hmmm i can't help but think about the breadtalk bun.... i dun think you can help much by buying that bread leh....maybe ppl are getting cheated by breadtalk... i think save your money and use it for organizations that really give all the money to the victims.. well, unless of course, you actually want to eat that bun, then i guess it's a different story...

hmmm actually i better go and check out the little sign on the breadpan again.. later i got everything wrong and get sued by some random breadtalk person who visits my blog.... sadly, it's dangerous to talk rubbish on one's blog these days....

the death toll for the earthquake cum tsunami disaster has exceeded 120000... i feel touched and heartened that ppl everywhere are doing their little bit to help. eg. breadtalk has this 9.0 bun or something (though badly named i feel) which costs $2.30 and for every 9.0 bun bought, 90 cents is donated to the red cross or something. though they are still making money out of it!!! at least they are helping i suppose. hmm.. actually i wonder though (if ppl are all so re1 xin1 to help) whether the additional revenue from that bun actually exceeds the donations they hav to make such that overall they make profits?!! ok i shall not be so cynical. anyway, bbc has this article on international aid efforts and lists a host of organizations that ppl can make donations to! so i shall do my small bit and perhaps ppl who frequent my blog (though not many i suppose) feeling generous can do their small bit! Click here! (the internet links are on the RHS)

shopaholic me bought two pairs of shoes yest... but they were really good deals. $50 Sing for a pair of Skechers... feel bad shopping wiht my parents actually cos they just keep asking me to buy things if i like... actually borrowed a microsoft frontpage guide from the lib yest! haha wonder if i will hav the time to read it actually. cos i really feel tempted to do something to my blog.

a little incident two days ago made me feel that i am still a little insensitive sometimes.. but yest i felt that perhaps i am getting a little more rational... and less likely to jump to conclusions. and i suppose i should stop wishing for things that wun ever happen.

the most unglam thing just happened to me this evening.... was at the raffles city restroom and after i flushed, (luckily) my nice nokia hp conveniently slipped out of the side pocket of my gap hobo bag and fell right into the toilet bowl....despite the instinctive (though disgusting) retrieval of the phone right after its undeserving fate and despite immediate efforts to dry to whole phone with toilet tissue, it eventually still died on me after initial deceiving signs of 'revival'..... oh well. clumsy me... kinda upset cos i really liked that phone and it was really user and sms-friendly.... and upon returning home and reporting the unfortunate accident, it gave my mum more reason to reproach me since on this very same morning she just reminded me how my cell phone can drop out of my side pocket if i left it unbuttoned.....
oh well. i shall comfort myself that i managed to find a slip case for my widescreen laptop at funan today... that i met up wtih two groups of ppl and spent an evening with really good company... and that i have a spare phone to doodle around with and thus am not totally uncontactable... sigh. but upset with myself and feel sorry for my poor phone... =P

the unfortunate natural disaster that killed thousands of people in Asia on Sunday reminded me how vulnerable we are to 'random' acts of nature... a commentator on the straits times remarked that for a few moments, everyone, regardless of race, class and wealth, was equally vulnerable.. from rich tourists busking in the sun to the poor living in coastal villages of India and Sri Lanka...and that it was heartening that aid relief too came from many diff places around the world... i personally also felt the need to treasure every moment we have with our loved ones.. cos who can ever predict what can happen the next moment...

my mum has morphed into this chinese painting cum calligraphy expert and i just felt very happy for her that she can spend her free time doing all the drawing she wants.... and made me wonder, when i retire and grow old one day what would i do.... what if i am this old spinster with no kids, what do i devote my energy to...

exercised for the first time in dunno how long this morning! partly because i had slight jet lag and got up at like 530am and was doodling around house with no agenda... but feels good to exercise! i need to get rid of those layers of fats that have been building up around my waist and other spots during finals period. though i have been only back for a day, i can't help but feel really aware of people around me. somehow i am starting to see ppl in a different light. i can't really define what kinda change i am feeling.... but i just got the sense, from like a day out (yest and this morning) that there are actually many poor ppl around.... ok maybe not poor, but like lower middle class maybe? maybe i have been around HDB estates and hawker centers where the less well-to-do folks live.... i dunno why i suddenly feel so conscious of the different classes of people in society... in a way i feel bad that there seems to be a sizeable proportion of the population who aren't exactly very well off.... and will be likely to remain like this over generations... but i guess what matters is that these families are happy? sometimes i guess it's' not very good to know of greener pastures elsewhere cos then when we are down we feel extremely abject and shi bai... sigh dunno. i'm talking rubbish.

while jogging with my dad i was painfully alerted to teh fact that my parents are really ageing ... my dad complained of a constant ache in his shoulder and he seemed thinner than last time... if i had stayed in the US going about my own affairs i wouldn't be really aware of all these things about my family.... i'm glad i came home in a way. i guess if i had just stayed there i would just be so bogged down by my OWN affairs and my own problems and get so self-centred or worried about other trivial things constantly on my mind and not even think about my family that much... and am glad to receive smses from familiar faces like shu, jing, joyce, jeannice and ting!

despite having been home for less than 12 hours, i have already bought 3 pieces of clothing haha. what a shopaholic i am.... but well the sale is really good! g2000 has like 30% off blouses and skirts and 50% off blazers...mango was having a sale too. sigh. foresee myself spending quite a lot of money over the next week or so... the LA flight was really long! 18 continuous hours on a plane really isn't that fun. even though the seats were fairly comfy...

i am obsessed with zhi shao hai you ni by sandy lam recently. looped it on my laptop for like the whole morning and afternoon. hee. now i'm the only one left in my house but soon i'll be gone too. was clearing up stuff and re-read things i did in the past, random journal entries i penned down.... i feel like so many things have changed; that i have experienced so much in the past 2 years. i've def changed, for better or for worse i am not sure but i tend to believe it's for the former...
and am pretty excited about my internship next sem! got sent a booklet on the Woodrow Wilson Center and it had a short write-up of the scholar i would be assisting. she seems really cool and i really hope i can get to something useful and substantial.... flying home tmr afternoon! =)

enjoyed my first day of bumming around. after fetching jacqui to the airport i went to fourth street to 'gai gai'... then went to north face outlet to look see... then went to sch for a while to get my new SEVIS...then came home and FINALLY did some cleaning up of my room and toilet and sorting of old notes. still lots undone, but at least i did something... =) feel so totally 'at peace' with nothing to do just sitting at my table haha. =P

finals are over! but sadly i feel like i don't really know what i should do all of a sudden. feel very lost. hmmm withdrawal symptoms from having studied too much? not that i studied that much also. i guess i just look forward to going home, meeting my family and frens again, eating cheap good food. shopping. jianfei-ing. though i doubt that will happen considering how much i am going to be eating. =P

am getting a little tired of studying even though there is still a lot to do... sigh. wonder if stress has caused me to embark on a shopping spree online. from knitting kits to books.... i think i have been spending too much money online... it's too easy to buy on impulse... just a few clicks and u can buy a whole lot of stuff...
also confronted with a mess in my room but no motivation to clean up. after finals i suppose. and suddenly i was struck by how much stuff i have accumulated over the past year and now i think i REALLY have to start thinking properly about how to pack them into boxes. and i dun look forward as much to my LA-SING flight anymore... cos it's supposedly 18 long continuous hours on a plane. i hate long flights....

taking an 'afternoon' nap in the evening has proved to be a good strategy against falling asleep when trying to do work at home, which is what (unfortunately) happens to me all the time. for once, i feel really happy and at peace doing work on my bed, with my hp laptop balanced at 45 degrees on one lap, with sunyanzi playing on my windows media player and poli sci reader article turned to an article on East Asia precariously lodged on a pillow on my other lap. haha hard to imagine the acrobatic act i am doing on my bed ya? hee a 5 min break from summarizing my article.... =) oh yes, forgot to add with two devoured packets of on-offer chex (with the yucky pretzels left intact) and a half-finished box of chex cereal beside my bed.... haha. images of disorder during finals period.....

am one final away from the end of it all and slightly more than a week away from home!
i had better not be lazy and work hard for my last final... cos many undone readings waiting for me to analyse them. i just hope i do ok for my IAS and dun fail my astro... think i wasn't sure for half the questions on my Astro final... quite ashamed of myself =P tmr will be the start of a continuous 'streaming' of people home... starting from my housemate. evelyn was the anomaly who flew home on TUESDAY... but nmind i shall patiently wait for my turn next friday cos even after finals i doubt i will be bored... hav to start thinking how to stuff all my barang barang into boxes for storage or into my luggage back to sg this time round...

