Adapted from ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth;/

Then took the other, as just as fair,/ And having perhaps the better claim,/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear;/ Though as for that the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same,/

And both that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black./ Oh, I kept the first for another day!/ Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/ I doubted if I should ever come back./

I shall be telling this with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and ages hence:/ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference.

yes dears, “i’m going home/ back to the place where i belong/ where your love has always been enough for me…”

Your love indeed has always been enough for me, both in singapore and here in loughborough. thank You for loving me.

thank you all for being there.  

it’ll take some time adjusting back/moving forward but am reminded of the verse matt 6:33: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”.

it’s not a full stop, it’s a comma. am looking up.

see you all in a bit (=  

hope this touches you as much as it has touched me.

please go to http://www.lyrics007.com/Lifehouse%20Lyrics/Everything%20Lyrics.html for the lyrics. 

‘youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other, both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations’ – robert louis stevenson, edinburgh writers’ museum.

i am a horribly inconsistent blogger.

realised that i’ll be going back in less than 2 months’ time and yet i have yet to blog about life here in lboro and the discovery, travel and living adventures i’ve been having. there’s just too much to tell and not enough time.

but, i can start somewhere. i can share with you (more) youtube videos on my favourite songs to travel to and let you imagine the english landscape for yourself. enjoy.

(this music video is a bit weird but it’s a nice song to just cruise to. great for listening to when running too)

(this one is more a chill-out song when you’re feeling laezy. my version of ‘three little birds sat on my window’ is two fat pigeons sitting on the tree outside where i can see them from my room with a view. while i havent seen wheat fields (yet) like in the video, the space in the video is the space i see and feel here. ’let your hair down’)   

oh dear, i think i’ve got what people call homesickness. 

looking at pictures of friends and family more often, wanting to go back to familiarity, feeling moody sometimes for little apparent reason, wanting to be alone more often… are these symptoms?

maybe it’s just back-to-school-blues-after-travelling-for-about-a-month.

maybe it’s travel fatigue.

maybe it’s a combination of two or three of the above. 

either way, i still miss home. while there are still many things i want to do and see here, i am also looking forward to going back.

how?

i commit these feelings to You God. while i am okay and thankful that You have given me these opportunities and are drawing me nearer to You, i am also just feeling okay, only so-so. teach me what You want to teach me here.

to everybody back home: i’m missing you all!    

hi everybody,

sorry i haven’t blogged in a really long time! to make up for it, i’m going to blog more these few days while back in loughborough and upload my photos onto facebook. please do check that for picture adventures and captions!

watch this space  

technically, it’s not my birthday yet here over in the uk (it’s 2300 here, 15 mar) but i’ve already received birthday wishes from singapore and have had friends here who have celebrated my 21st with me. am truly blessed – thank you everybody! thank God for the opportunity to be here in the uk having a different sort of birthday this milestone year. (i remember at first i was quite upset by the fact that i would not be able to celebrate my 21st on the day itself in singapore but i see now that celebrating it here is even more exciting in a way haha.) had my early birthday parties in singapore and so i dont feel so bad about spending it here.

will be at pemberley tomorrow for my birthday - am quite excited! i’m taking a road trip this weekend with my friend and her friends (a family with a really cute girl) and we’re driving up tomorrow to lyme park, cheshire which is where the bbc filmed the external scenes of pemberley in pride and prejudice. i think i will go a bit crazy tomorrow - ill probably pretend to be elizabeth bennett and take lots of pictures haha. so exciting spending my 21st at pemberley! will let you all know how that goes.

know that i am thinking of you all. i may not be doing so everyday but things here will just remind me of people back home and make me miss them (: if you do want anything from here, please do drop me a note yah? ill try my best to get it!

alrightey, gotta go and prepare for tomorrow. i thank You God for blessing me with this opportunity this birthday (: 

a quick post – just ran for the first time since coming here for about 1/2 hour in town. the weather in the morning was sunny and warm and really inviting to run in but, sadly, it did not last. by the time i got out at 3pm, it was cloudier and windier. nonetheless, i warmed up and set off, reminding myself that i had to work off all the calories gained from the cheesecakes and fish and chips i had been eating (more on my first first and chips later (:

i had thought the run would be a good time of exploration and enjoyment as i ran on new ground, listening to songs like michelle branch’s ”breathe” and jennifer lopez’s “feelin’ so good”. unfortunately, i didn’t really feel that way while running. instead of clearing my head, the wind, which was quite strong, gave me a headache and i had to cover my nose with my palms in my jacket quite a few times to keep it warm. the track pants, long “jane”s and PL jacket i was wearing was sufficient enough but it didn’t keep out the cold entirely. quite badly needed a tissue too as my nose was leaking a little.

but, despite of all of this, i’m glad i did run. feel a little healthier now and know my way around a bit more. also, don’t want to be very out of shape when i go back - will never do 21k if that’s the case! however, i do feel kind of sleepy now haha. think i’ll catch a short nap later (: going off to bathe. take care everybody! 

before i update on my life in loughborough and on my travels, i HAVE to tell you about my crazy-about-cheesecake days last week and show you the pretty pictures. i’m pretty sure you’ll ooh and ahh as much as i did while making/eating/taking photos of it (: 

some singaporeans whom i met at the chinese fellowship in loughborough invited me and a friend to their house on the last day of chinese new year for a meal and we decided to contribute by making cheesecake. i was a little worried that they wouldn’t have the ingredients i use back home when i make the cheesecake but most of the stuff was at tesco’s so all was well. we even bought blueberries for garnishing – 2 boxes for 3 pounds, which i think by singapore standards is reasonable, if not cheap.

4 of us then set off to start making the cheesecakes – one for the dinner at our friends’ house and one for us NUS exchange students. we got it done quite quickly - much faster than back home where i usually make it alone. 

as dinner was finishing in butler that night, i went to the stove and experimented with the blueberries, trying to heat and mush them in a pot over the stove with a little bit of water and sugar/honey to make blueberry sauce. it worked! i was really pleased with it.

  – the four “dessert chefs” all in smiles with the yummy cheesecake. look at the oozy blueberry sauce! yummy (:

the next day, we brought the second cheesecake to the dinner at the other singaporeans’ house, not far from butler. this one was more special as it had two layers – the usual digestive layer and a chocolate brownie cookie layer. (i couldn’t find oreos at tesco’s so we made do with another different coloured biscuit.) had more difficulty cutting this one as it was more frozen than the first one but nonetheless, dessert was served. presenting: refridgerated two-layered cheesecake with homemade blueberry sauce served with ice cream on the side! (thanks jo for the pictures!)

“heavenly” is probably something nigella would say. wouldn’t you agree? (: