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Leileilei | Rants&Updates | OtherStuffs

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About!

CHEONGYILEI
Me, I don't eat (most of) my veggies. I enjoy air-conditioners on humid mornings, ice-creams on cold evenings and sleeping on rainy nights. I'm a dreamer and a kpop lover. I like dark red roses and bright yellow sunflowers, but I hate artificial flowers. I like travelling and daydreaming a lot better than annotating literature texts though I like libraries, bookstores and thick a4-sized notebooks. I think its fun to scribble stuff - words, quotes, pictures, symbols - in my notebooks. I have a tendency of writing notes on foolscap and losing them ): Oh, I think I want to dye my hair red when I grow up. And and and, I think its pretty fun writing this.

Δ Nineteen!

31 March 2015, 00:03

(: Thank you, my family, Cheryl, Sijie, Jingjing, Zining, Ruoyi, JieYing, Dennis, Sam and Beatrix!

No doubt, I do feel a little (ok maybe more than a little) sad at the pathetic number of people who actually remember my birthday but for those who did, thank you so much! It's a little sad, crazy and maybe obsessive to be currently checking your phone for new messages that never came but I guess it teaches me to appreciate those who actually take the effort to remember even more. So... let me write about the happy stuff!

Cheryl and I went out for pizza (yes. again) and we discovered this amazing dip ALT pizza offers. It smelled so delectable when the waitress set it on our table. It is just a bit too oily in my opinion, but the flavours are so good, they just burst in your mouth. Being my wonderful friend, Cheryl bought me this book titled "How to be interesting". Initially, my response was like "whaaaaaat" too but in reality, the book is super hipster with loads of diagrams and not more than 20 words per page on average? Guess what, I love it <3

My family and I went to eat sufood at Raffles City yesterday, which was this vegetarian restaurant. I would not say that the food was spectacular but for it's price, it's really worth it. It was an 8 course set meal and they really tried to make it as good looking (read Instagram-friendly) as they could, not to mention that the friendly staff offered me a complimentary piece of cake with "happy birthday" written with jam on the plate. (: Oh they even gave me a free gift hehe, small things that count towards quality service. I had, on the overall, an enjoyable experience dining there!

Δ Could I have lived my life differently?

23 March 2015, 09:55

"Could I have lived my life differently? ... Maybe yes, but probably not. At each stage I made what was then the best choice. Having taken that decision, I changed direction and there was no turning back."
- Mr Lee Kuan Yew

As the author from mothership.com puts it, love him or hate him, when the man speaks, you sit up and listen. The passing of this great man, filled with his own mix of ideas, principles and visions, signifies a loss for the nation.

As we take the day to remember Mr Lee, I thought it would also be a good time to reflect upon his words and our lives. I heard the quote over the raidio this morning and it spoke to me (although I still love his other quotes as much, for example "If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana." 🍌 on the ban of chewing gums hahahaha). As I write my essays on achievements, failures, so on and so forth, I realised that I had sometimes been overly caught up in the wrong decisions. I regret and regret but I sometimes forget to make something out of that regret. Perhaps I am not as successful as Mr Lee is - I did not always make the best choice, but his quote served as a stark reminder. There is no turning back - that's definitely something for me to learn, stop grumbling and go full steam ahead, wherever it might be that I will head.

(But then again. "You know the Singaporean. He is a hard-working, industrious, rugged individual. Or we would not have made the grade. But let us also recognise that he is a champion grumbler." Teehee. #singaporean)

Oh PS I got into Occidental! (((((: But scholarships... ... ...

Δ ineffable mysteries of the soul

19 March 2015, 23:08

The wind blows
the tree sways
the music plays
the boy smiles

this girl
she strays

from reckless into reckless
from nothingness into nothingness
from tasteless into tasteless
from less into less.

"So you, who are you?"

Δ obviously I haven't got anything done

10 March 2015, 00:02

(source)

Δ That's how a superhero learns to fly

09 March 2015, 22:38

This just happens to be one of the days where I feel so tired because there just seems to not have enough time for myself. There are so many things I want to do because I'm so super anxious to try out new and fun things but there is just absolutely not enough time to do anything. Juggling between internship and tutoring and German classes and watching brainless dramas (speaking of which, I should quit soon) and finding me time, the last seems to always be prioritised last. And now there are university and scholarship applications which are a great headache because I don't seem to be particularly talented in anything and because I can't seem to churn out anything sensible. I have come to realise that I do like writing, probably thanks to this blog. I like to write about things in life, what I see and what I think of them. Scribbling my thoughts down like this makes me feel a lot more at ease and it helps me think better, but I guess this lousy kind of writing can only be appreciated by yours truly.

Aiya I don't know what I'm writing, just rambling on and on. ~~The metal underlining in this bra is annoying the logic out of my brains. Bless whoever made wire-free ones.~~

Anyway, I was out during the weekends for university shopping, more commonly known as open house. On Saturday afternoon, Zining and I went to NTU. Truthfully there isn't a major thing that is appealing to me because I cannot take computing or any engineering with them because I don't have out lovely O level Physics. I am still interested in taking up business or social sciences with them but I am really considering taking a double degree? Anyway, we managed to get back to Jurong East MRT in time for the last shuttle bus to SUTD. Impression? I love it. I felt like Hiro Hamada when he stepped into the Robotics Lab at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. There's really a lot of emphasis on technology and it makes my inner geek really proud. I really would like going there but then again, the fees are expensive and I'm not sure they would like to take me in.

On Sunday, I went to SMU where I met Jie Ying, applied for a new bank account and spent half an hour choosing a card design and got a month free of Spotify Premium. I guess Law definitely appeals to me at SMU but you know, my results... So I don't really know what to think about that. Then we met up with Zining and went for lunch together and went to hangout at Starbucks United Square to do our essays. And I'm not even near done so bye I'm going to do them now,

Δ More than just A levels

03 March 2015, 22:22

So yes A level results were released yesterday and my results were really unexpected. On the bright side, I bagged a grand total of 6 As out of the 7 subjects offered. On the not-so-bright side, I got a C in GP. There goes my perfect UAS score.

When I first saw my result slip, I thought to myself "What. This is such a bad joke." I simply couldn't bring myself to believe that I had improved so much for subjects like chemistry and biology where I was constantly a member of remedial class and yet I did so badly for a subject I put so much effort in.

But after all that drama, I am immensely grateful for my results. My results would put me in a good postition to apply for so many university courses. Even though I had thought I couldn't apply for law because of my GP results, but then I found out that SAT Critical Reading scores could be used. So that means I pretty much qualify for everything except Engineering!

In retrospect, A levels are only that important. It is just one milestone. What matters more about it is the process, the hardwork that everyone put in to achieve their dreams. I just want to end this post off with a quote by Tracee Ellis Ross that I saw on instagram which my friend's friend wrote for him and which aptly summerises this entaglement of different emotions in me at the thought of my A level experience, "I am learning everyday to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me."