The flowers are in full bloom and i'm a year older!

:-) well technically, i've already been inching towards been a year older for a long time dee, it's just that that day was the treshold.

for my birthday, i wanted to go to Howth for a day trip on the first day of our holidays, but that was shortlived cause of the transport constraints and everyone having veery varied schedules. but my friends made me very happy. the night before, nal, sham, sharon, lorraine, xin-yi, alex, kenneth, wanjean, junmay, darvin and han (gosh i so hope im not forgetting anyone...) surprised me with a cheesecake, and the world's most beautiful hamper, as far as i'm concerned! it was a potpourri of body butter, face mask, soap, the works, just the kinda stuff i love to pamper myself with! truly amazing, and they really know what i like! (love you all!!!). then on my birthday,i went shopping with laysan and lorraine, malcolm and nabil before i was supposed to meet the rest for a picnic in the park, but that wasn't to be. so we ended up at my favourite restaurant at the top of Stephen's Green Mall, facing the park. i really feel like i'm on top of the world there, or even in a little part of heaven that God left to dangle near earth. hehe i've seen beautiful twin rainbows, my Mummy's been there with me, have had lovely conversations to keep there too! and this time, i had the ppl close to me there. even shirley came all the way. eugene and abhi turned up and i have got to say that means a lot to me... sharon, kahlay and victor were headed to galway but they turned up still (i'm realy so touched!). and wanjean and junmay came after their cardsigning. the rest took time off from their busy lives to share the joy of my ageing with me! :-) then later, a few of us strolled in the park. even thinking about it now, a smile curves on my lips! Mummy and Godma's parcel arrived that evening too! LaySan gave me the sweetest choker. i wore it in this pic... :-)

then, on the 10th, we flew to amsterdam! there were 11 of us RCSI-ians in the plane i think. :-) that was nice, felt like almost our own personal shuttle plane! :-) we did so many things in the three days we were there, i think i'll just bullet them all...
Day One
a. we got lost trying to find the hostel, and walked waaaaaay further than we needed to. but we found it. a cosy little thing too, and we explored amsterdam Rokin without realising it.
b. we met up with terry and limy and took a canal cruise
c. visited the much talked about Sex Museum! hehehe (it was exaggerated that it wasnt erotic, just quite funny)
d. dinner, then the Red Light District (no photos allowed i think) we went into this one shop and the guy guessed that we were Malaysians, and he actually said that Malaysian girls are horny , then he made up for that comment by saying we were hot also la (though probably a gimmick to con us into buying his T-shirts!)
e. Torture Museum (i had to control myself from running out of there. the place made me very very uncomfortable, to say the least...

Day Two
a. tourist info centre in the Central Station. hehe
b. Rijkmuseum (pronounced Rex) (quite lovely Rembrant paintings and stuff we learnt about the Dutch and Indonesia and VOC in our history books!
c. Heineken Factory


d. Rushed like mad back to the Museumplein for our tour to the Cheese Factory, Volendam (and some fishing village, unless they're both the same... hehe). Limy did a very good job of stalling the bus and we're so very sorry! the cheeses were amazing! i fell in love with cheese again! the smoked one was nice, but not half as nice as the herbs and garlic. oooooohhhh
e. we were truly beat at the end that we had dinner in a Greek restaurant and headed back to our hostel, where we yakked and gossipped and yakked some more for about 3 hours! :-)

Day Three
a. Albert Cuypstraat market (lovely lovely tea, Asian stuff like pounder, spices etc, fish galore, flowers - all kinda like our Pasar Malam only the weather's nice and cool)
b. Anne Frank's House
---->HIGHLIGHT: we saw a Prince William look-a-like, though he was quite short. took two photos of him too! :-)

c. Keukenhof!!! -a truly Dutch experience. kinda like the epitome of Amsterdam!









d. we breezed through Van Gogh Museum, where Nal almost got caught taking a photo of one of his masterpieces, but the guard actually let her take, though he asked to wait for him to walk away first...
e. headed home...