hmm was just randomly surfing and saw this interesting article on lap pillows
and in turns out that they have a female counterpart for this...created even before this... boyfriend pillows for single Jap women.... and i thought the comment one lady made in the article was funny... and so another advantage of this pillow is that ""It keeps holding me all the way through. I think this is great because this does not betray me."

hmm... shall be completing my last 'leg' of review session for today in about 15 min. last review session of the day!! 7-9pm! hav been 'reviewing' almost continuously since 1230 pm....
cannot believe my 'bouts' of forgetfulness yest and today. left my file at northside foodcourt yest evening and panicked cos all my precious notes were inside and without it i might as well skip my finals.... then today, i was victim of my forgetfulness once again.... and i really pissed myself off... haha. was trying to buy a sandwich at intermezzo cafe (south side) only to realize that i didn't hav my wallet with me.... so had to walk ALL THE WAY back to my car on north side to get my wallet and walk all the way back to buy the sandwich which had been prepared for me already.... so even though i originally had like 15-20 min before my first review, all was spent walking up and down slopes. oh well.... i guess I need the exercise huh. can foresee long hours of sitting at the table for the rest of the week....

felt somewhat inspired by my astro 10 prof when he sincerely urged us to find a job that we truly enjoy in future... and somehow i could sense that he loved every bit of the lectures he gives... from the donut demonstrations....to his display of his collection of astro 10 t shirts every lecture... to playing songs with lyrics involving astronomy.... to showing us his bungee jumping experience at victoria falls.... no wonder he gets voted one of the most popular profs everytime... cos even though i dun go for every lecture, when i do go, i really do enjoy his lectures, (when i am not asleep) complete with not-so-subtle remarks about stanford and bush... i do aspire to have a job that i really love and enjoy one day.... though i still dun have the faintest idea what that would be. one of the most impt? lessons that i have learnt, be it in or out of class, is that things change... all the time... so whatever i think now.... i really wonder it will be at all relevant to what will happen...

sigh. moffitt lib is scary. everyone's so motivated to study.. while i always sit there trying to read but distracted by frivolous things on my mind. this seems to happen every finals period...

feel totally crushed after my jap final.... =(
feel ultra sleepy and i just want to go home and sleep but i hav astro hw due later in the day.... maybe i'll drop it though i'm not supposed to... why am i so bad at coping with whatever i hav to cope with....
it's finals week starting next week... and am going home in exactly two weeks' time... but somehow i still don't hav the motivation to study... and there's like so many other things to worry about

reactions to my peach tarts have been somewhat mixed, ranging from peaches are somewhat gross to crust is not very cooked to peach tarts are very nice.... haha hmm. so i conclude that they are average-tasting. but sample size not large enough. biased.. haha. if i have time tmr perhaps i can make more for my potluck at my prof's place again. but seeing how i have IAS hw, jap finals and tonnes of articles all due on thursday... hmm.. maybe not.

visited the SF fed reserve bank yesterday morning... and it was pretty cool! not only because we got to sit in the board room where board members meet, we also got to meet the president Janet Yellen who was surprisingly small-built and nice.... also got to tour the vaults where each container contained from between 4.6 million US dollars to 460 million dollars... and got cute souvenirs of shredded greenbacks from our 'tourguide'. had macdonalds in SF with sumei and shiying... hmm dunno. it was just a morning of getting away from all the work ahead of me. escapism....

my peach tarts! 

aargh. cannot believe my calmail timed out twice while i was typing my ad for my room and as a result i typed my ad thrice!! i tried copying before i pressed 'send' but then stupid me forgot to paste before copying the SMSA email address... aargh. so.
hmm spent the whole morning doing misc stuff such as laundry, making peach tarts from leftover crust dough and cleaning my toilet and room... had better start on all the work i have soon...

am faking my astro labs in dwinelle comp labs using google image search now... i hope i dun get jie1 chuan1ed... for some odd reason my finger joints hurt... perhaps its been so cold recently that i got rheumatism....
attempts to write a slightly more analytical piece on anti-americanism for my journalism class yesterday made me realize something more applicable to life in general... whenever someone doen'st like us, we tend to just shun them or reciprocate the hostility... do we actually bother to find out why... i guess sometimes the reasons behind one's actions are as impt as the action itself yet most of the time we dun bother to dig deep enough... cos discovering these reasons my mean discovering new things about ourselves, or our faults, or misconceptions that people have of us that we could not have corrected without knowledge of them.... well i guess cos it isn't exactly pleasant to have someone dislike you in the first place and we hesitate in uncovering appalling facts (maybe?) about ourselves..?

why must ppl tell me explicitly even if i am fat??!!
hmm had an interesting ex in class yesterday; was told to draw the world map and all of us were complaining how distorted our maps looked... but it was interesting to see what everyone else drew... and our instructor highlighted the fact that the north is over-represented.... and that the equator isn't in the middle for most maps.. it's usually like 1/3 from the bottom of the page...
i realize that i am quite dead with tons and tons of readings for poli sci... but i really dun feel like reading. sleepy and lazy. astro labs due tmr; was supposed to stay in scsh to go for star parties.. but ended up coming home. dun think i did well for my jap presentation today... orals next week... many things due...

us! 

Road trip highlights

shall take a couple of minutes to do this...

1) Shopping!
think every single one of us spent no less than $100 each at the premium outlets and i splurged on two CK shirts that were the most expensive shirts i have bought in my whole life... not that they were THAT expensive; guess for rich ppl what is US$40 for a shirt, but i felt very xin tong and guilty spending so much on plain shirts... maybe overwhelmed by the shopping 'spirit' and momentarily super brand-conscious? and so the one who said he would go back to the motel to sleep or something while we were shopping also ended up with many purchases... tsk tsk.

2) Buffets
I dun think I have ever spent as much money on food within 3 days as I have when in Las Vegas, but no grudges cos I really did enjoy every single buffet I had in Vegas... i shall always remember the irresistably yummy smoked Salmon and prawns we had at Paris and the sumptuous spread of Jap food and cute desserts at Todai...

3) Jacqui the Wasabe Queen!
haha god knows what sparked off the wasabe eating competition... every one of us swallowed at least a small ball of wasabe just for the kick of it at the end of our lunch buffet at Todai, with Jacqui 'winning' the race by swallowing this big dollop of wasabe in the end all at one go... straight-faced and with no signs of choking..unlike some really amusing "candidates" with contorted facial expressions... hee

4)My biggest folly
was to point to this somewhat scandalously clad woman on a poster when asked to choose between two shows after winning this mini free spin at Tropicana... well.. i really didn't think it was going to be a strip show but of course no one spared me for that so throughout my trip I was harrassed by my companions pointing out strip show posters to me... glad i am back..

5) Our near 14-hour car ride home
I am sure everyone was glad to be home after a gruelling and tiring 14-hr ride in our SUV... due to jams on freeways we took a detour and ended up almost 5 hours behind schedule... but it could have been worse...kudos to our brilliang drivers and navigators... esp evelyn and ziyang who took the bulk of yesterday's long long ride home... =)

so even though i ended up home at 1130pm with lotsa work unfinished, big big hole in my pocket and perhaps hundreds of calories more from all the rich food I took in, I really enjoyed the trip... what can be better than hanging out with good company on a holiday...=)

the Bellagio fountain...=) 

just a quick entry from las vegas! am at coffee bean with my road trip mates 'koping' wireless from coffeebean... and unfortunately it closes in about 15 min time so we hav to vacate.... spent a lot of money today at outlets earlier... aargh.super broke. yest night was really nice but expensive as expected. had sumptuous buffet at Paris, then strolled across to the Bellagio to watch the musical fountain. which was just amazing and beautiful. I was really awed by the first performance and it's amazing how when skilfully choreographed water and lights can be so pretty. =)

it's thanksgiving weekend this week and with the holiday atmosphere everywehre even though i hav work i dun even feel like working. extremely bad. i was really upset today when i got back my late hw for IAS today, cos it's the best hw score i ever got... just that it had to have 1/3 of my marks docked off and end up being my worst homework.... aargh.
i received the kenneth cole coat i wanted to buy some time back from my dear friends from Kearney... sigh. very happy and thankful and touched... sigh. next time when i want to buy something i better keep it a secret...
and finished baking cookies, helped make brownies and blondies for our road trip tmr!! yay... setting off for las vegas! haha and watched bridget jones diary 1 for the nth time just now....

