This year I..

Became a proud member of 4F

Became an EXCO member

Had a smashing sweet Sixteen

Had the best level camp
Studied hard (Sigh)

Said goodbye to a close friend

Said hello(s)

Found myself a moniker which kind of stuck with me

Graduated from Dunman High School

Caught up with old friends

Went to Cairns

Felt my heart break for the first time in my life (Zonals)

Experienced a miracle (and euphoria)

Am stronger (mentally and physically)

Still clueless about my direction in life.

Have many things to be thankful for, and well, it was a good year!

2007: Closure

This year has passed beautifully.

Friendships have strengthened considerably and I'd like to say once again, I am sincerely thankful for all the wonderful people around me cheering me on, being there for me, accepting my quirks and my flaws, being extremely patient and somehow, always knowing the remedy for worry, sadness and panic. Somehow it is extremely comforting to have such a safe circle of friends who I know will pull me out of dark waters :D

I love my parents for their understanding and for being so supportive, encouraging and showering me with so much love. I haven't really been at home for the whole holidays and I thoroughly feel bad about it. I love you both! And I really mean it!

Academic-wise, I have tried and I improved so at least something came out of that nerve-wrecking experience. I've fallen once and I wouldn't want to taste the dirt again. I've made good my promise to myself and I have not really any regrets here.

In Volleyball, I think I brought out the fighter in me. It's like a game.. of life. I've fought, cried so hard, bled, bruised, got injured and I think I only truly feel alive on the courts, playing a match. The adrenaline rush, the stark focus, sheer determination, the teamwork that is so strong within that 18 square metres it almost feels concrete and the mindwork between all the pauses in the game.. Priceless. The euphoria I felt in that particular match in U16 was truly out-of-the-world. True, we've lost more than we won, but we've always worked hard, I've always always had hope. We fight on.

I've grown up this year much more. Faced many of my fears and overcame many obstacles. I've lost a tiny bit of the optimism (to the point of self-denial?) I've had, instead replaced with pragmatism. I guess this is what "reality" does to people. But I still have a lot of hope :D

I've learnt to let go, thought the worryworms are still largely embedded in me, but I've learnt slowly, to take things as they come, to accept that some things would be better as they are.

I've became stronger in 2007, as the months passed. Much much stronger. I still largely believe in "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" theory. I think I'm not as fiery-tempered as I was in the past. I think more before I act now. Err, well mostly? :D

This year has been one good year. Though there was nothing hair-raising, nothing tremendously exciting, but this year I feel a lot more wholesome and a lot more contented and happy. At the end of the year, I count my gifts and I find I have everything I ever wanted.

And I'm truly, truly thankful and grateful for that.

Cairns (Day 4,5,6)

Day 4: Transfer to Kuranda, free time at Heritage Markets.

River-ride was spectacular, the nice breeze put many to sleep though, too tired from previous' day's activity ha :D But I just took in the sights, super nice and the guide is funny and knowledgeable! Nice calming ride up and down the river.

Koala park! Well, there are.. Koalas. Got a close up and got to touch the koala and look! It's smiling at me!!

We fed the wallabies there. Wallaby salivia!! Hungry creatures they are, just grab a handful of wallaby food and they eat it. Cute :D I have loads of pictures of me feeding the wallaby but it's with Psychic. Will update.

Irony, snake over the Danger sign for itself. It escaped own place and the trainers had quite a time putting it back. We watched the entire fiasco, from a safe distance of course. I overcame about 53% of my fear of snakes. I can touch pictures of snakes now.

Took a cable car ride over the vast amounts of rainforests and got to see Cairns from a very very high peak. It's quite scary at some parts. There's a video below where we screamed. But it was breathtaking at some of the stops like the waterfall and the very very high peak. Stunning.

Day 5: Rafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our guide was late so our group had to spy on other groups' safety briefings. Chris (his name) finally came then said: It's my first day doing this. So, if I fall into the water, who's going to rescue me? Well, of course there's silence and he looked around and he said to me: "Ooh you've got muscles, you shall save me" And then, *pokes* my arm muscle. Gawsh.