Easter's here. i really really wish i was at home. we used to get dinner, then get ready then head to church, chop place early, then get our candles, then the light would go off, and the Easter candle will be lit, then the altar servers would take the flame on their own candles, then pass it to the rest.. and the whole church would be swept in candle light.. sigh... then the bells would toil and ring loud and gleefully... easter vigil in st teresa's was nice too.. the choir was amazing with a violin and dunno what other instruments... but it still wasn't home...
Happy Easter, everyone!!

Spring is here!!!

Today's my Daddy's birthday. I know almost every child would gush and say that their Dad is the best in the world, but i really really am proud of my dad. Daddy loves us way more than we could even begin to learn to love him. He gives us anything we ask for, i don't remember my Dad ever saying No, but i feel and hope that that has made me wary about what i ask for! :-) At the back of my mind, i think my Dad must have tuang-ed the parenting classes where they taught Dads how to discipline their kids! hehe Daddy scolds us occasionally but only when Mummy feels we did something wrong. hehe
A little history----> JS Khong was born on the 2nd of April 1953 to my grandparents(hehe forgot their names). the 4th child of 7 and the third son. He went off to Setapak High School in KL as one of my grandfather's friends saw that my dad had potential and was excelling at school. There, my dad was the ultimate guy la i think. hehe he was good looking, very intelligent and he was an athlete too!(state level football, basketball, badmindton even foosball in college!). There are certain moments in my dad's life like when he scored a perfect score in his Aeronautical engineering class in uni, solving questions his seniors had problems with, his scholarship, being offered a place on the spot when he was invited to view the Masters program by a judge on the panel he had to face for his first class honours. that my dad had impressed. Then my dad joined the air force to fulfil the clause of his scholarship, and met my mom.. hehe then they had me!!! My dad doted on me, there are albums-load of pics of my dad and i. When he started getting busier at work, i remember waiting for him to return from work so we could all go for a bicycle ride in the park, then hanging on the grill waiting for my dad to return from an overseas trip, i also remember following my dad to work once when he had to go on a saturday (hehe daddy actually let me sit in the cockpit of an air force aircraft, then i remember seeing aeroplanes without their coats of paint the raw kind, then playing the fool with daddy's many chairs in his adjoining meeting room), i remember my dad getting mad when we joining this modelling competition back in standard four, hehe it was till district level i think. hehe one thing i really admire in my dad is his persistance, he has been driving for one hour each way everyday o Subang for the past 21 years! Daddy used to drive me to college too in the 4th semester of INTEC. But i think Daddy skipped the class on how to scare daughters' boyfriends away too. hehe As i see the weathered lines on my Daddy's face and think of everything he's been through for our sakes, i really hope he can retire comfortably as he deserves that much! and i really really hope i can make him proud. i love you Daddy!
okay. hehe recap of the week!
i. Spring is here. on my daily walk into Beaumont Hospital from the bus stop, i noticed that the sidewalks are actually infested with worms, flattened some half-alive wriggling worms!!!! hehe yuck they're really disgusting and scary... but the spring flowers are out... :-) the sun stays out longer there are so many reasons to smile these days... :-)

ii. i was reading SIdney Sheldon's "Nothing Lasts Forever" and it's been ages since i was that engrossed in a book! it's amazing. but a thought occurred to me. it's really difficult to apply PBL or self directed learning in uni esp if the student is an avid reader. in books everything we need to know abt the story is handed to us on a silver platter. if there's a detail essential to the ending of the story, it'll be there. any questions u have is answered (if not, the book would just be dismissed as not being good!) and the questions themselves are 'wormed' (hehe) into our line of thought! can they really blame students for being used to spoon feeding???

iii. i went to the library in Ilac Centre in Dublin One. wow... hehe i've been searching for Mills and Boon novels (hehe if u can call trashy stories like that 'novels'!) high and low in dublin, even resorting to ordering online (but the transaction never went through!) and there were MnB books in the library!! hehe two whole shelves too! hehe add that on to the nice nice Dublin weather, im motivated to join!

One week to go to our spring holidays!!!