Cassandra's Confirmation

I've never felt as happy as I did last Sunday when I've finally been confirmed as a Catholic. It was certainly a beautiful occasion and I'm happy to be stuck with Jesus for the rest of my life.




Before the big day, I was really stressed out over my dress because about 2 weeks ago, everybody had their outfits ready except for me. I was really worried by then because Aunt J, a friend of my mom's was supposed to make me a dress.

ell, the first dress aunt J made was unfortunately not what I had in mind because my measurements were not taken and we've never discussed the design and material. So this is how the first dress turned out:

This is the kind of dress I would've probably worn if I were 7. Although her estimations of my measurements were pretty close enough, I didn't think it was suitable for the day I've been looking forward to since I first started going to Sunday school (which is a looong time).

And don't get me started on how I look in the dress.

But anyway, I smiled and thanked her for her efforts. Though I was genuinely grateful that aunt J took the time to buy the materials and make the dress, I was still a little disappointed that it wasn't what I expected it to be.

2 days later, mom asked me what did I think of the dress. I didn't say anything but mom knows me so well that before I could even reply, she was like, "A little disappointed, huh?"

Its like the heavens have opened up and I can hear choirs of angels singing 'Hallelujah' my prayers have been answered; my mom DOES have some good fashion sense! And suddenly the day became bright again.

So like... 5 days before my confirmation, my mom explained the situation to aunt J and she agreed to make me a new dress. This time, our way.

3 days before the big day, we went over to see the dress. Other than the fact that the dress was a little shorter than the full-length dress I pictured, it was pretty much OK. It was definitely WAAAY better than the first one. But it needed some alterations because the dress was kinda loose.

And so, a day BEFORE my confirmation day, mom went to pick up the dress. Finally!

So at last, I finally had something to wear on my confirmation day. But the next time another big occasion like, I dunno, a wedding comes up, I'm definitely doing things MY WAY and I'll guarantee that I'll have the dress ready within at least 3 months before the BIG day. Not the day before it.

And I'd definitely rent the dress. I'm not sure if I can trust people to make me a dress at the moment...

Oh yeah! Check out the nail art I created for that special day.

OK, back to my confirmation....

So the ceremony went smoothly; I had something nice to wear, I've got my Godmother, aunt Susan at my side, and that wonderful satisfaction of being closer to God after 10 years of journeying towars this day with the rest of my classmates. This guy here is Samuel btw, he and I designed our confirmation t-shirts for our camp. You can read all about the crazy times we had at the camp here.

Teacher, if you are reading this, thank you so much for all your hard work. We may not show it, but we truly are grateful for your time, efforts and patience. May the good Lord send His Holy Spirit down upon all of you for good things will come your way soon.

These are our awesome teachers who prepared us for our confirmation since last year. From left, there's teacher Nancy, Sonia and Peter.

With my Godparents and parents at the altar.

So after the ceremony had ended, I am now officially Anne Cassandra Wong Synpuhn! Whee! I have a middle name :D

So lets celebrate with ice cream yam cake!!!

Bon Odori 2011

Last Saturday was the celebration of Bon Odori 2011. It was the first time I've ever been to such an event. All I can say is.... it.... was... AWESOME!!!

Check out the nail art I created for this occasion.



Beauty eh?

I also wore this shirt which I had no idea what it says and what it means. But because it sounded Japanese, I decided to wear it anyway :P

If there's anybody in this whole wide world who can tell me what is 'Herobel' or 'Zaneibe Tomahawvs', please put me out of my misery and tell me what the **** does that mean...

I wasn't really planning to go for the Bon Odori event at first, until our school announced that they'd take us there. So I went with my friends!

Before we left, we had to gather at the school. And while we were waiting for the bus to arrive, Vivien brought some bubble gum. And I don't know how to blow a bubble :(

Watch me and my friends attempt to blow a bubble gum in this video!

As you can see, I failed miserably T.T

At one point, I was close to blowing a bubble and Vivien was standing in front of me saying 'Blow! You can do it. Blow!!'

And so I blew. But instead of a beautiful pink bubble expanding right before my eyes, I see my spit on Vivien's face. LOL.

Ever wondered how does a tudung look with a yukata?

Now you know... that I want a yukata!!!

When I first got there, I was so damn jealous seeing all these girls wearing their gorgeous yukata. But some girls who were wearing short yukatas in an... erm... inappropriate way, yeah,... they look like hookers. Especially with their falsies and super thick eyeliner...

I dared Melissa to pose with this sleepy guy there by going NEXT to him. Not stand so far away from him. Chicken...

Some of the girls in our group thought the drummer boys there were kinda hot. For me, they look pretty average. Maybe its their uniforms that boosted their sex appeal. I dunno...