So we trooped off and Mdm Loh was kind of freaking out and so were we because we had NO SAFTEY BRIEFING OR INSTRUCTIONS AND WE WERE GOING ON A DANGEROUS RAFTING MISSION JUST LIKE THAT?!

Anyway there was. While getting onto the raft this other guide whispered to us: You got Chris? He's crazyyyyyyyyy!

He really is crazy. Mabel and I took the front seats because it was more exciting. So Chris proceeded doing the talk and said if we should fall into water get into this blah blah position. "You want a demo?" We just nodded and in a split second, he carried me and dumped me into the water.

O.M.G. It was fast I had no time to react the next moment I knew I was in cold, cold water. Damn.

Anyway we were off. It was cool! All the actions done and stopped at his words. The view was magnificent! And we were quiet. He was funny. We got the swim the rapids. And when he was to haul me up, he said: Ready? Then he submerged me totally into the water before pulling me up. I was sputtering. Fantastic.

And we banged into another raft at the end and the guide on the other raft pulled my lifejacket so.. Down I went again.

But it was good, it was good :D Loads of good fun and toned your arms.

No pictures here, bought them. But Chris is damn cool. A serious person really does look attractive. But not serious all the time! Zara's guide is a damn good looking Korean. His muscles are like, not the usual kind! Mr Low says he must have close to zero body fats to acheive something like that.

Day 6: Home! :D Ok there a lot more nice photos but there are 487 in total plus more videos of us in the room. My roommates are cool! Talked a lot + Helped each other a lot with the aloe vera gel and moisturizers :D Love you 104! And there were the night swimming and BBQ night, all memories to be kept :D Too tired to post all but it was a gooooood trip!

Cairns (Day 1, 2, 3)

Day 1: Meet at airport, departure to Cairns via Sydney (Overnight)

Day 2: Transit at Sydney.

Mini Amazing race! I was in the same group as Weijie and Mabel. We were given a map and we're off!

We reached the first! Thanks to Weijie who had to dive into the Esplanade's pool to search for a rock and later had to drip-dry alllll the way; Mabel the map-reader and yours truly who asked people for directions in my fake-almost-real-Aussie-accent.

Had Reef Teach! Learnt about fishes and corals and sorry I fell asleep halfway, had to resort to eating the chips we bought as part of the race to stay awake. Chengqian, I and Mabel were munching furiously.

Day 3: Snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef!

One of the highlights of the trip. Went aboard the Sea Star Cruise which went all the way into the super nice ocean. It was vast, came to a point where we saw nothing but sea, sea and more sea. The breeze was just damn good!

Put on snorkelling gear and got down into the water. And until now I still remember being super super awed the first time I put my head down. I didn't really expect anything but just 1cm below the water surface in my mask I saw this huge beautiful underwater world. Fishes, coral all live, swimming right under you! Whoah.

Paired with Zara my psychic and we just swam and swam and spotted pretty fishes. There weren't any boundaries set for us and so we could just swim anywhere and as far as we want to. Could spot a person holding a brightly colored noodle miles away :D

No photos of us in gear and in water, busy having fun, all of us :D Sometimes the current got too strong and it was quite hard to swim but the flipper helps.

After swimming for hours, got up for lunch (and lunch was just bloody fantastic!!!!) Got 2 servings of everything. Swimming makes you hungry. And very, very, very sunburnt.

Went for the snorkelling tour after lunch and one of the Sea star crew's lungs must be as huge as an.. Oxygen tank. He could go soooo deep down and do a lot of things underwater before coming up. Awesome.

We could even swim amongst the fishes! Just throw some prawn head or muffin crumbs and they'd all some splish splash fighting for the food. I got brilliantly tanned after that but I peeled shortly after coming back to Singapore. Dang.