the karaoke popo in our neighborhood is singing a new, old song. "chi chi pong pong, chi pong chi pong." it's very funny.

I woke up today with q major head-spin. No idea why, but the whole world was spinning and I started to get quite nauseous. Thought it was vertigo, which my mom used to have. But it wasn't that severe, so I didn't go to the docs. Took some meds after asking mommy for advice and gave in to the drowsy sideeffect for a couple of hours. The nausea is gone now but I feel like I'm floating.

Very nua day.

Mama was admitted to sgh yesterday afternoon for her hip pains and low bp. Dad says she'll be homes
Soon. Oh well.

(friday)

mama cried the whole night. plans for mommy to have her turn at church ruined. :( at 8+am i slumped onto the big bed and fell into some kind of a sleep.

mama's left hip is in pain for some unknown reason. but she's broken a bone there before, so maybe that has something to do with it. because of the pan she's not eating and she's really lethargic. gonna observe her for a bit more before deciding what to do. she hardly ate anything today. :(

i'm drawing again, because a very pleasant mom asked me to draw her kids. time flies when i draw, which is kind of nice.

warning: agnes' bare face displayed below. if you are squeamish, do not view. oh, your eyes darted down. too late i guess.

sad because i came back from a short walk to buy paper with a sudden sore throat! i blame the haze.

the haze plus the construction is giving me a headache.

printed photos on monday, which reminds me!

MONDAY:

timmy's birthday! gerlynn and i had a grand plan to back a cake and stuff but it all fell through due to our misaligned stars. kidding! due to a lack of place to bake. :(

anyway we still carried out the surprise. ger came by around 12 or 12:30 and hid at our corridor, waiting for tim to go downstairs to print pics like he said he wanted to, so that she could rush in and set up the cake and present and stuff. BUT our dear lazy bum didn't wanna go down in the end so i had to sneak her into my room and light the candles there. tim was in his room with headphones on so it wasn't very difficult to smuggle an entire person into the house without him noticing.

i screamed for tim from the dining area, holding the cake, gerlynn behind me. "TIM! COCKROACH! GET THE SPRAY!" my attempt to lure him out of the room. it did not work! he kept shouting back "WHERE! WHERE!" in the end he popped his head out, saw us, scrambled to put a shirt on, and came out to receive his surprise from frazzled us.

we had hor fun for lunch and cut the cake with mama later. and the sneakers we bought timmy fit! oh thank God, cos cannot change already.

gerlynn spent the rest of the day with us. we went on this quest to rent a movie or two but it all went very wrong and we came home empty handed. still, we passed the day somewhat happily at home, with good laughs and cozy meals.

after dinner and another cake cutting with mommy, we walked our guest out and said byebye.

:)

TUESDAY:

after sending mama for dialysis i fled to geil's place for impromptu lunch and play time. had piping hot spaghetti. geil played a game on her comp while i watched the last two episodes of a korean drama.. we split the screen half half, which i found so cute, cos she was doing her thing and i was doing my thing and we were just happily passing the boring afternoon away together. finally got to spend some time with her and hang out at her place like i used to ever so often a few months ago. thanks for allowing me to invade your territory again, alamons!


gerlynn is leaving for genting wednesday night BAWL! have fun there, even though you hafta study. and buy me a little something that screams aggie if you have the time! oh man i'm so thick skinned i'm asking for things.

Hahahahaahahah.

geil posted that...

timmy's birthday in advance! cozy and nice.

i got up early this morning to go down to town and get my braces tightened. i already postponed it a week for my SAT so i didn't really have much of a choice other than the morning slot. wanted to change it to tuesday so that i could go for teens, but it was a bit too last minute. dragged my drowsy pimply self there and got it done. my jaw is going to snap lor, now so tight.

came home for a befitting porridge lunch and sent mama down to wait for my uncle to bring her to dialysis. came back home, changed up (reluctantly cos of the sweltering heat) and left for the PERANAKAN PLAY! -woots- it was at the national library drama center.

