Blogging

In case some of you do not know, this isn't my first blog. I've tried blogging for 6 years but let's face it, my life isn't interesting enough to blog about. I would say my English isn't THAT bad. Is okay lah hoh. But then, the way I voice out my thoughts...abit kang ko. As in like, unless I'm ranting about something or someone I don't like, my sentences come out messy. One minute I could be talking about how to bake a pie and the next, I'll be talking about the dog I used to have. And you would continue reading on, thinking that somewhere in the story, both the pie and dog will somehow interconnect. Not in a creepy kind of way where I kill my dog and substitute vanilla essence with dog blood. But you know, maybe when I was a child...my father brought home apple pie for my birthday, and he told me he had a bigger surprise waiting for me in the car. Then he opens the door and the cutest little puppy jumps out and smashes the pie with it's tiny paws AWW <3 Right? It's supposed to connect somehow. BUT NO. HAHA. If you know me personally, and if we chat regularly, you would know I lack focus. Unless I'm super in to you or the topic on hand, I would just jump off topic in a second. And sometimes when I get bored of a certain topic, my mind blocks off the words and it's fine thru text because you can always go back and read it to understand. But when you're talking on the phone and you shut out the words entering your ears, you can't do anything about the stuff you missed. You can always use the 'signal not good' card. Or the 'aiya why you speak so soft' card. But at the end of the day, you will also paiseh ask them to repeat. So you just say okay, or laugh, or try to guess what it was that they said and respond appropriately. Don't like they say their fish die then you laugh. 1. They unfriend you. 2. The think you sot.
Okay see how I can go off topic. I started with messy sentences and ended with sot.
BUT SEE that's not why I started this post.

The whole point to this, minus the lenghty intro, is to say how much I envy bloggers. Bloggers who can actually write long posts of somethings and not nothings. I understand that in other countries, blogging brings in an income. Either from advertising products, or reviewing products. Most of these include clothing, cosmetics, and the occasional food bloggers.

Problem numero uno: I do not have the body of a model. Therefore, I can never be a fashion blogger.
Problemo numero dos: It wasn't until recently, at 18 years old, that I owned my first lip thingy. SEE I don't even know what it's called. And ofcourse I didn't buy it myself. It's sort of like a lip gloss thingy....that isn't  glossy nor sticky. Lip liquid? Lipquid. I don't know. Point proven that I also cannot do cosmetic advertising/reviewing.
 And problem number 3. I have no $$ to go around feasting and reviewing food. I know when you're established some companies don't charge you. But to venture into food blogging, you need a capital. Eating is easy. I can do it with my eyes closed. Anyone can haha. But I'm fat enough. And seeing as how I'm too lazy to exercise, it isn't wise to go into that. And honestly, if I was asked to describe the taste of the dish, my answer would be, but not limited to, "AH VERY NICE!"

I have friends. Not really friends. Just people I know, who are fashion bloggers. The concept of their blogs are fancy yet simple, their pictures well thought out and well photographed, the blog entries written with such divine English. And I think to myself, I can never be them. Not now not ever. And so, to all you bloggers out there who actually talk about useful stuff with good usage of language (as in not so cin cai like me), you deserve praise. Come I clap. You good.


-Jia Ying

An end to February

Hello Hello~
My back has been aching since this morning, and so with a back massager squished between me and the sofa, I shall type up this post.

Last December during my 2 weeks in Singapore, I went on a book haul. And of the 20 books I brought back, I've only completed 1 book. Last week. As in, for the whole of January and most of February, I didn't finish one book at all haha. I am ashamed :') That book was Love Letters To The Dead (photo creds to Google Images)

So I'm not one for reviewing. I can never find the words to express what I feel about a particular thing. So I'm not going to review it. What I can do is say it's a nice book. Now my nice isn't typically the same as other people's nice. But it's nice. I like the whole writing to the dead and incorporating music people into it thing. So yea. It's nice.
And currently I'm halfway through To All The Boys I've Loved Before.

I'm rotting my life away and as February comes to a close, I have yet decided on a university. I swear I wish I wasn't so indecisive. It's painful.