Kaleidoscope of cute babies

was just surfing randomly on the net and visited one of the sites i used to frequent for my journalism class .... and i came across a collection of pictures of babies on the China Daily Website... 12 pictures of babies in all kinds of funny situations... i certainly wun want to be the baby precariously lodged in a plastic bag.... nor the one being fed by a milk bottle dangled on a set-up of hanger-like thingies... "poor" babies.
aargh i am getting a sore throat... i dun want to be sick before nor during my las vegas trip.. =(

i wondered how long it would take me to walk home. and so i found out yesterday.... hmmm in about an hour. not that bad lah, at least i know that if i have absolutely no way of going home i can still walk! met up with some UCDC participants yeterday and they seemed alright but then talk of clubs to chill out at or girls swooning over the OC just left me with nothing much to contribute.... hmm oh well. i was kinda discouraged, but then again i have to bear in mind i dun even know them yet why keep worrying that i wun fit in.... i believe there will be one or two nice souls i can click with... i hope? am getting fat!!!! appealing for "waistline-decreasing measures"!! anyone?

tag-board is still down for some odd reason. how unfortunate.
i get to fly home for free!!! only paying taxes cos i redeemed my mileage plus miles for a SIA round trip ticket... and am excited that i will get to take the LA-SIN direct flight on the way home! but enuff said, i think i've been telling ppl about my 'windfall' today that i am on the verge of going overboard. so...
had my UCDC orientation today and went into a room in dwinelle with video-conferencing. rather cool i must say, to actually get to see students in Washington D.C. this sem... the group of 25 seems like a really diverse group... but I am somewhat apprehensive as I seem to be the only Asian girl there... I hope I will cope and manage the non-academic aspects of interning and studying at D.C. next sem and though I am rather tempted to worry about not fitting in, I do recognize that it is somewhat uncalled for.... worrying even before I interact with my peers on this program. terribly unhealthy, dear shi min.. I shall wait till the 'social gathering' tomorrow before making any judgments...
just watched Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason and though the proper English accent and hilarious and stupid things that Bridget did make it a really light-hearted funny movie I somehow still prefer the first one... =)

what am i doing up at 3am in the morning??! i guess cos i fell asleep while reading my articles just now and as such failed to summarize them then and now i've just finished my job and somehow am too awake to go back to sleep...am somewhat upset with tag-board for failing the whole day and making me suffer from burning curiosity as to whether those =) or ^^s or (*,*)s have xian4 shen1ed.... am also extremely amused that my little email to tell my friends about firefox sparked off a whole lot of replies from ppl in singapore, east coast of US, china and UK.... totally unexpected but then it made me very happy to hear from ppl i haven't heard from in a quite a while. =)

my 'latest craze' is firefox 1.0, available for download at www.mozilla.org
was initially unconvinced when my fren tried to tell me how IE sux.... cos i am so used to using IE i have never imagined switching to some other browser... but this is really cool. esp the tabbed browsing and multiple homepage features... among many others! =) plus it has themes u can download, extensions that u can add to make ur browser really personalized!!!
haha ok. shall stop advertising for them... hmm since when did shimin turn into a software geek?? =)

today i was toying with the idea of flying home after all.... it might be ok for me to go home, even though just for say about 2 weeks.... but tickets are SO expensive now... did a search for redeemable tics on United... and i only hav around 78000 miles to redeem... enough for a saver award home (60000) but not enough for a standard award home (100000)... aargh. irritating. only found standard awards that were available. if only i can find a saver award i can fly home for free.....then going back for 2 weeks wun be that not worth it... but perhaps i should wait till my UCDC orientation on wed to decide if this is feasible..
so many things to do before tmr, and this week!!!! aargh. too busy to be depressed. =)

sigh. have been resisting blogging about unhappy things but i shall make an exception today... dunno what happened to me today i suddenly just feel very down. bad mood. no mood to do anything. abandoned my astro hw after looking at the questions... and found out today too that i was supposed to come up with questions for poli sci section by today but kinda forgot about it and now desperately trying to read article but nothing seems to be going in. =(
and feel like i suddenly dun belong anywhere...am not capable of doing anything... dun excel in classes... bad driver... not very good company...eating lotsa junk food instead of dinner... flood of silly thoughts.

and so my grand plans to study after lunch went down the drain... ended up baking with jacqui and after that spent whole night watching bridget jones's diary on tv...it was fun though... i havne't baked for so long. and the cookies were rather yummy and i couldn't resist eating them one after another. i think i gained at least 500 calories eating all that junk...and couldn't resist walking away from the tv to do my polisci readings...
but rewatching bridget jone's diary was fun... there were still many bits which made me laugh.. bits which made me feel a bit 'aww...' like for a few seconds i wonder what it would be like if i knew someone like mr darcy... so straight-faced and seemingly nonchalant but actually loves bridget so much..., "just the way she is"... =P

thought i would hav nothing to blog about today but apparently my life is quite 'happening' haha. well.... i overslept today!! and sadly missed my IAS lecture AND the deadline to turn in the homework i stayed up all night to complete... i am so pissed with myself. i actually woke up at 820 am, but went back to sleep then when i woke up again to my horror it was 1106am.... now i get 2 out of 20 points docked off my hw and i will do badly cos dun even know if the answers are all correct. =( oh well but i mean it's my own doing... it also suddenly struck me while walking to my poli sci lecture this morning how i complained about this to no less than 3 ppl within 1.5 hrs of my waking up.... and i would hav complained to everyone who visits my blog and reads this entry!! why do ppl feel the need to complain? not that it helps undo whatever has been done...

there was this part in alfie that i liked.. when jude law describes how during his high sch days he was on a sch trip and he saw the statue of Aphrodite and he just stood in awe of it.. at how perfect and beautiful she was... but then somehow when he got closer he saw the cracks, the flaking off, the imperfections..... can't remb exactly what he said, but something along these lines.... how true it is, that sometimes when we get closer to ppl we dunno very well but think veyr highly of initially, we discover their flaws, their weaknesses... their imperfections. but i guess we can interpret this in another sense, sometimes we think ppl aren't very nice... yet when u get close to them u discover little things that make you really love them for who they are isn't it. who in the world is perfect? =)

managed to do some admin stuff this morning; figured out which organizations i wanted to apply to and sent out my first one to CARE international.... ok at least i did something... =) thought i would write more cover letters though but apparently i overestimated myself so ended up writing two only... nmind will continue next week.
then finally cooked after a long hiatus... but nothing complicated. fried ikan bilis and peanuts! tasted not bad i thought... made two batches.. one with chilli one without and i think i ate too much of the chilli ones and i am getting a sore throat now... but my peanuts could hav been crunchier and anchovies still crispier though. oh well. first try lah. =)
i am beginning to shift from feeling irritated at receiving so many non-profit org letters and freebies such as cards to feeling pity for the wasted efforts of these organizations... i will not be surprised if many individuals, upon receiving such things just dump them without even opening them.... such a waste of resources. perhaps instead of mailing things to ppl, they should divert their resources to more active fund-raising.... such that ppl will actually be pressured to donate.... i'm not saying that it's better to pressure ppl to donate, but i mean i think it might be more effective in raising funds?...

aargh. just woke up around an hour ago with messy hair cos i unintendedly fell asleep at 10 something last night... ok i intended to take a one hour nap but obviously i overestimated my abilities to wake up to do all the work i had to do.... =( so in the next hour i hav to try to fake my astro lab due today, try to study for jap listening quiz before goign to sch to practise jap oral skit with my partner... with messy hair.. eeks. well ok actually my hair is messy more than 50% of the time.. but still! my hairdryer short-circuits everytime i use it (past few days) leading to blackouts in my room and xiaotian's room and in turn leading us to troop down to ziyang's room where the main panel thing is to reset the switch... which of course led me to much paiseh-ness whenever this happened and as result i cannot blow my hair and i have messy hair from now on... or least till i get a new hairdryer... =(
realized to my horror yesterday when trying to search for internships that some deadlines have passed!! aargh. this weekend will see me frantically trying to search for new oganizations, churning out cover letters yet without a very focused idea of my thesis topic.... am actually quite tired.... cos next few weeks will just be work and more work to do... i want a week where i can slack and relax but that is scarcely possible. plus, it is shocking how there are only about 6 weeks left of this whole semester..... =(

and so bush won. no one is happy... wonder what my instructor will say later. went to his house last night supposedly to blog about elections but everything was still unclear so ended up just sitting here watching CNN... his house is really big and cool and just filled with artistic objects, tapestries, books etc which show how travelled he is... how cultured he is... and the overall decor was just lovely.... wonder if all the houses along solano look like that inside. made me wonder if one day i will have the chance to own a house like that... and grow to be as cultured and worldly like that... in the presence of two other grad journalism students yesterday i just felt really really ignorant and bad... =( yet i dun really know what to do with myself. i sometimes really admire ppl who aren't so directionless... who always know what they want and work hard towards their goals... i think i'm forever searching for things i like... sometimes aimlessly... and i think what if i go dc and screw things up... or what if i dun enjoy myself there and yearn for ppl to fall back on... sometimes i think i am strong but actually i'm very weak... schizo me.

a sadistic name for a dish

ppl who adore jap food would probably know that oyako don is the chicken and egg donburi thing.... but does anyone know what 'oyako' actually means? i didn't, but was enlightened during jap class today.... while reading one of the tb conversations. and so 'oya' means parent and 'ko' means child... and put them together u get ur oyako don.... well. interesting idea, but not exactly very appropriate for a dish...???

just found out that i got into my washington dc program. somehow i was totally zoned out when reading the email... like somehow it didn't occur to me at that instant that i should be happy.... i wonder why. but i guess i really should be elated cos it really is a good piece of news... i can really forsee myself learning a lot if the prog turns out to be as good as i anticipated it to be... but here comes all the logistics issues and the tedious search for an internship.... i guess it's a little too early to miss ppl? =P

it all started with a couch.
when the couch was home, i suddenly got inspired and started pasting pictures on the living room wall... and then everyone got inspired and thus we decided to go to ikea and dada! our living room was transformed within one afternoon. hee really like my lil candle set-up. and btw the yellow flowers i plucked from the bush across the street. *guilty look* i am pleasantly surprised how it is possible to create a homely home with 3 guy housemates... er... perhaps our nice living room will last for one day only... but nonetheless feel lucky and am glad that something good turned out of an initially doubtful housing situation... =)

four candles... one for each of us 

finally... a house picture!  

the toilet of shame campaign (perhaps someone can enlighten me)

as expected i was falling asleep in all my classes today, having slept only a miserable one hour yesterday night in an attempt to finish my midterm paper. though it's done.. think it relaly could have been better but i was just gave up in the end haha... finished it like 15 min before i left for sch this morning.... i hate how i hav to go home and study hard for jap quiz today! aargh. i really really yearn for the weekend.
am highly amused by what my professor just told my poli sci class about singapore. in an attempt to give us an idea of what the authoritarian govt under LKY was like, she came up with this bizarre example of LKY being disturbed by ppl not using toilets properly and sticking chewiing gum everywhere and started this 'toilet of shame' campaign or something, installing surveillance cameras in toilets and offenders get whisked off to prison.... i was just like huh?? hmmm maybe i am just too ignorant, but i really dun recall anything like that so i was just bewildered... she probably exaggerated... even though she claims she has been to Singapore, she just made more generalizations like it's the cleanest place in the world...that it's an offence to chew chewing gum.... hmmm wonder why foreigners get such warped ideas of singapore... even today. or maybe they just like to perpetuate these stereotypes..

realized that many things are easier said than done.

realized also that ur actions dun only impact yourself, but others as well.... such as when my forgetfulness and busy studying for midterm led guy to call me 4 times, leaving me voice messages urging me to call him back to give him my policy number cos he lost it.... momentarily i felt so wicked; how could i induce such pain in someone totally innocent, victim of my carelessness... i suppose he thought i would shirk responsibility. i am glad for myself that as i grew up my sense of 'morality' grew stronger. remember immoral moments as a kid when i helped my fren buy this scented eraser from the school bookstore, lying that it was $1 instead of 50 cents cos i wanted to get one for myself too.... haha. but there was retributive justice cos i remember wondering where the eraser i got using ill-gotten gains disappeared to despite having put it safely into my pocket.... and once i lied to my mum that there was some big bully in sch who extorts money from me as an excuse to not go to sch and got my mum rather worried... i am glad though that those were harmless lies....

what am i doing! blogging in the middle of writing my midterm paper.. distracted girl...

it is immensely rewarding sometimes to get to understand one side of your friend that you never really got to...to understand that everyone has weak moments and that u aren't the only one in the world mulling over what seems terribly unfortunate and distressing. am glad that i had two nights of interesting conversation with people i never really thought would open up to me. midterms suddenly seemed extremely trivial in comparison... (ok wait till i get a bad grade and start complaining haha) it is sometimes good to discard pre-conceptions of people and just be open and listen to what they have to say. lesson learnt this week? some things may be really painful right now but they might be better for you in the long run...

really love my friends who are so nice to me... and i guess i should give my dear housemate honorable mention for being concerned though appearing not to... =P posted a pic of my three girl pals hanging out in my room doing work last sunday morning, complete with packets of snacks of course. hee sumei is munching happily away.
my poor feet ache after a day of walking at least 6 cm taller.... i think my interview was alright but at some point in time i just felt terribly ironic... cos they were asking me things like so how do you motivate yourself? how do you deal with stress?? part of me wanted to shout.. i just brood all day and get upset over nothing... but obviously that would screw up my whole interview so i had to be fake and say hmmm oh... i try to give myself little rewards whenever i accomplish something... set little goals.... oh well. now i am getting paranoid say if i do get in... and the director would find me a fakeo for being not highly motivated nor good at dealing with stress.. haha. oh well. i guess i should give myself a little pat on the back for not screwing things up at least...
then right after my interview i decided to play it safe and check my schedule... and to my horror i discovered that i HAD NOT changed my astro 10 to p/np..... so i had to run in uncomfortable shoes to campbell and to my relief it wasn't too late... goodness knows how my gpa would fall if i were stuck with letter-graded astro 10!

girls hanging out! 

=( something happened today that was entirely my fault. dear shimin, why can't you be more careful and think before u act.... well instead of brooding what i should prob do is to take this as a painful lesson, get it settled and move on..

today's colder than yesterday...my weather bug registered 10C this morning... and even though it's relatively sunny, i can feel the coldness in the air...
so the straits times has revamped its website... perhaps in its bid to be more 'cosmopolitan' or professional or whatsoever but it actually annoyed me when i first visited the site... cos now, readers hav to register to access its articles.... well... reputable papers such as ny times and washington post hav that... but somehow when a local paper does that to me i get a bit irritated.. haha. like erm why so ma fan.. i could read it without any hassle last time.... ok maybe i'm just biased. dun really like the squarish headings either... well i suppose they are supposed to look 'cool' but they are a little too small and strain my eyes.
was too tired and fell asleep reading my articles yesterday night, but woke up earlier to do a little outline for my 10-12 pg poli sci midterm due next week... feel excited whenever i get some idea and want to put it into words into some zai essay.... but it always ends up that i take so much longer than most ppl to write something decent... and end up finishing everything like the night before... but keeping this in mind, i shall try to start early this time round. but beforeo that i hav 3 long articles to plough through for my ps section tmr =(

my fingertips are freezing as i type this. woke up this morning to an extremely cold room and wanted to just snuggle under my fleece blanket and not go to sch... it's raining!!! =( and the wind is so so cold. hate rain... it's not supposed to rain in october! all the signs of winter are starting to appear. was walking past sproul yesterday and teh ground just in front of sather gate was just covered with dried leaves... my computer says 11C right now but it feels like it's below 10. bbrr.
think i am distracted... not doing as much work as i hoped i would.. even though i reallly tried. it's nice driving ppl late back at night though. with soothing music and nice smooth roads that allow ur car to just cruise along... eeks hav to study for jap vocab quiz now... 40 min before i set off for sch..

i am really happy today... it was like an intensive girls' day out kinda thing haha. cos i was practically with the kearney house the whole day... from having three guests in my room in the morning, to going for the spice of life festival with shiying... to studying at a cafe wtih shiying and jacqui, then safeway with sumei and shiying and finally dinner at their place. it was really fun and enjoyable though, although highly unhealthy since we practically snacked the whole day as well... devoured packets of calbee crackers, wheat thins, potato chips.. didn't get that much work done, but not totally unproductive either.. so happy nonetheless... i hav grown incredibly snacky... and have developed a craving for salty snacks.. i foresee a lot of work ahead this week though, what with telebears appointments, jap quizzes, astro hws, honors meeting writeup, upcoming midterm and interview preparation.. but better busy than idle i suppose =)

so i shall face the jitters of intimidating interviews next fri, when i go for my UCDC interview... am supposed to go in typical Washington D.C working attire... which means i hav to hide my school bag somewhere... and traverse the undulating terrain of our hilly campus in high heels. eeks. so ma fan.
i had my own visitors just now... how fun. haha but not entirely healthy, with the three of us munching on my wheat thins and cardboard-tasting wheat crackers, according to sumei. and to my dismay was unable to help when sumei asked me econ 119 questions... tried to do some jap hw but not very successful. read two pages of the economist.. well. at least i did laundry... i wish the whole week was composed of friday nights, then there will never be pressure to rush homeworks haha.
i am tired of trying too hard sometimes when ppl dun seem to want to reciprocate anymore. feel hurt but i shall let go and be a more carefree person. just hope i wun say say then end up not changing.

of lovebites, earrings, sodium-loaded instant dinners, personalized mailing labels and unexpected voices

am upset about one thing but shall choose to blog on the little things that made me pleasantly surprised... got a few 'lovebites' this evening... according to another volunteer.. well of course from non-humans... such as black cats.. haha. i finally got one on my lap today.. and attempted to carry another really nice furry one but that prompty leapt back into his cage.. haha. some of these cats have such nice smooth fur and sweet personalities it pains me to think that their status quo is 'unwanted'... i love it when the cat leans its face on my hand and rubs against it.. it's such a tingly feeling sometimes.. then came home and watched the presidential debate while eating an extremely salty instant dinner... am getting a little annoyed with organizations that send me personalized mailing labels... i donated once to UNICEF and now all of them are asking me to donate... sigh. i mean i would like to help but i really can't spare that much money. then gimme goodies make me feel guilty. =( got earrings from my sis in the mail today! in exchange for the wallet and t-shirt i sent her.. yay. nice to get surprises in the mail. =) makes your day when u are feeling upset..... and just now i spoke for a few min to xiaotian's fren who happened to call xiaotian and happened to ask about the 'cavewoman' in the house.... though i dun know him veyr well, it was really a pleasant surprise... to hear from someone nice "out of the blue"... ok shall stop doodling around and get my work done for tmr... readings readings and more readings. 2 hws due. but i'm suddenly very into blogging these few days..

earrings from sis! 

yesterday i was reminded that i am actually pretty anti-social.. and 'off'.... I sometimes ask myself why ppl dun really want to talk to me, or find it difficult to... but i think the reason is i am really not that easy to talk to! =P actually i also wonder why i dun seem to have much to say. why am i so much less opinionated than most ppl... i think i am not very good company at all... but i am so thankful to know that i still have people who are willing to be my friends despite me erm being kinda silent 1/2 the time... haha perhaps i can console myself that i am a really rare 'breed'?

can't believe that i stayed up till 245 am just to do my simple assignment for econ h195a which i am thinking of dropping... sigh. so unproductive the whole night... watched miss congeniality just now when i was supposed to do work but then i really enjoyed the show haha. trying to think of a regression equation to pen down, which isnt' even feasible but i had to turn something in by tomorrow... so... sigh. and 45 min ago my dear housemate just called me cos he was too lazy to walk to my room. surprises surprises.
am beginning to start eating a lot of junk. devoured half the packet of peanuts jacqui's mum gave us. almost half of my 1.75 quart dreyers ice cream disappeared gradually over the past week. i finished one whole packet of chips on friday evening while waiting for my housemate to go home... had better stop soon else wu yao ke jiu already.
on a brighter note, i think i am beginning to think that i can get over something that has been bugging me for very long...

me again with part of my wall.... =P 

trying to be naughty... 

instead of doing work i am doing frivolous stuff.... such as taking pictures of myself with my new DIY haircut! haha.... and since i am still not tired of my hello program i shall post them on my blog... i have so much work to do!! astro 10 midterm on monday but i know like nothing.. then homeworks to do and hav to try to find a thesis topic.. so hav to read some books such taht i can come up with something decent such that i can drop my thesis class... but i doubt that will happen. oh well...
i almost laughed my head off when chester and sumei tried to correct jacqui's way of pronouncing jap.... it was so hilarious. and am once again reminded of the joys of good company... =) actually i think ppl around me are very nice to me... but perhaps i dun show enough appreciation... was talking online some time ago when i realized why many ppl often have issues.... relationships with ppl are often so asymmetric..... how problematic that sometimes people you yearn to be close to arent keen to reciprocate... and sometimes ppl you dun really want to know better seem a lil too enthusiastic... of course i am not saying that there are undesirable ppl around me, but i'm just saying such situations lead to problems...

yay. am really excited.. cos i discovered this program which allows me to upload pictures onto my blog easily. perfect for computer/html idiots like me! =) have been wanting to post pictures for so long but i never ever succeeded.... this program "Hello" is also really cool cos it's basically like a messenger program, just that it allows ppl to share pictures almost instantly... i haven't tried to sharing with pics with frens option... but it sounds really cool... shiying, u can send pictures to mm!!
hmmm so decided to post two random pictures... one taken when i visited cambridge and one when shiying's fren came over to visit. =)
i am suddenly very inspired to revamp my blog.. but really no time lah. i dream of self-designed icons but i know that is never possible cos i really dunno all this cheem stuff. haha. but the journalism class i am taking right now, which involves blogging too (but academic blogging though) also reminds me how cool online publishing is...
there simply is no time to do all the stuff i want to do... even when i do work i can never finish my work and there never is enough time to do frivolous stuff like this... how i wish i were 100 times smarter then i wun need to study as much and yet do fine.. well not that i pia like mad now.. hmm which prob also explains why my grades aren't that great huh.... ok till next time.

at golden gate park.. 

shu cat ting and me at cambridge.... 

i got free hello panda yesterday, but cos it was "on offer".... haha. but still a nice gesture.
tried very hard to do get some work done yesterday... so went to the lib to study. well... managed to read one poli sci article and watch 3/4 of my astro lecture... the last 1/4 was spent between dozing off and waking up to jacqui's kicks to wake me up ha. that was near 1am.. so... it was quite funny that FSM had wireless and like 20 metres away there was no wireless... so for a while i sat near the tables at moffitt entrace feeling deprived.... then somehow after half an hour my laptop detected airbears and yay i had internet... didn't do anything much else lah. some admin stuff emailing ppl etc. oh well. better than if i had stayed at home i suppose.
want to drop my thesis class but cannot find a thesis adviser. bored listening to ppl talking about their finance-related thesis topics.. and craine isnt' really veyr helpful. =( and gives finance projects which i totally dun want to do... haha. like i am going to drop the class cos i dun want to do the hw. but seriously it is not helping me much at this moment.

sometimes things go fine under stress.... but sometimes they dun. good that i managed to cook 3 dishes within two hours yest, with the help of my brocolli-cutting, carrot-slicing, lemon grass-tearing, rice-cooking "yeye" (grandpa). it's really a pleasure to hang around with ppl u are comfortable with. just that u're sometimes afraid that ppl get sick of you. i am somewhat schizo these days... much as i want to hang out with ppl sometimes i also feel like being alone all day.
i think that i also think too much about what other ppl are doing. just random things that happen in ppl's lives. and then compare what is it that people have that i dun. perhaps i should think more what is it that i have that people dun and really start really treasuring them instead of being so silly.

i suddenly am feeling upset. and i dun want to do my astro 10 hw and i haven gone to lecture the whole week and didn't watch lecture so i dunno how to do also. and am not even trying. sigh. nmind shall wallow in self pity for a night. shall be good and try to go for lecture tmr.
my housemate just bought supper for us. feel so wen xin. but cannot really undo my 'upsetness'...

slept at nearly 3am yest and as a result i overslept and almost missed my class.. =) (that's when you are really thankful you dun hav to run all the way to UC village and wait for ur bus....) good thing i didnt, cos i had such a great lecture this morning!! =) think sadoulet is so good at explaining econometrics.... ok perhaps it's cos i ahve taken it before, such that whatever she said more sense to me than if i were totally new in the class... but still... i really appreciate how she really tries to get at the underlying intuition.. instead of throwing some jargon and expecting us to learn them... i have so so much work to complete this week though.. sigh. but hopefully good lectures can inspire me enough and allow me to pull through the week. i hope i can get a good night's sleep on friday..... =)

yesterday my housemate 'complimented' that i am perhaps as mature as he is. should i feel honored? haha. but somehow i do feel that i did change in a way... in that i think i am still bothered by all my insecurities and stuff... but I am somehow a little better at dealing with them now... i still get upset by stuff, but I think I am a little more rational than before... and i think it's a positive sign... since I dun get overly upset about things that i really hav no power to change. and for eg. that day i heard about someone commenting on my bad driving.. haha well i think if i were the shimin last sem or last year i would hav gotten pretty upset... but now i think i'm just like u want to think what u want to think then so be it.... haha well.... but i mean i do agree that my driving isn't that great haha. given complaints by my fellow carmate that i sometimes attempt to murder him... =) i discovered more music on rhapsody.. including instrumental pieces from the phantom of the opera... and like canon in d... it's so soothing and relaxing to just play piano pieces on ur laptop when doing stuff that doens't require 100% concentration...
cannot really believe that i lazed on sofa in shiying's house for like at least 6 hours.. after the special lunch prepared for us by ziyang....watching two brainless shows and the matrix all at one shot... complete wtih an unhealthy but yummy KFC dinner at 10pm... talk about being a couch potato =P

i just discovered this brilliant site... http://rts.berkeley.edu/rhapsody/ and i signed up since there is a free introductory offer now till Oct 31... and i have been browsing through the huge collection it has!! it's so cool... i found songs that i used to listen to.. songs that i want to listen to now... even found stuff like the sound of music sountrack. whole albums.... i can 'download' as many as i want to my 'online station' then if i want to burn a song i'll hav to pay $0.79 per song.... really quite cool. have spent the past few hours listening to the most random things too... haha ti's like 2.41 am now i had better get some sleep soon actually...
dunno why but i have been very on about music all of a sudden in the past few days... maybe to keep myself occupied whenever my mind starts to wander.... =)

all gadgets are failing me! my good old fluorescent light bulb fused two nights ago, and when i was trying to not procrastinate and fill up my whole Washington DC application this morning and the internet suddenly dc... and i realized that there was an power outage... sigh. feel slightly irritated... now i hav to type everything over again.... =(
i have many things to do, but i'm not exactly doing them... astro 10 hw, jap word quiz and honors thesis project are on my list for tomorrow.... aaargh. i could hav run some regressions on my own at home... but i chose to just like dunno do what and slack... and as a result i foresee a long long session just running various regressions in the library tmr.... =( and i decided to perhaps go see Craine and ask about my thesis topics... but then perhaps i coudn't really explain myself very well, he seemed pretty muddled about what i wanted to do as well and just said some general things... and i dunno i just felt so eeky.... should hav thought things out more properly before going for office hours.
there is this elections 2004 class that seems really really interesting! but it's a grad journalism class... wonder if i shoudl take it for fun....
sigh. ok i am due for 1.5 hrs of lecture. and another 1.5 hrs of intellectual discussion on state making.... and then perhaps will go for jap office hours or attempt to do a bit of my astro hw such that i dun die tmr...

last night i was on the verge on getting emotional and depressed all over again but then it was good that there were nice distractions.. =) got an email from a 'guo ke' and was really pleasantly surprised! then this morning i checked my long-abandoned hotmail account and found an email from a p sch teacher sitting in my inbox.... albeit with only two sentences of like how are you doing? hope you are doing fine... i felt really warm inside. =) so.... this morning i xin xue lai chao and decided to send a mass email to a few of my good frens back in sg, US and UK... i had better keep this up and pull myself out whenever i lapse into a hmm ok i am going to brood kinda mood... =)
it's getting rather cold now, too cold for comfort. and it acutally rained early this morning... and haha believe it or not, the first thing that came to mind when i was half asleep was... aargh!!! i just washed my car yesterday!! =( but then i fell asleep seconds after..
had a mini mooncake festival celebration at shiying's place yest... and to our amusement discovered that the real thing is actually next week. which explains why there was no full moon... well, according to jacqui or jacqui's mum, it was the Chilean national day... haha. most of day wasted yesterday... (but for (a) good cause(s)) better work hard today!

my efforts to gai guo zi xin have been heartening so far, but can be better.... 1) still in a pretty healthy state of mind, not getting upset over wu liao things... 2) still haven really lagged in my readings... well i almost did today actually... but woke up early to finish my 30/90 pages of Samuel Huntington... though somewhat superficially. i realized that if i were to religiously do all my assignments and hw I would really be much better off and knowledgeable. regretfully i haven't reached that jing4 jie4.
i really enjoyed jap today; we were taught the informal jap conversation... and though it's tough! like so many forms to remember, it was quite fun... like to speak with all these contractions etc. then during poli sci section today, i managed to squeeze in like one sentence of my thoughts.... what with like 20 ppl rattling off about how samuel huntington emphasizes the importance of institutions etc.... but actually it's still rather stressful... everyone in my section is like super vocal and eloquent... and i mean like even though i did my reading, i didn't hav like half as many things to say... goodness knows how lost i would be had i been lazy..
also discovered a possible way of destressing yesterday when i went down to the Berkeley Animal Shelter at 2nd street...volunteering by playing with cats or walking dogs.. i'll just need to do a min. of one hour per week... and on top of that, I can go at any time that fits into my schedule. this weekend they will hold cat handling and dog walking classes and i think i'll go for them =) if i dun grow xian and lazy that is. the shelter has many many pit bulls though that look rather unfriendly and fierce, but I think some of them do hav really loveable personalities and I hope that perhaps one day if i get to deal with dogs well enough, i can like 'transcend' this psychological barrier (that they look fierce or ugly and therefore they are not nice) and try to get to know them better!! haha but that seems really far-fetched and idealisitic at this moment cos i get a little intimidated just by standing close to some large barking dogs... hmm i was just telling jacqui how cats and dogs are like humans too... like cats are like the loner types.. then dogs need more attention and love... and perhaps pit bulls are like uglier ppl... then like cute kittens are like the really popular and chio ppl... even in the animal world life is unfair huh. but i am comforted by how there are many ppl who love all of them regardless of appearances..

finally wrote my statement of purpose for UCDC this morning. one more EAP one to go... sigh. why do we hav to always write statements of purpose?? and explain every single reason why i want to go for EAP... sometimes u just feel like doing something.. =( now i actually feel that I am more keen to do UCDC cos I was browsing through the courses available at Meiji Gakuin and the variety is actually somewhat limited. but i guess EAP would be more of a fun thing, a cultural exchange.... rather than something really academic?
i really feel more at ease with myself recently. like I have grown to accept myself for who i am. instead of getting upset over my faults... i still do, but noticeably less so. i wonder why...
though sch has just started... I have 80 pages of Samuel Huntington to plough through for my poli sci class next week... new IAS hw due on thursday... the usual Jap hw.... Astro HW on friday... but still manageable. and i'm pretty excited about my first yoga PE class tmr =) let's hope i dun sprain my waist or ankle..

the sad tale of my dou sha baos

failed miserably while trying to microwave a dou sha bao for breakfast in midst of studying for my jap quiz... being too lazy to steam my red bean buns (which i used to, last sem..) i decided to follow the instructions at the back of the package which merely said put the bun into the microwave for 2 min... and so i did.... but to my horror after 5 min when i re-entered the kitchen i was greeted by this burning smell and a light brown red bean bun in the microwave oven... ok. so had to throw away the poor thing. 2nd attempt. this time i re-read the instructions... then realized hmm ok must put in microwavable container.. then i rembed my mum always puts a cup of water when she tries to microwave buns.. and so i did. sadly this time round even though the bun didn't turn brown... it was rock hard and upon breaking it open instead of the nice steaming dou sha that i usually get i got some funny powdery looking red bean 'paste'.. hmm oh well. so then decided to give up. no dou sha baos for me =(

anyway i'm somewhat happy today! things that have been bothering me for the past few weeks or so seemed to have worked out fine... and i think if i keep such an optimistic outlook i should be fine... no more depression like last sem! =) my procrastinating and chatting online still hasn't changed though. but not that that's harmful to me haha... just perhaps detrimental to my grades... which... i am still not that worried about at this moment since it's only the 2nd week of sch ;) but it's irritating i still hav my registration block... that i hav to write all my statements of purpose and get recommendation letters for my applications in the next few weeks.....

