminded me of the time. How could it, when a whole hour has been stolen from a precious sunday? *grumble* So instead of 11am, i woke up at 12pm. which officially makes me a pig (poor misunderstood creatures). oh well, at least i like pigs. It was so weird looking out to a bluish sky at 8pm...it will take a little getting used to. Now the time difference between here and singapore is only 15 hours. So my mornings aren't your late nights anymore...no excuses liaoz.. *grinz* i wouldn't mind more wake-up calls.
Yesterday was Rob's birthday. A special day for a special person. The skies cleared for the first time in days....leaving clear blue skies and balmy breezes...a perfect day for paintball. Yep, glad we tried paintball. It was....interesting. Certainly not as great as i thought it would be, but nevertheless, an enjoyable experience. It was a day where the girls finally got to fire 'real' guns with live human targets to aim at (and 'ammo' to boot). I sucked, but in between hiding behind metal cylinders and inflatable shapes, and mis-aiming at the enemies, i strangely enjoyed rolling in the dirt. (okay, no more pig analogies please) Yesh, and washing up involved some water splishplashing...that was fun. If there's one thing i didn't like, it was getting hit by paintballs. OUCH. they hurt man. luckily, i was really hit by only two paintballs...my gun got most of it...but the one that got my arm left a large bowl-shaped (yes, BOWL-shaped) bruise while the others had roundish red welts. the bruise looks so interesting that i took three pictures of it. It's my first paintball battle scar. Ask me, and i might show it to u. =P I suppose it would have been much more fun if the game involved just us. The others were somewhat expert (or they just seemed so) with shinier, cheemer guns with sights and were mostly semi-automatic. no wonder we were trashed! nah..think we need more practice. One day a larger group of us should go down and reserve the entire field. I'll most probably go again. (And definitely...if the hits didn't sting so) Had a nice post-paintballing meal of dim sum in oakland...it's always nice to eat that in a bigger group..then can try manymany things. finally cut rob's bday cake...and smashed some cream in his face. (bleah, u deserve that rob, for alwez 'zipping' me.)
But that was not the end of our adventure. We chanced upon the Berkeley flea market on the way home, and walked into a treasure trove of african, mongolian and other ethnic goodies. I love flea markets, night markets and the like. i must admit i'm cheapskate...but it's also the thrill of stumbling across non-massproduced treasures and trinkets. I left with a lovely dreamy skirt, and some books. After much deliberation I bought The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. To me it was a magical tale of omens, dreams and hopes woven together and shaped by destiny.

"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?
Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."

It was a wonderful read. but by buying the book, i am afraid that it will no longer seem so special ...and by rereading take away some of its magic. i'll only find out when i get down to reading it again.
Finally, to top off an exceptional saturday, we drove past an extraordinary garden with multitudes of multicoloured tulips....it was a garden right out from a picture book. Yoek n i hopped out of the car and snapped manymany happy pictures. Poor hk had to put up with our estatic squeals and sudden photo-posing frenzy. It was great. Totally spontaneous and totally a surprise, which made it a thousand times better. Makes one wonder about life, and the simple pleasures it holds. sometimes, the greatest treasures are found in the most unlikely places, aren't they?