// March has begun and I 'reunited' with an old friend. He's on a business trip right now. Which makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. There he is, 18 years old with a job, travelling with colleagues. And I'm here, almost 18, typing up a blog post that nobody but me reads. My daily routine has become: Wake up, eat, watch tv, youtube, read, text, sleep. #firstworldproblems
Well recently, I've started watching Dee Kosh who starts off every video saying he is Singapore's most annoying person? and something about eyebrows...and a fake accent. hahaha. He's funny I like him. (if you think I was going to comment more on that, no. Remember my bad reviewing skills? I think this is why I'm terrible at EAS)

Last night, my cousin celebrated her 18th birthday. There were lots of people and everybody was trying to squeeze into the picture. In the end, she had to split us into groups. It was a nice evening haha. And that's really all I have to say.. Love you lots and happy 18th <3

Singapore Mini Diary

Day 2:
"Custard bread kinda salty and sweet at the same time." 
The story behind this is that my cousins are owls. They stay up thru the night and sleep at 6/7 am. So being a morning person and not a night person, I normally go to bed early and wake up early too. On Day 2, I found out my 12 year old cousin hasn't gone to sleep yet. So I got him to go downstairs with me. (Below their flat are alot of small shops, and there's a mini foodcourt within a 3 minute walk). And that's where we bought bread for breakfast.

"I'm reading but it's getting so hard to breathe with a blocked nose. It's a good book and I don't wanna leave. But well...     Yay! Borrowed the book!"
Story: So after breakfast, I bugged my cousin to take me somewhere. And so we went to the library <3 HAHA I love libraries. I was sick at the time too hence the blocked nose. I was reading a book called The Secret Seven. It's nice. It's more of a 13-14 year old type of book but it's good. I read the first chapter and didn't want to put it down. But the 15 year old FINALLY woke up (this was around 3pm?)  and told us to get home. So I asked my cousin if he has a member card (all Singaporean students do apparently) and so I borrowed the book.

"Bought huge fried chicken for my cousin. It tasted nice not bad. I had some fried sweet potatoes but the person working there put in alot of sour plum powder and it made the sweet potato sweet and salty and sour and it was so weird. When we reached home, I got myself a cup of hot water and dipped all the sweet potato into it to get rid of the powder. The water looked utterly disgusting but the sweet potato tasted more sweet potato-ey! YAY"
Note: I don't particularly enjoy sour food.

"We left the house again at 4.10 when we were supposed to leave at 4.05 (wasn't my fault I swear). Needless to say we missed the bus. Now we're at Kallang..something Mall? I don't know. (I still don't know what it' called) But I just had an Ice Blended Caffe Mocha from Starbucks and is currently standing outside 7-11 waiting for my cousin's friends to finish eating (because of my fear of dirt and all things dirty, I refused to sit down). The show started around 7.45 ish. So far so good. The song choices are good. Right now there's an intermission so I'm on bag guarding duty because everyone else wants to 'pee'. I think for the first half, the dance that got the rowdiest response was the one where 11 little children dressed in animal onesies danced to Sistar's Shake It. Cuteness. Overload. And I guess everyone loved the female cover version of EXO's Call Me Baby because..well..EXO. I'm actually pretty sleepy right now...I should've drank some strong coffee instead of Mocha just now. Because my cousin's friend wanted to wait for her boyfriend who took FOREVER, we got on the MRT a little past 11pm. I'm so beat and cranky. Help."
 That's all I wrote for Day 2. I was too tired to continue that night. HAHA. And I'm too lazy now to elaborate further.


Day 3:
"Market in the morning. Raining again. Helped prepare lunch. Steamboat. So full. JCube in the evening. Rode the 4D rollercoaster. Had some WTF."
JCube is a mall. And it is absolutely amazing how Singapore is slightly larger than Brunei-Muara district yet it seems as big as the whole of Brunei. Every station has atleast one shopping mall, all of which are WAY larger than our Mall in Gadong. And, WTF stands for What The Fries. It was my first time hearing of such a thing and I found it awfully cute so I bought some Wasabi Fries haha.


