these roads are lonely roads

I often pride myself on choosing to go down the roads less taken, but the inescapable reality of my choices is that I walk alone.

I miss you guys already ):

but this isn't a dream

Somehow the days over here seem to pass by very fast. It feels a little like I'm just floating along with no real purpose. Or at best, tiny goals for each day - buy groceries for dinner, do the laundry, reply people on fb, finish my noticeboard, exercise, meet up with a group of friends at least once. I guess it's a huge change from life back in Sg, having to juggle so many responsibilities all of a sudden is tough and I wonder how I'm gonna be able to slot mugging back into my schedule along with all these other things. And I wonder if I'm ever gonna be able to go back to maintaining that same level of discipline with my work once school starts. It's a struggle too, having to keep up a social life, making decisions on which activities to go for, figuring out who are the people i can be honest with, and having to bother about what people think of me. Starting over just isn't easy.

I'm really blessed with some great new friends though, who watch out for me and are really awesome to hang out with. And slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of cooking and washing and all that (: Now I just need to master the art of doing all that quicklyy so I have time to study :/ Heh. So mmm. Lots to be thankful for actually (:

post-dated (part 1)

It's been 2 days since we landed, but everything's still so surreal - I still feel as though I'm on holiday even though I've spent the past two days unpacking, buying household goods, shopping for groceries, and walking 40 min to town and back because transport is so expensive ): I guess I haven't really gotten used to the thought that this room, this kitchen, this student house - this is my new home. Perhaps having my mom around is contributing to this whole holiday feel. Hopefully I don't die from shock when she leaves :/ I'm quite excited to find out who my neighbours are though! I hope they're nice. It's quite lonely being the only person in the flat...thank goodness for my mom, if not the silence would be unbearable.

Though my back's aching from carrying all those groceries around in my backpack, and my legs are sore and my feet keep cramping, I'm really happy and satisfied for all we've accomplished in these 2 days. And thankful too! God has been really good to me. For one, I was really touched by the people who came to see me off. It meant a lot to me to be able to see them one last time before I left, to know that no matter what happens over here in London, no matter how lonely or marginalised or stressed out I might feel, I'd always have these people supporting me. Reading the cards and gifts made me realise how blessed I am to have all these amazing, thoughtful, loving people as friends. So to those of you reading this now, THANK YOU (: I LOVE YOU TO BITS AND I'M GONNA MISS YOU LOADS. Sorry for stealing your mugging/sleeping/slacking time and thank you for coming alllll the way down to send me off!!! And for all the thoughtfulness and effort that went into each gift, thank you again !!! I promise to pay you back with Percy Pigs. Heh (:

The flight was really good too, I managed to sleep and still had time for Chloe, The Joneses and Sex and the City 2. Food and drinks were quite sucky though haha. Customs was a breeze didn't have to open up my luggage (carried my stupid A3 X-Ray for nothing though -.-), no luggage lost, found the taxi man, and arrived at James Lighthill just in time for checking in. && because I took a night flight, I arrived in London in the morning so my sleep cycle didn't get screwed up! :D Plus because I'm moving in early, I got allocated the first room in my flat, which is the corner room. Which means it's super duper big in comparison to the other rooms (: Praise the Lord right!!!! (((: Hee. The rest of the day was really frustrating though - my mom and I are terrible with directions so we kept getting lost and having to walk all over the place, and it didn't help that we were carrying loads of household things and that my mom was having gastric pains and that she decided to leave me to navigate/ask random people for help/make all the decisions to prove that I could be independent. Pfft. But at least after all that walking I'm a bit more familiar with my extremely ulu area.

Today was much better, cos we only got lost once (which found us in Oxford Street, so not too bad a detour :P) and we managed to get a wholeee lot of useful stuff from Argos and Tesco Metro (which was a godsend, thank goodness I spotted it cos apparently it's the best Tesco in town and has everything!). And snacks from M&S. Hehe. (: So in just two days, my mom and I managed to get a shoe rack (self-assembled so proud of myself!!), desk light, water filter, hand-held vacuum, iron + mini ironing board, pillows and a duvet, laundry hamper, andd a lot of random stuff like over the door hooks and toilet paper (which are SUPER OVERPRICED BTW) (: && I collected a whole bunch of cooking stuff from my sis's friend which really saved us a lot of $$. Stuff in London is really freaking ex ): Like, 10 plastic hangers for S$11!?!!! I didn't buy those btw - kinda figured I could live with folded clothes. Cooked my first home-cooked dinner too! Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce and sesame oil and dried garlic can do wonders to your vegetables man. The Chinese way of cooking is really the best (:

So here I am at my laptop after two long, exhausting, but incredibly satisfying days. Things are going well, the weather here is great, and now I'm just looking forward to meeting my neighbours and enrolling and getting used to being a student again and INTERNET. Yay (: