have been lazy and not writing for the past few days. today marks the end of jing and her sis's stay at my place... and my room is 'empty' once again... after having spent more than a week with jing and about a week with her sis, our 'outings' seem to have become routine and i feel a little strange now with their absence. but today also marks the trickling in of berkeley freshmen in preparation for summer school...suddenly it's quite 're nao' here all over again... i really wonder what it will be like. one part of me wants to start school and learn new things and stimulate my brain cells again while the other part of me just wants to relax and bum around and do nothing as i have kind of been doing for the past few weeks.

had an amazingly long dinner just now for 8 people... we exhausted all our pots and pans and cutlery... it's kinda fun to have many people eating in the house but then it's seriously pretty time consuming.. food preparation... washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen etc.... somehow at dinner i could feel the familiar berkeley ppl dinner again.... but i somehow feel that things may be a little different now, or that things will be different in summer or from now on, since we are no longer living in the dorms. i'ts nearly 2 am and i think i am getting less and less clear minded... been out the whole day fruit picking in Brentwood; having eaten at least 4 peaches, apricots, plums and cherries and having walked under the scorching sun the whole afternoon i feel really burnt and somewhat drained... but it was fun though, the refreshing experience of some country fun and more interaction with nature? thoughts are really getting disorganized and messy rite now..... sometimes i really dunno what i feel about certain things or sometimes i really can't help feeling a certain way though i dun want to.....so terrible. somtimes i feel really independent and am secretly contented with my independence and 'self-sufficiency' but then at times i just feel like i want someone to do everything for me.... sometimes i think i can get a little possessive... but when u start to hold things too tightly to urself there's always the danger of repellence... i wonder if everyone feels as contradictory at some point in time?

somehow woke up so early this morning i am somewhat bewildered as well... woke up at an unprecendented 745 am and decided that i should be healthy and take a morning jog around the neighborhood... which i did. it was pretty cold in the morning and this being the first time running in the cold, or rather, jogging at all, i was actually a little paranoid while jogging.. that i'll get pneumonia from inhaling all the cold air... well but good thing nothing happened =) jogging's pretty refreshing and invigorating so i should do that more often.. and especially when i have such a nice neighborhood it would really be a waste if i dun explore around a lil bit =)

went to campus today to declare my econ major... though i screwed up my stats 20 i hope i can declare successfully... somehow being on campus again made me feel a strange sense of belonging and satisfaction.. the familiar buildings and surroundings seemed to make me feel really contented that i chose berkeley. somehow though i have been to quite a few schs i think i still prefer berkeley. though it may not be the prettiest sch around, nor the biggest, nor the one with the best reputation, i think my experiences and the memories from the past 2 semesters have been able to make me feel pretty attached to the place already... like it's somewhat a part of me, a part of my life that i would feel somewhat incomplete without. which reminds me of the little prince. like how he talks about there being so many roses in the world but there is one rose that is his, that means something to him... cos he watered it and took care of it and shared common experiences with it. so sweet. just like friends... our friends may not be the most perfect people around but we love them all the same because of the fun, joy, woes we shared...

went to hilltop mall with jing and her sis today after berkeley.... cos ppl said the theatres there were good so i thought perhaps i could 'bring' them there to watch movies.. but somehow we ended up shopping the whole day and i bought more stuff!! =( aargh, i need to stay in for the next few days else i will seriously go broke. having navigated for the past one week, i am starting to enjoy and appreciate highways in the US; they are all so guided that u can get to almost anywhere u want, or not too 'off track' if u follow the signs... and somehow it isn't that bad to get lost either.. =P saw this really heavenly bedsheet and comforter set titled starstruck in JCPenney but then it was so expensive i couldn't have bought it... ever.. =P so i took a picture of it... =) somehow malls in the US are so different from those in SG... like there were barely any people in the shopping mall... well maybe cos it's a weekday.. so unlike sg where students always hang out and crowd around in shopping centres.. i guess it's also cos in the US u really need a car to get around and it isn't that easy for teenagers and kids to just take bus anywhere and everywhere...

yay am home!! back in my nice room... i love my room so much i think no one can understand... =P but had fun the past week too... just that it's nice to come back to ur own room... =) shall write some other time.. =P

feel really tired.. been shopping the whole day at great mall.. and bought so many things i'm really guilty.. haha but then the stuff was pretty cheap.. that's why i bought so much stuff..... anyway i've bought them already so i shall not regret =) went to gilroy to shop too yesterday after visiting the monterey aquarium in the morning and driving down the scenic 17-mile drive along the coast and stopping shortly at the beautiful sandy carmel beach. it feels so comfortable and nice just walking barefeet on the soft fine sand... sat down on the sand to enjoy the breeze and scenery and there were two little babies just crawling about on the sand.. they were so cute i really felt like crawling over to play with them but ultimately i didn't dare to cos their parents were in close proximity. great mall is pretty nice to shop... nicer than gilroy i feel, maybe cos it's indoors and it's easier to get from shop to shop... qingyuan drove the 3 of us to the great mall and shopped with us all day... i kind of pity him cos whenever we wanted to try clothes poor him had to sit somewhere to wait or just entertain himself on his phone.. guess initially he was more enthusiastic.. but eventually his interest waned when we seemed to be ever as enthu about going into shops that probably seemed similar to him.. =P bought this pair of platfom slippers from skechers too and it made me at least 6 cm taller it feels really good haha.. =P well at the expense of some comfort of course. came back and ate cheesecake jing's aunt bought for the 3 of us... and i think i probably fnished nearly half the cheesecake by myself since jing and her sis seemed to have gotten a little sick of it... =P and then played jing's aunt's grand piano for at least an hour... cos jing's aunt has the titanic score.. and somehow got really hooked and mesmerized by the nice score... sigh sadly no photocopy machine so i can't zap the score.. =( if jing manages to renew the car insurance.. think i'll be back home tomorrow night.. if not, will probably stay here for another day or so...