okay, i dunno why i'm so on about it. i find it really cute. all the bibiks getting high and funky and bouncing around. the title was "pagar makan padi" which is an idiom meaning someone or something that seems reliable but turns out not to be. the plot was decent yet simple enough for the many 50+ audience members present to understand. the cast was alright, set up was nice, acting was great, and the humor was PERANAKAN! which made it so unique and exclusive and relatable to me and mommy, who thoroughly enjoyed herself btw. but it's a shame i couldn't get any footage or pics cos the ushers were really on guard, out to catch anyone who attempted to do so.

the audience was almost as funny as the play because of the measure of their engrossed state. the bibiks were so into it lor, something funny would happen and they would roar or.. cluck violently with laughter. or an important scene would take place and the whole theater would start muttering about their theories about what would happen next. so cute!

there was even an autograph and phototaking session after the play. they tried haggling me to become a member and appreciate my roots, me being young and all.

anyway, after it ended, my aunt, cousin, mom and i went for tea around the area. cheese fondue! came home around 6 and felt really drowsy, but went downstairs to have dinner with mama and the bunch before wheeling her home from dialysis. what a nice saturday afternoon and evening. :)

daddy has a medical appointment today in the morning so i'm on duty as soon as mama wakes up. (usually daddy helps me with the morning, like breakfast and medicine and all, cos i'm busy catching up on sleep.) last night mama cried until 3am. was frustrated out of my wits thinking about this morning and having to wake up to her cries and settle her food. but thank God it turns out she's decided to sleep in today, which is quite unlike her. she's still snoozing now, hugging her little bolster. the chinese funeral is booming downstairs (grr.) but it worries her none because of her wonderful deafness. :)

but i expect she'll wake up soon. she'll either get hungry or poop. she's already starting to stir.

yesterday gerlynn knew i was stuck at home with granny, so she offered to come over and hang out for a while since she didn't have school too. i was having a really bad morning so she witnessed my puffy cry-eyes and helped me feel all better by serving me mcdonalds apple pie. apple pie is a happy food.

"it's lunch time! how can you not eat?! arent you hungry?!"

"i ate sadness. =("

"aiyoh!"

we came back and watched a movie and talked and then she accompanied me to the hair salon to-- CHOP OFF MY HAIR. yes, i bid my locks farewell on monday. it's not extremely short, but a considerable bunch of hair is gone. gerlynn was patient and kind and waited for a long time. tanks! i have good friends who longsufferingly accompany me at hair salons. geil was with me when i permed my hair last year, whopping 4 hours. should award her a medal for that.

after i got my haircut i walked her to the mrt station and we said our byes. before that we saw tim crossing the road some distance away, coming home from camp. i jumped up and down and waved both hands high in the air while crossing and he completely ignored me and shook his head. gerlynn renounced our friendship too.

mommy's on MC for a bad skin problem until weds, btw.

today i got up and helped mom with mama's dialysis prep. after sending her off, i left for boiling bishan. well, technically the whole of singapore is boiling these days. we were supposed to watch a movie in 3D but the disk or the player was wonky so we gave up and watched the non-3D version. bummer. talked and nua-ed for a while and left very punctually for home, to carry the wheelchair down from the 6th floor when mama came back.

i have just gotten my dose of henry golding's sculpture-like face and charismatic accent. i'm happy. the episode was about melaka so mama paid special attention and continuously gave a commentary on the footage, since it's her hometown. she was delighted to see the peranakan house and the guy in the kebaya, although she didn't know he was a guy. it just occured to me that peranakans have drag queens too. ew.

i'm gonna bathe now. today was nice.

i sat for the SAT yesterday!

sigh.

hoping for average scores.

it was okay. my essay was short and sweet. i only managed to do a two minute outline and fill up one good page in the 25 mins. no idea how people filled up two pages, unless they're really smart or they wrote nonsense. sentence completion was alright, passage based reading was difficult when the passage was very chim, identifying sentence errors was alright, improving paragraphs was alright. maths was another story, i omitted alot of answers.

:(

i couldn't sleep the night before due to hay wire bio clock. slept around 3. woke up at 6, ate alot, and left for AJC. while walking there i saw many many people obviously there for the same reason as me evinced by the fat SAT books they were holding. alot of them had parents accompanying them, the chinese ones were nagging, the ang mo ones were encouraging. what an insight into culture differences.

i went to the staff room and they told me to look at the board for seating arrangements. squeezed through the many foreigners, found my name, and went up to my designated lecture hall. while waiting outside i met a girl named rha. i examined her friendliness level and she seemed really friendly, so i asked her,

"SAT?"