But we did try to look out for some hotties around the place, you know, for... research? But at the end of the event, frankly I have to say that I'm disappointed. Out of... what? 2000 people at the event, I only found one hottie. ONE!

Like wtf Malaysia? Our guys aren't beautiful enough man! I dunno much about the guy's opinion of the Malaysian girls, but still!

That one handsome guy I spotted at the event was tall, fair, good looking and he has biceps! Huge biceps! Plus, he's a chinese! How many buff chinese guys do you get to see in a lifetime? Hardly. Other than Bruce Lee of course.

And then its time to chow down in our all-s**t-too-expensive-check-my-wallet-I-hope-I-have-enough-of-money-japanese meal! Yummy!!

The food was super expensive! Like, that Unagi Rice costs RM15, that box of BBQ squid is RM10 and that sushi is about RM10 XP

There were a few other items we bought too, but lets not bring up too many painful memories...

Despite the many announcements from the organizers of not picniking at the field or bringing food in that area at all, nobody gave a damn and everybody was happily nom-noming at the field. And so did we :)

The rest of our group arrived. Check out Harue and Loo Yee in their pretty yukatas! Gorgeous!

You see lah. These girls are already preying on little girls in yukatas. Paedophiles...

OK, this is the fun part of the event. Everybody has to make rows of circles around the stage and dance by following the moves of the people on the stage. Its really fun and easy because everybody's doing it and you won't look dumb trying to do your own 'cool' dance moves when you actually look like a dork.

Trust me, I've been there...

Put your hands in the air, and wave it like you just don't care! Yeah!!

And so, we ended our day by partying in the bus. No, actually Vivien and the Malay gang we're partying. I was already half-dead by then to party at all.

Driving with Melissa

Ever since I first got my P license 2 months ago, I haven't been driving for quite some time until last week, when I began driving to school. Using an AD resort (a.k.a, the manual car).

OK, I know I passed the test and all, but I'm still a nervous driver. So when my friend, Melissa asked me to drive her home on the first day I drove to school, I was a little skeptical about the idea of driving anybody anywhere.

I couldn't say 'No' to her so I was like 'O...k...., but no comments on my driving!'.

So I planned to route to Melissa's house. Just as I was signalling left, Melissa told me, 'No, don't go left. I prefer the other way.'

So... I went her way and this is what happened:

Well, we ended up being stuck at a slope when the car conveniently died right there! I wasn't planning on going up that slope but because Melissa said it was the fastest way, I just went up there.

And then I realized that I was on 3rd gear when I drove up the slope which is probably why the car died when I was supposed to be on 2nd gear. So, I quickly pulled up the handbreak. Just as I was going on 1st gear, the car went backwards and Melissa and Daniel were freakin out!

This time, I pulled the handbreak really hard, got onto 1st gear, hit the gas, let the handbreak go, and VRROOOM!!! The car just sped right to the top. LOL.

Next time, I'm going my way.

The next week, we had to stay back after school because we had a Treasure Hunt competition. So after we were done, Melissa asked to to send her home. Honestly, I'm surprised that she wants me to take her home after that episode up the slope.

But once again, I couldn't say no to her.

So this was what happened later on:

This time, just as I was turning out of the guard house, I was shocked to find that I couldn't turn the steering wheel. Then slowly, the car touched the cones and it was pushing it right in front of the guards some more OMG!!!

And then I realized that the car once again died. But I don't know how did it die this time because I SWEAR I was still on 2nd gear and I didn't go any higher or lower.

Nonetheless, I restarted the car, reversed and turned out of the guard house. Both the guards and Melissa were laughing. That was embarassing.

Along the way, there were some birds on the road and Melissa was like, 'Anne! Watch out for the birds!!!'

But I couldn't care less, because I know the birds can obviously fly out of the way and there's no way I'm gonna stop and honk at those birds. And even if i did kill a bird, then nevermind, we have a free dinner. Problem solved.

So when we were about to reach a junction, I saw this little white dog at the side of the road, suddenly Melissa started screaming:

And so I braked. But the dog wasn't even in front of the car, it was at the side only. WTF...

Seriously. Just as I braked and was recovering from a heartattack, there was Melissa, oogling at the puppy, saying how cute it was =.=

After sending her home, everything was smooth sailing. Come to think of it, why is it that everytime I send Melissa home, there's always episodes like these coming up?

Maybe I'm nervous driving somebody else home, or its the pressure.

That's it. I'm getting a Mini Cooper S. And fast!

The Sweet Stench of Victory

YOU CAN DO IT!! PULL! PULL DAMMIT!!!