am somewhat amused that one housemate is trying to get the other to pronounce 'shrimp'... ever since dinner. i am gettin a sore throat... i think i ate too much ice cream. finished half of the 1.34 quart dreyers french silk ice cream already... it's bad when u just go eating ice cream directly from the tub...
went for the comp lab today to learn SHAZAM and was somewhat intimidated to find at least 3 grad students in my IAS 118 class... it seems cool if i were to really become comfortable with SHAZAM but right now i am still really blur.. sore throat.. sore throat =(
i haven't been driving for a week and it feels so good somehow to be sitting in my own car once again... driving to wherever i want... at anytime i like.... not that i am unhappy car pooling or anything, it's just that it's nice to hav such freedom. =)

feel an urge to complain! am currently trying to piece together my applications for UCDC program and EAP respectively but the admin is daunting and irritating! for each application i have to write a statement of purpose... get recommendation letters... for DC hav to write resume for UC and individual ones for each organization that i want to intern for... for EAP hav to settle stuff like passport, visa requirements, take passport photos that are a weird 2*2 size.... and there are 17 application steps and tons of forms to print out and send out...!! feel like not applying for anything... sigh. but obviously if i dun even hav the determination to get all these things sorted out, then i suppose I will end up doing nothing and just hang around and slack here... oh well. shall try my best to put everything together over the next month or so.... but so xian =(
thinking of volunteering at the berkeley animal shelter; u can be dog walkers or play with cats or help with admin stuff in the office. i'm thinking of playing with the animals cos i really dun hav much experience with them even though i have always wanted to have pets.... but i guess i'll see how first. wondering if i will overload myself with too much stuff? but i think as long as i dun whole day hu si luan xiang and get upset for no reason over trivial things, be less sensitive and petty, dun get glued to my computer screen and icq all night i should be fine. but it sounds easier said than done.. as always.
had a day out yesterday in SF with 2 good friends and a visiting singaporean... lots of funny moments... which guy on earth poses in front of the fence in front of the lake at the palace of fine arts and asks ppl to take his bei4 ying3? which guy is sporty enough to plant a stalk of white flower behind his ear, then consents to taking a picture among a tiny bed of flowers? or tries to 'push' the golden gate bridge with an extreme look of exertion on his face... in front of so many onlookers..

i suddenly feel a little spoilt in my new house... like i suddenly hav like my daddy with me kinda thing haha. i wonder if it will eventually evolve into a veyr 'family' kinda feel... =) haoren cooked dinner for us yesterday and it was surprisingly sumptuous, complete with salmon teriyaki, fried snow peas with carrots and vegetarian abalone and stir fried beef with ginger.... then xiaotian happened to be in sch when i ended my washington dc info session and asked if i wanted a lift home... then i just hopped off 52L and took his car instead... i dunno. i am really not used to my house being so warm and like 'lively'... well i mean of course this is a good thing, but i feel strange.. like things are so so different! for one, i would never have expected a hot dinner waiting for me at home, not since my mum came over the start of this year and prepared dinner almost every other day.... and one amusing thing was that everyone was watching tennis on tv.. then suddenly they xin xue lai chao and like ok let's go play tennis now (when we finished dinner just 5 min ago)... and then in like 20 min or whole house trooped off to get tennis balls and a racquet... but sadly even after 2 hours of circling the neighborhood and sch we failed to find an empty court... but i dunno. i just felt like things bothering me just went to the back of my mind for that evening... i wonder what i should do actually... sometiems i really feel that i hold on too tightly to certain things that i ought to let go of... but i choose to not let go... and make myself really miserable...dunno. perhaps sometimes when u let go, things naturally come back to u or resume its normal course without u even getting depressed over it constantly.. perhaps i should really make an effort to get to know my housemates better, cos they are really quite a nice bunch of ppl.. but dunno.... confused.

i think i am never really good at dealing with awkward situations... when someone close to u becomes even more distant than people u have just met, it just feels wrong. but i guess some things will improve with time? sigh i really dunno...=(
bought a little table from ikea today. wanted a swiveling chair but then sadly they were out of stock... now my room is actually quite qi2 quan2 but actually on the verge of getting too cluttered... i actually feel like i am starting to overdo things. like walls are covered with too many pictures... adding too many things to my room.... dunno perhaps it subconsciously reflects my hope/desire to really belong to this room... and hopefully to this house. hopefully today, with 3 diff ppl cooped up in their own rooms almost all day, with nearly zero interaction, won't be characteristic of what is to come this sem...

yay nice guy at honda helped me remove a scratch from my side door... though it's still slightly visible, most of it is gone! shopping around for 60000 mile servicing but havn'et settled for any. today was spring cleaning day for our house. actually pretty heartened by my housemates' cooperativeness haha in cleaning. so our house at least looks decent now... kitchen is organized, living room is not in the mess it was in when i first came back... fridge and oven both cleaner too =) haha and actually cooked my first meal with my housemates... xiaotian didn'dt cook cos he had to help his buddy. haoren cooked xian yu chao dou ya. weixiang fried fish and a whole dish of vege (broccoli and cauliflower and carrot and mushrooms) and actually i was secretly amazed cos many guys i know aren't so vege-loving haha. i made my old walnut prawns and tried out this bah kut teh mix which according to them is too 'potent' and may lead to nose bleed. i guess it was just too concentrated... somehow time flies even though i havne exactly been bumming around. like today. it just flew past. before i knew it it was dinner. haha perhaps cos i have gotten into the habit of waking up at like 1130 am everyday... better start sleeping earlier soon else i'll miss all my classes next week..

had an interesting evening + night hanging out with my housemates and some other ppl....somehow i feel like i should be more open.... cos they are actually rather nice ppl. i think previously i somehow just told myself hmm ok... i am going to feel like quite weird cos i dun really know them... but i guess sometimes u need to make the first step to try to get to know them. or just make the effort to step out of my comfort zone and stop being too AS and hang out with them to see what they actually do.. haha. they are just really different from my batch guys i suppose. spent half the night watching them and other ppl in their batch playing streetfighter or dunno what tv game.... then i actually learned intermediate skills in mahjong... wah nobody ever taught me how to calculate how many tai2s i make with my tiles till tonight. haha i am pretty amused. but of course i still didn't give in to the occasional egging me on to drink a little... on the way home in xiaotian's car the four guys were joking how he should pull the brakes and attempt to turn the car?! hmm wonder if that is what many guys do... dare their fellow pals to perform dangerous tasks?! anyway am quite amused... though in a way i was out of place, i dildn't feel as out of place as i expected myself to be... =) ha, wonder what awaits me this semester.

baked egg tarts yest! cos i wanted to eat. now hav leftover cream cheese, so was trying to search for jap cheese cake recipes... and why do they lead me to porn sites?! gross. drove to emeryville today and got hangers from ikea... then watched I, Robot with Jacqui... then came back to further unpack my luggage.. i am doing it so slowly that even after 3 days here i havn'et fuly unpacked haha... still get jitters driving, but am glad that it didn't deteriorate too badly... i haven't thrown away all my skills overnight! yay. but still get paranoid sometimes. like i was at ranch, parked... then suddenly felt the car kept going forward!! to my horror. then realized the car adjacent to me was reversing out at the same time.... scary...!

finally up to something after an 11-hour recovery sleep! i meant i slept from early last night till this morning.... cos didn't really catcch any sleep on plane, nor the day before. but despite feeling really tired i had to wash my toilet yesterday cos got gross things like on toilet bowl and like dirt... still pretty unpacked and all... too many things in my room i realize. and it done'st help that i brought back near 64 kg of luggage this time round... this is random, but grad student staying living room is suddenly shouting at tv. think cos watching olympics. i am slacking in my room listening to matchbox twenty. haha ok. my room feels nice and cool. decorations still unchanged... will do it some other day; pictures half falling off haha. made failed broccoli and cheese tortilla just now haha. washed car with jacqui today. washed gross oily sink.... attempted to clean stove but became too lazy and backachy and stopped halfway haha.. feels good to have a slacky life here, feels good to drive myself around again..... =) bought a child's bike lock at target today but then was sorely disappointed just now when informed by mark that i cna't cycle on sidewalks and i would need a helmet to bike on the roads.... oh well.

this is really amusing. 3 days of trying to access blogger from home have been futile and here i am at changi airport terminal one, trying out their free internet service 15 min before i board my plane.... and blogger actually works...
been wanting to say that my stay in singapore has been really enjoyable. getting the chance to be a spoilt kid all over again, meeting up with almost every single person i wanted to see... eating all yummy food here (though at the expense of a tummy..) making new friends at work...being happy somewhat for my whole time here...
now it's back to sch... back to my independent life... back to new housemates... to dealing with everything by myself. i return with a positive mindset.... and i hope this semester will be fulfilling and extra- fun for me... =)

am getting hopelessly fat!!! cos for the past few days i have just been eating and eating... meeting ppl for the sole purpose of eating ha. and have been ingesting a lot of unhealthy food. like bowl of huge mango ice kachang thing in one afternoon after a whole seafood platter at fish and co like 3 hrs before, then dinner plus dessert at crystal jade...
sigh so much stuff to pack... so many things to settle... and no time cos i keep going out... feel terribly disorganized but not really motivated to do all the things i hav to do...