Day 4:
"Reading. Cousin FINALLY woke up at 3pm. Then she spilled a wok of oil all over the kitchen/laundry area D: and I had to clean it up. She's been skyping with her friends and she talks so loud and her laugh is so obnoxious. Helped prepare dinner and then made some maki rolls for supper. As usual, cousins are gaming. Loud af. Can't even sleep."
I guess it's pretty obvious at this point that I totally hate them.


Day 5:
"Went to Kinokuniya. Bought some books but I'm not done. Then had Pepper Lunch for the first time. It's not bad. Went to the arcade in Ang Mo Kio Hub. It's actually kinda fun. I mean I'm not an arcade person but it was...okay? It definitely has better machines than the ones back home. Oh and while in the arcade, the fire alarm rang and the intercom person was telling everyone to be calm and evacuate the building. No one did. We didn't see a fire too."


Day 6:
"Followed my cousin and her friends around all day. I am officially a dog. Like a stray dog that everyone ignores. I paid over $20 to eat at a buffet place but I only got to stay there for like 15 minutes because the little b*tch kept rushing me to hurry up. tefuq woman. I swear if i get an opportunity to save her, I wouldn't. Her friend treated her to a movie in Vivocity and ofcourse, I got dragged along. Self-funded. But the movie was good so I didn't mind so much after that. Then her friend dragged us across the Sentosa Boardwalk. It's real pretty at night."


Day 7:
"Stay at home day. Totally exhausted from yesterday. Ordered the Red Hot Chicken from KFC. It's not bad. The sauce was what killed my tongue."


Day 8:
"Universal Studios. The last time I was here, I didn't ride anything because I was a very strange emo self-absorbed kid who didn't like people. I still don't like people, but I've grown to like amusement parks. In every line I waited, there was bound to be a couple in line nearby. Excruciating."


Day 9:
"Jurong Regional Library and Singapore Science Centre. Yes. Good. I like. Monsters of the Sea was kind of boring. Just lots of photo taking. Jurassic World was playing in the theatre but I've already seen in twice. Went shopping with aunt and cousin at night. Bought some clothes for myself...and I had to buy the clothes my cousin bought coz she couldn't fit in to them. i.e. kinda too big for me. But I had to be nice."


Day 10:
"Went to the beach today. Cousin tried teaching me how to ride a bike. yes i don't know how...I am ashamed. I gave up halfway." 


Day 11:
"Shopping <3"


 AND THAT CONCLUDES THE MINI DIARY SERIES
Day 12 to 16, my parents finally joined me in Singapore. I've never been so happy to see them xD

Note: Day 1-Day 11 was December 11-December 21, 2015

The days that followed (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) I went to...a few places. My parents will never miss a trip to MBS. I also went to Gardens by the Bay. And more shopping...

Update

Okay so, although you probably have not noticed, sometimes I put up a few posts in a day about different events that happened days or weeks ago. The reason is, I am rarely on my laptop. The only reason why I'm on here now is because I have nothing to do in the office (I will talk about that later). I am always on my phone. Anything that can be done on my laptop, I try to find a way to do on my phone. I even found a really cool Blogger App for Android. BUT. (there is always a but) BUT the app sucks. so. bad. It's convenient sure. I can upload pictures directly from my phone and type and save and then continue later. The problem is, the app keeps force closing. As in the "Not Responding" thing that nobody likes. And whatever you've previously typed before will be gone. Worse thing about it is that it happens at random times. I'm not going to click save after each and every word I type. And it doesn't automatically save it for you like the computer version either. So when I was in Singapore last month, I gave up blogging thru my phone and typed it in my notes instead. 'It' being short incomplete sentences which I will edit if I'm rajin enough. If not, I'll just copy and paste the whole thing here without editing. I'll do that maybe in the next few days.