"yeah. is this your first time?" she replied with a bright smile.

"yep. you?"

"yes."

so i made a friend. everyone else was stuffing their faces in their notes and chanting things to themselves, while we chatted away about ourselves and our future schooling plans and how we were the only ones not stuffing and chanting like everyone else and how bad that made us look. rha is from a small town in india and she studies and stays at UWC. smart. she seemed to be the only down-to-earth person there. everyone else was downright dao, they give you the full body check (look from top to bottom then back to top again, you know?) then half roll their eyes and whisper to their whoever. most of them were bigshots with accents, some had their parents carrying their books for them. nice. but i had my rha and all that didn't matter, hahahahaha. thank God for a friend.

the testing was from 8am - 12:40pm. said bye to rha at the mrt station and made some calls, then headed over to j8 to buy lunch and hang out with the ger sisters at their place and unwind. went to town to buy some stuff, and met up with timmy for dinner at astons. by 7 i was pretty zonked out so i decided to go home.

last night i lay awake for hours again. my body was so tired but i just couldn't fall asleep. was so frustrated with this problem of not being able to sleep. got up to drink warm milk and cried cos i knew i'd be too tired to go to church today. feel so dysfunctional. this morning daddy woke me up and my head felt swollen, like it was going to explode, so i just went back to sleep. i feel better now, but my back and neck are still aching and i want to chop off my hair because my head feels so heavy.

THANKS TO GEIL FOR THE MANGOES AND S. GEMMA FOR THE WINTER MELON CAKE AND ISA FOR THE KOREAN NOODLES! tim just delivered them to me. hah. :)

in the midst of mama's craziness last night i really couldn't help but smile at some things she said. she was crying about her itch and draggy life, how she wanted to die and how much she hated mites. so i got up to apply some creams. i rubbed her hands and patted them three times in beat to nothing really. just rub rub rub, pat pat pat to comfort her if possible.

"what are you patting?" she kept asking. but it was dark and she wouldn't see what i said if i said anything so i didn't. i just nodded and patted her again, half asleep.

"are you singing? mama, mama dunno how to sing. mama only know the God song. you know? that one. how.. da.. dada da..." and she started humming silent night holy night again. i found it pretty funny. that was nice.

and she spontaneously blurted out "thank you ah!" while i was walking out.

on monday, i was squatting down and sponging her on my ridiculously low bed. she's weak so she kept leaning forward. i paused and looked at her face so close to mine and made a funny shocked face. she laughed. and suddenly she started saying..

"mama isn't afraid of death, you know? i'm not! what's there to be scared of? when someone's time comes, he has to go. it's like that. when i die put some flowers at my grave can already."

it's a sad bunch of words, but she said it so randomly and lightheartedly right in my face i didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

these past couple of weeks have been somewhat of a roller coaster ride. the past four months lah, but i can only vividly remember the more recent weeks, so.

i know that people are kinda wondering why we're putting ourselves through all this mama drama instead of stuffing her back in a home, or hiring a maid. so i've been trying to be less expressive about it here. but i'll just say, for accuracy's sake since this blog is about me, that i'm really stretched with caring for mama and i'm stressed about the SAT and my uni plans. i'm conflicted within myself everyday because i feel so tied down.

mama is back home, meaning i have to go back to taking care of her day and night. she's back with more meds to take, more creams to apply, and the same old fiery attitude.

it comes to a point where i seem to be a horrible person, because i'm not explicitly saying that i want her to die, but i'm not hoping for her to live long either. she will never be well or get better. when i am stressed to the max i cannot help but openly admit that the end would be relief for both me and mama. it's sad and it's bad, but isn't it true? i know, truths like that are better left unsaid. what a horrible thing to say.

and there goes my attempt to be less expressive. hahah.

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

Psalms 56:8

geil, read about your canceled flight! :( hope you feel better soon, cheering for you and the upcoming zams okay?