That's what I've been screaming at the Green house whose not even my team because our boys from the Blue team lost at the first round =.=

BUT! On the other hand, us blue girls won the tug-of-war event to make up for it so yeah... look at my shiny new Gold medal!

Its the first medal I've won ever since I left Seri Suria and entered this school. Which is relief because I thought I'd never win a medal of any sort compared to my junior years. Just look at the medals I won back in the day!

Oh well, I'm pretty happy that I've finally won something nice and shiny for a change :)

I had a feeling that its gonna be a great day because just look at the amount of people that came last Friday (no Rebecca Black reference)!


But I still find it strange that we had our Sports Day in July. Usually Sports Day is supposed to be in April... oh well...

So I've been walkin around, taking pictures of some random s**t like this one;

Haha! That guy looks like he's posing with that cutout when actually he's just trying to adjust its position.

Nice underwear pal...

Also, there's a lot of pretty girls out there for the march. Dunno how the heck do some of them manage to walk on the grassy field wearing stilleto high heels. Wouldn't they get stuck once in a while?

I've been there and done that. One time, I got stuck when I accidentally stepped on the grills of a drain. Took me awhile until I managed to hack my heels out XP

Damn, we have a lot of fine girls in school...

What is this? A freakin pageant??

Gorgeous!

WTF!? They literally have a 1 Malaysia as their mascot?? LOL!!


And this Red house here has a hired assassin to threaten the judges to let them win or... DIE!

OK, I give up. What kind of mascot is that? Looks like a TV of some sort...

And this is our mascot for the Blue house. At first, I thought it was a blue turtle. But it turns out that its supposed to be an earth or globe...

But hello? Isn't he supposed to be big and round to be an earth??

The irony of it all is that my parents owns the business of making customized mascots. But if I were to find a mascot at the last minute, I would take one of the goats from our school compound, dye it blue, dress it up in blue outfits and use THAT as our mascot.

Now that will be an awesome mascot besides the animal cruelty.

As usual lah, all these girls would start camwhoring as soon as they're unleashed after the march.

Then things got serious from then on when the games begin.

Even the teachers had to race as well!

Nope, your eyes aren't fooling you. We won SECOND PLACE!!! WAKAKAKA!!! *sigh*

The Great Adventures in Sabah

Finally! Another dive trip after a year on land :D

And this time, I got to dive at Kota Kinabalu, Sabah; the place where I've always wanted to dive because of the many great dive sites I've heard about.

The one thing that bothered me about this trip was that this time, I can't bring my camera along with me while I go Scuba Diving. A long time ago, my camera got stolen but it was later found and returned back to us. Unfortunately, that idiot wanted to take out the memory card but it didn't know how to open the camera.

So it forced the poor camera open and after that, I can never take the camera underwater again because the water can now get into its' system.

This is my favorite underwater picture that I took when I was in Pulau Tioman.

I swear, next time I come back to Sabah, I'll bring an underwater camera with me. Or at least a housing for my current camera.

And I might like to take up an underwater photography dive lisence. Probably.




It was a pretty good dive actually. There wasn't as many divers that went for the trip as I usually see. Whenever I'm on a dive trip, I always go along with at least 10 other divers including the dive master.

This time however, only 5 other divers were with us; two chinese guys, the diver master and his friend, and the owner of the dive shop, who went out diving by himself while taking pictures underwater. How I envy that...

Ever since I first got my Open Water dive lisence, the only dive buddy I ever had was my brother, Daniel. Every single time, I'm always stuck with him. And its not like I have any choice; I have no sister or a friend with a dive lisence so its always been with Daniel.

But after the second dive, Daniel got sick so he didn't go for the last dive. And so, I've finally got a different buddy; the Dive Master :P

I saw a few things I rarely see underwater during that dive. Like, I spotted quite a few Lionfishes; one of the most poisonous fishes in the world.


I even spotted a prawn which usually shows up at night. But the coolest thing I got to experience during that dive was having my 'manicure' done at the cleaning station by these little critters;

At first, the dive master took us to this sandy area and over there, we saw this structure made out of tyres.

When we took a look at the structure, there were schools of fish which were crowded in that tunnel of tyres. Then, the dive master signaled me to place my hand on the tyre, which I did.

And out of nowhere, these little Hingebeak Shrimps appeared and started going all over my hands and nails, 'cleaning' me.

How awesome is that?? It felt a little ticklish at first, but then I got used to it and it felt really nice after that.

*sigh* if only I had some dive log refills so that I can record that fantastic dive... and a camera...

Anyway, I haven't shown you the hotel I stayed at. The hotel we crashed in for 4 days 3 nights was at Sutera Harbour. Check it out:

Isn't the garden so pretty??