A few things have happened since the last post (which on here is the Bocce post but in life is Singapore: Day 1). I'll list them:

1. Firstly, I started doing an attachment in the beginning of January at an engineering firm because I've applied for a course in Civil Engineering in a couple of overseas universities. I got to learn more about what a civil engineer does. I have to admit, walking in here I had literally no idea what they do or what it is about. I just applied for Civil Engineering because I wasn't interested in other branches of engineering haha. But why so set on engineering? Because...ever since I was a kid, I've never wanted to be a doctor, teacher or lawyer. Being in the entertainment industry is an impossible dream. So i settled for engineering. My last day here will be tomorrow. I've learnt alot and am i regretting my choice? Abit. Am I going to change it? No.

2. I went back to Singapore again last week. With my parents and grandparents this time. We stayed at the newly opened Hotel Boss. It's nice coz it's new HAHA. The MRT station is a few minutes walk away. Nice morning exercise. No road crossing necessary. I mention this because I personally am TERRIBLY PETRIFIED of crossing the road. AND for the first time, I shopped around the single single shops in Chinatown. My mom and I were pleasantly surprised that the clothes there are super pretty. More shopping YAY! Not enough space in luggage YAY! I wonder why we never thought of packing a box home...

3. I found out my A Level results yesterday and I'm super happy. But now here comes the pain of responsibility. Deciding on a university. It doesn't help that I'm a very indecisive person. I've asked two people on their opinion. One didn't give me a firm choice, which is what advice is supposed to be, but in this case a firm choice would be helpful. The other one said go to UK. But there's still the issue of money that I need to think about.. Staying here is definitely not an option haha no offense. When I ask my friends where they want to go, none have said Brunei. But sometimes, Brunei can be their only choice.

4. CNY is coming and the issue of lion dance has come up again. IGNORING DOESN'T MEAN THE PROBLEM GOES AWAY. I typed up a rant on Microsoft Word which I shall keep confidential because I might go to jail if I put it up. My dad will be putting up the decorations when he comes back. Can't wait~

5. The Consumer Fair is back for the 17th time. It happens twice a year at ICC. I remember it being at the Indoor Stadium once but that was a bust. So every one since then has been at ICC. My dad sets up booths there every year so I'm usually there at every fair. It's pretty much the same thing time and time again yet I get super excited when it arrives hahaha. It'll be open to the public until 31st January.

That's all I can think of now. I'll post again when something comes to mind.

Thanks for reading.

~Xin

Volunteering

The volunteers (or those who made it early enough to get their picture taken)

Athletes dancing on stage during Gala Night ❤ much cuties

All the winners and volunteers on the final day

So from December 3rd-6th, I was involved in the 5th Special Olympics Brunei Darussalam(SOBD) Asia Pacific Bocce Tournament. It was really fun and eye opening for me and I got to learn alot. Moreover, the organisers were so nice. They gave us lunch and bottled water everyday and even buns for tea time. I mean, if I ever organised a  volunteering activity, I would never be that nice HAHA. If I'm not mistaken, there were 5 participating countries (today is January 29,2016) which were: Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Brunei. Everyone won a medal at the end of the day and the looks on their faces...I mean just <3 Seeing their faces as they receive their medals and bask in the flashing camera lights. It's something you don't see everyday, which made that moment worth more. The Gala dinner on the night of the last day was held at Parkview Hotel (previously known as Asma Hotel). WE HAD A GALA DINNER. A FREE Gala Dinner. AHAHA. They are saints. And we were given goodie bags (more free food).  When it was time to Karaoke, the athletes got on stage and danced to their heart's content. All in all, it was an amazing yet tiring experience that I'd someday like to take part in again.

Singapore: Day 1

I took a morning flight to Singapore, the first flight I've taken alone. It was the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which I've been on only once before. Then I had the omelette sausage option on board. Pretty good. I was kind of nervous about the ear pressure thingy because I have a running nose but it turned out okay. My cousin and 2 of her friends (who's names I do not know) picked me up. I came out about 40 mins late because the flight was delayed and I kind of took my sweet time walking to the Arrival Hall. And my cousin was complaining that she's been waiting for a long time.  Singaporean English or...Singlish as it's better known as, is so...different. When I watch Singaporean Youtubers, I kind of set an expectation for their English...which was not met :') it's okay..I'll just have to try to understand them.

