2011 in Review

Coming in two weeks late…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,100 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I just wanna thank everyone who’s been reading and commenting on my blog! πŸ™‚

2011 has been a great year blog wise – I think I garnered more readers than I’ve ever had in all my previous blogging years combined. My blog has always been a personal blog with a focus on Fashion and it’ll continue to stay this way. πŸ™‚

In my personal spiritual life it’s also been a fruitful and encouraging year. I finally came out of a year long figurative hermit shell. And I really want to thank my sisters – Lu Jia, Jia Hui, my parents and my mentor Aunty Mei Yoke (although I think she probably won’t be reading this – for praying for and with me all through it. Needless to say, I truly thank God for always being there for me – even during times I did not want to recognize because it was painful to. This year… I want to go back to the first love I had for God. :’)

Socially speaking it has been rather surprising to have met wonderful new friends through my french class and my internship at CDL. I am thankful. Relationally… I think I have not been maintaining a lot of my friendships well because of our conflicting schedules and this is an area I would like to improve on in this new year. πŸ™‚

With Sofie (in blue) and friends.

With lovely Annabel. It’s pretty amazing how well we got along together during my CDL internship.:)

With Jacq and Char, friends of Annabel. This was the first of many a girls night out we had in 2011. πŸ™‚

Academically and career-path wise, I have learnt much through my three internships. I have learnt much in the fashion and real-estate industries respectively. There were mistakes I’ve made and which I am still learning from but God and my bosses and supervisors have been very merciful to say the least. I know I won’t want to settle for a 9-5 desk bound job and if you know what you want, why not go ahead and just do it? I think there is nothing worse than going to work at 9am on the first day of the year just waiting for 5pm of the day till your holiday starts again. Idealistic, I know, but I hope you and I both can pursue careers that are we are passionate for, challenged by and earns a profitable income from.

All glory to God! May our 2012 be brighter, better and bear more beautiful memories than before.

With love,

Jia En

My 2011 Christmas ;)

Hello ! Hope your January is starting out well… whether you are at school or at work!

I meant to post up photos from my Christmas celebration with my cell group but… I realize the pictures are not with me and it’s kind of late for it anyways. So.. just one cute shot of the really pretty and tasty cookies baked by Claire’s mum! πŸ˜‰

I had Christmas eve dinner with my sister, Claire and Xue li at Aston’s. πŸ˜‰

On the 30th Dec, (after my last day of internship!) I headed down to Singapore Recreational Club @ Padang to meet Jean – friend of Khai and Sofie. It was Sofie’s birthday party and Khai sweetly prepared a surprise party for her at the hotel. It was very smart of Khai to request Jean to decorate the room before hand. Haha. πŸ™‚

With the beautiful Sofie !

Sofie and her fiance, Khai. They are getting married coming November!

Stunning couple… πŸ˜‰

With Stacey and Sofie.With the girls – Jean, Stacey, Sofie and Cassey!The beautiful city skyscraper scene from SRC president’s hotel room.

It feels good to be back in school… But we were thrown a curve ball – a multi-specialism group project to be completed in 5 days! Having to juggle school, real estate night lessons, Β Transmission lab art exhibition video project and church commitments requires a lot of discipline and energy and somedays the stress gets to me.

But on the up side, God answered my prayer by giving me a very lovely group of project-mates and even though due to some unexpected circumstances some work was delayed, we are still carrying through this project with a positive spirit !!! πŸ˜€

Praying and wishing everyone all the best for the project!!! Wish me all the best and break a leg! Hahahaha. x)

xx

Looking back at 2011 Part 1

Hi dear readers! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!

I hope you enjoyed your New Year’s weekend as much as I did! I went for my friend, Sofie’s birthday on 30th Dec which was a mega blast and I had a quiet New Year’s countdown with my family and celebrated the New Year with friends at Sunday morning church service! πŸ™‚ Spending time at our Lord’s house is a great way to start the New Year! πŸ™‚

This is gonna be a long post! Before I go on to the New Year blog posts, I’d like to wrap up my 2011 first. Heh. I really haven’t had the time to update all my pictures from December so that’s what I’ll do here! πŸ˜‰

Starting off with my friend H’s 21st!

Gosh, has it really been a full year of 21st birthdays? I think I might have possibly attended almost one every month! Partly glad our 21st year is over but also hoping we’ll all continue to meet up! πŸ™‚

That’s lovely Jing Wei and Valerie with the fantastic buffet spread. The party was held at Aranda chalets, which in my opinion is one of the best chalet offerings in Singapore for their sleek and stylish chalets with a quiet and lush environment.


Instead of having a traditional birthday cake, H celebrated with tiny cupcakes which were not only beyond adorable but also very delicious!

I thoroughly enjoyed the red velvet cupcake and the caramel cupcake!
And in the “Most Hilarious Post-Dinner Birthday Activity for the year 2011” award, H’s takes the cake. As seen from above, she was first “blind-folded” in a red plastic bag and made to whack the pink heel pinata with an umbrella. What went down instead, was a very crooked umbrella because the pinata was one hard nut to crack!
Next up… FCCS Team Christmas Lunch @ Au Petit Salut at Dempsey Road! πŸ™‚
The Christmas lunch was a much welcomed break and reward as we had worked very hard for the months of November and December, for various events and publications.
The lunch was a gathering of the permanent staff, interns, free-lance staff and our president. As you can see most of the team are French with only 3 other ladies who are local Singaporeans (and naturally with whom I bonded with). So my internship was also quite a cultural exposure for me, particularly in terms of language and food.
Group photos! Generally when I reveal to my peers where I intern at, they would respond with slight gasps and exclamations of how cool it is. Upon hindsight, it is indeed all glory to God that He secured a wonderful internship opportunity for me which i will look back with fondness. Despite the tedious work I did, I really enjoyed the friendships I have made with my colleagues. πŸ™‚
Last but not the least, here’s what went down my tummy during that meal. Fantastic french loaves and soft butter (which reminded me of the meals I had when I was in Italy in 2007), escargot in garlic sauce for starters, beef steak and fries for mains and ending off with raspberry sorbet and gateau (cake) ! πŸ™‚
With the other fellow intern, Nirina. He’s French but from Madagascar!
Soo… look out for Part 2 in the next post, I will post photos from Benjamin (my cell group) Christmas party and Sofie’s birthday party~!
Tata!