*gasp* OMG!!

That guy is walking on water!! O.O

And take a look at the view we have from our room!

In the evening, the sunset is so beautiful. The only thing I regretted was that I totally forgot to take a picture of it :/

And this is where we have our breakfast every morning:

Check out Aunty Margaret's face after taking a bite out of her pineapple...

LOL! LOL! LOL!!! XD

HAHAHA!!!

Just look at the pained expression on her face when she was aware of the camera XD

The next day after our dive, we decided to go White Water Rafting!

In the beginning, we thought it was gonna be a piece of cake when we first laid eyes on the river. Looks pretty calm right?


On board the raft was me, Daniel, Mom, Aunty Margaret, a japanese couple and the guy behind there is our captain, er... I never got to know his real name, but he calls himself Captain Jack Sparrow. Wtf...


This is our neighbouring group of rafters. Everytime we see them, we always have to paddle faster because they will always keep splashing us with water and I didn not plan to be wet by the end of the ride.

That was until this happened...

If you havent guessed yet, our raft got caught by a tree branch and we began to sink as more water rushed in. And it wasn't really much help when another group floated down the rushing waters right into us!

I think that made the tree branch puncture our raft and we couldn't free it. So at the moment, we were stuck right at the side where the waters were really rough. Slowly, the raft began to go lopsided and we were really soaking wet.

Finally, we had to abandon ship.

I was really thankful that we had our lifejackets on. Usually, I'd find it a nuisance to wear one until the day came when my life actually depended on it. Now I know the meaning of 'lifejackets'.

At first, I had to climb to the side of the boat and later on the edge of the boat. It was freakin scary. So I took a deep breath and take the plunge!

When I jumped, I didn't surface for quite sometime and I swallowed quite a few gulps of river water while some went into my nose. Yuck!

Do you realize what could I have possibly swallowed in there!? Let me show you some of the things I saw before we got stuck, shall I?

Exhibit A:

Do you know what those are? They're buffalos taking a bath in the river. And do you know what else they could've done in the river? Ugh... please don't remind me....

Exhibit B:

A village. The river is probably essential to their lives where they use it to wash their clothes, plates, pots, etc.. etc...

And do you know what else they do in the river?? I leave it up to your imagination.

Along the way, I saw soap, some garbage and this large pile of yellow foam I saw resting on a rock. Lord knows what could that be XP

Get the picture now? What I swallowed in the river could've been poisonous...

So anyway, as I was saying, when I was underwater for a minute or so, I was probably swallowing something disgusting. Finally, I managed to start kicking and get to the surface. After struggling a bit, I began to float on the water by lying horizontally so that I can float better.

The next problem I faced was to get to the river bank. When the water currents are strong and you are not wearing any specialized footwear such as fins to manuver yourself to the side, but instead you are trying to hold on to your favorite flip flops, swimming toward land might be a little tricky.

I tried as best as I could to fight the currents and swim towards the shore, but it was quite impossible. Luckily, one of the staff who was waiting at the shore managed to get to me and pull me to the side. *whew*

That... was... AMAZING!! What a rush! I never felt so alive after that experience!! I wanna do it again!! Minus the swallowing the river water part... which, come to think of it, tastes like plain ol' water...

And waay at the side there is our raft which is still stuck there. Finally, they managed to get it out by cutting a hole...

See the rectangular hole?

In the end, our group had to split so that we can squeeze into the other groups' rafts. I went on this family's raft and they asked me if I was Korean or Japanese since I couldn't answer them in Mandarin. And like the honest idiot that I am, I told them that I was Chinese and they were really surprised.

So they asked me where I'm from, and once again, I told them the truth that I was from KL and they really look taken aback.

I swear, the next time I meet some random chinese stranger, I would be ready to tell them that I'm a Korean who comes from Australia. And they wouldn't blink an eye. End of story, end of the embarassment.

That way, they won't keep assuming that I speak mandarin and have a one-sided conversation with me in mandarin while I have no idea what the heck are they talking about and I'm to shy to say so. Problem solved!

That is... unless they know Korean and start speaking to me in Korean. Oh God...

But besides the adventures I got to experience in Sabah, what I love about this place is the seafood!

Big, fresh, seafood... YUMMY!!!

My mouth is already watering...

Except for that one. Ugh... Rock fishes are hideous! And poisonous too. Why would people wanna eat that!?


Look what I got from one of those abalone dishes! Aren't these shells so pretty? And the holes are naturally like that too. So I took it home as a souvenir.

Btw, Melissa Foo, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I didn't buy you a souvenir. But if you like, I could give you one these shells, kay?