Right now I'm in my cousin's room with her friends, and her sleeping little brother (who apparently slept at 9am this morning). They are glued to the computer screen playing some game I have never heard of. All you do is click buttons and your character dances.....and you change their clothes....and I think that's it. Such fun (sarcasm).

The journey after landing:

First we took the MRT from Changi to Tanah Merah because it supposedly costs cheaper to stop at an MRT station before taking a taxi. Then we took a taxi to Boon Lay (which I hear is on the other side of the island) and that was about $23. Pretty cheap according to them. The funny thing was, on the MRT is started to rain. And for a moment, I was shocked. Coz for the past few times I've been here, it hardly, if ever, rained. 

When it finally stopped, we walked over to some place not far away for late lunch. The plate down below costs $3.60. Not bad. Then and I had to wait for her and her friend to get their nails done. Wearing long sleeves in Singapore is horrible. I totally should have changed. And they wouldn't let me wait for her inside. 

Introduction

Now, despite the picture above, I don't want your first impression of me to be a lover and excessive user of depressing quotes, although with my current moodswings, I might as well be. I've tried blogging several times before back when I was 12-15 but I rarely posted and having only one reader (myself) really wasn't much of an encouragement. Instead, it felt like a personal diary. One which was open for anyone and everyone to read, yet no one did. But there was always this year that my parents would somehow stumble upon it. In the end, my blog posts pretty much read like an event schedule with short explanations here and there. It isn't to say this time, 2 years later, it will be any different. For all I know, it could end up the same way. But I've decided to give it another shot.

First, I'll start with a short introduction. My name's Xin Ni (hence the Xin in Xin: Online). I am a June baby, born in 1998. Having just finished my A Levels a month ago, I am waiting for my results which would come out around..Feb next year? Just in time for CNY! Totally excited...ish. I am rarely on a computer so almost all typing is done on my phone. Needless to say, I cannot live without it. I was born in Malaysia but was then brought back to and raised in Brunei. I grew up an only child, so naturally I keep things to myself and lock myself in my room almost all the time. My parents are workaholics which didn't make it any better while growing up. (I say growing up as if I'm 30) And so like most kids with busy parents, I grew up under the watchful eye of a maid.

Side entry: I've been volunteering for the Special Olympics Bocce Competition for 4 days now and today we got to witness the prize giving ceremony for single and team matches. Escorting the players, and seeing the overjoyed looks on their faces, brings such an unimaginable joy. I cannot even begin to describe nor explain the overwhelming feeling of euphoria when the players receive their medals and smile so brightly for everyone to see that they succeeded despite being labelled special. Before we officiated the games, we had a briefing and were given the chance to try out Bocce for ourselves. It is NOT easy. Not at all. But they are good. And most of them were really friendly. There were times when I felt sad when one team was losing. But everyone was a winner. And in their hearts I hope they know they did their very best.

Continuing on...as a child I had a pretty good standard of English, better than most kids my age I might say. That led to my wanting to be a writer/journalist at a young age. But as I aged 😌 my level of English depleted. So that totally dampened my ambitions of becoming a writer. Throughout my 17 years of living, I've had numerous ambitions and surprisingly, none of them were the usual doctor lawyer teacher combo. It was ever changing, but one stuck through the years. Acting. I have to be super honest here and say I absolutely have no talent in acting. My friends can tell when I'm lying so imagine how bad it is haha. But I still dream of someday pursuing a career or side career in acting. Oh the childhood fantasy haha. "I wish I can co-star Zac Efron ❤❤❤"

I used to be an avid reader. I would rarely leave the house without a book in my hand. But lately, I've become lazy. The pile of unfinished and unread books is getting taller by the day but I still go out and buy more books anyway. On Wattpad, thanks to the fear of data consumption, my library has maintained the way it is. About 15 books all read up to some point of the story. I am ashamed 😞

Okay, I don't really know what else to put in here that wouldn't be TOO personal. I guess I'll end my introduction here and I hope you (the reader, myself included) will be back for more posts in the future.