one week left in sg; depressing thoughts of leaving and not coming back for a long time are starting to set in.... it's not that i dun look forward to starting sch again in berkeley; but have grown a little accustomed to my relatively stress-free and cheap-food-available-everywhere type of 'lifestyle' here.... plus have been a spoilt child for the past two months, with mum doing laundry and religiously and voluntarily preparing breakfast for me every morning... now it wil be back to days of getting troubled over what to cook for dinner everyday; resorting to cereal meals when i am lazy, having to fend for myself and taking care of every aspect of my life again.. haha not that it's that undesirable lah. just a lil tiring at times. but good for me in general. who will fend for me next time if i myself dun? =)
spent 3 hours carving a tiny linoleum block on sat evening after discovering that i had supplies of lino blocks and block paint hidden in my cupboard and that half of them have spoilt or expired after two years of lying in the cupboard... and yest morning created 10 prints of the same thing and felt immensely accomplished.....ha! sigh. sometimes i think that i dun like art that much anymore, but when i do it again i feel that my love for it never really did diminish. but the prob with me i guess is that i like art but i am not like super good at it. like i always dream of all these things i want to draw.... but i can never draw them as well and as realistically as all those artists out there and therein lies my dilemma... and it will take a long long time for me to come up with something good then sometiems halfway through i get a bit put off cos it really takes up so so much time!! and then when i am schooling i can never hav the luxury of hours and hours just working on a small piece of linoleum block and coming up wiht a decent design.... haha so i guess it will for the moment still remain as a retirement leisure activity... =P

end of my two day SIF symposium at Raffles City Convention centre.... today's session was surprisingly not bad, perhaps due to the speakers they invited...took away some lessons from Ho Kwon Ping's talk about challenges facing youths.... in particular something that struck me as very true was that many of us are still somewhat 'parochial'; even ppl like us studying overseas.... we may think that having travelled to many major cities in US and Europe, we have seen a lot of the world, when in actual fact we might just have merely come into contact witih some of the many diverse cultures in the Western world... and many of us dun really look to the less developed world at all... many issues ppl face in the developing world, i believe i am unable to imagine or really emphatise with... hmm actually even after having gone to Europe, i think all i have done is more like i hav stayed at those places, been to major attractions.... the amount of knowledge of each place i took back with me was like really minimal...
haha and of course at the symposium we managed to find some traces of not-too-subtle messages to the young ones that singapore is facing a declining population and it is our responsibility to do something to alleviate this problem...

today i suddenly became aware that I am actually quite privileged to be given the chance to study at Berkeley. was with two HDB scholars, one overseas one local and was talking to the overseas one about soem travelling experiences and the local scholar expressed some mild form of envy that we get to do so much travelling.... then bumped into one of those Prudential agents lurking at MRT stations trying to get passers-by to fill up their survey forms and upon hearing that i was studying at Berkeley, he just blurted out, "Wah, so zai!"... and dunno felt kinda embarrassed cos it really isn't that zai... but dunno... i guess from my point of view it isn't, cos at Berkeley and more prestigious unis there are a lot of really really zai ppl... and i am just nothing.. but i guess as compared to many ppl studying locally or who dun even get the chance to go to uni, it really is some remarkable academic achievement... sigh so dun really know what to think. but what i do know at this point in time is that i really want to go back to Berkeley and really make good use of my remaining 2 years there....=)

been spending so much money the past few days but it isnt exactly my fault... haha ok shifting blame to other ppl. the gift section in taka is simply irresistable... well stocked with all sorts of cute stuff and paraphernalia (hmm did i spell it correctly).... saw this cute jap wind chime but it's ten bucks for a tiny wind chime...but still went home with some buys and gifts for ppl! =)
house of flying daggers is actually surprisingly hilarious. with flying daggers that can aim so accurately at their targets even when these ppl aren't rooted to the ground.... ppl jumping from bamboos too bamboos and using bamboos as weapons... and bamboos so nicely lodged into the ground in such a perfect formation that allows the two protagonists to be 'caged in' nicely together without any injury...but still i enjoyed the scenery and the cinematography... i liked how when the characters are in action, the background just fades into a blurry image...
had the most zuobo day of my attachment today! spent the morning wrapping sweets and chocs for my colleagues... then in the afternoon i spent half the time at HDB book sale fishing for cheap good titles... i was really happy when i found the lovely bones for 5 bucks! =) randomly bought samuel huntington's clash of civilizations cos it was going for only 6 dollars... haha but wonder if it will just end up as a cheem title on my bookshelf.... last day of work tomorrow.... time really really flies.

haha my mum and sis commented that i look like 'bu liang shao nu'.... while i think that i look like i am trying to be 'pai' but not really succeeding.... oh well in any case i had fun and i guess it's worth looking a bit different, regardless of whether i really screwed up and look really strange haha. at least i can look back and say at least at some point in time i tried it.. =P
went back to hwa chong yesterday for the carnival and i feel really sad that hwa chong junior college is going to disappear altogether... i will feel really strange telling someone erm i studied at this junior college... but it merged with chinese high and became something else instead... sigh. think the education system here is getting a little too messy for me.. and seriously if someone asks me what the high sch system in sg is like i dun think i can give a very accurate answer...
taking leave tmr =) kinda finished my project, wrote a final draft for my paper, emailed it to my supervisor who would be back tmr but i foresee her catching up with 2 weeks' worth of work so i will prob be catching flies if i go to work tmr.... just hope that she would hav read my draft by tues.... have to go down to twinhead tmr (hopefully) to repair my problematic laptop, maybe will catch a movie or something.... getting a tummy from eating so much food here in sg.. and sitting all day at my cubicle and being too weak-willed and lazy to exercise regularly...

nearing end of attachment and i have no results!! aargh. feeling doomed. at the same time feel pretty sick of my whole project. and isolated. today very unproductive.... skived for first half an hour reading my novel... then stoned around tried to add stuff to my paper... then peeled a kiwi they distributed to us yesterday... then awaited my free lunch at crystal jade with other scholars and the 'head'.....afternoon asked colleague to give me some suggestions... then got gdp data sent to me by kind person from MND... at 440pm went for my free health checkup and to my horror found out that i have shrunk yet put on weight!! infuriating. i am super heavy now. and i have borderline high cholesterol! felt somewhat embarrassed in front of staff who gave me a mini lecture on how i should avoid deep fried foods, exercise more regularly..... haha. sigh now i am tempted to spend money to find out if i have more good or bad cholesterols.

many ppl take leave for good reasons but i took a day off today purely to slack.  cos staring more at my regression data for another consecutive day would not be very productive i figured.
watched brotherhood today and it was really good! i was really very touched by many of the scenes and somehow i felt that the film was very 'human'... and i thought it had a pretty good portrayal of the sufferings that plague civilians during wartime... the pain of parting... many many human emotions all in one film. at some point in the movie i was actually feeling rather appalled by how ppl just blindly kill fellow human beings just because their affiliations were different... like does loyalty to ur party/country really matter that much that we overlook everything else and look upon fellow human beings/friends with hostility or even plain vengefulness... like what caused ppl to regard one another with so much hatred... so chilling. Other than that it wasn't exactly very convincing to cast a 27-year old actor as a 18-yr old going-to-college boy... and the war was a little bit too draggy.... and little gory at times....  on the whole i really liked the movie... oh and i think won bin has really nice eyes haha. but guess he's the more boy boy type of shuai guy..
oh and i got a really cute black bear soft toy from joyce... =P and i thought it was really cute how its tag had 'love instructions' for the bear.. another addition to my soft toy collection on my bed! =)

getting increasingly disillusioned at work whole day staring at excel worksheets and regression software... and also getting rather worried that i will not end up with anything 'solid' in the end to submit to my supervisor.... and i also got confused cos was looking at the workings of this previous staff who did regressions... and she had like p values that were super high and yet she did not rule them out as insignificant and used all these regressors to make projections all the same..... hmmm.... was she just 'bo chap' or is there something more i should know? 

was sent the pictures of my colleague's new born son; one of them showed him lying on the table in the operating theatre! never got a glimpse of what i looked like then haha. i feel rather disturbed recently with this whole idea of ppl getting attached and couples setting up families... like during lunch one day this week my colleague suddenly leaned forth and asked expectantly, "so you really dun hav a boyfriend?" then went on to give me advice on how if u start working you prob wun hav time for such things blah... and then last week was on my way home i bumped into my rgs schoolmate behaving slightly intimately with her boyfriend on the streets and i felt really awkward that i had to 'disturb' them cos i really wanted to say hi to her... and once my colleagues were discussing which bridal shop has good wedding pics... can't be that ppl working in stat boards feel more inclined towards starting families right... haha maybe for like 3 seconds i understand someone who whole day complains she jia bu chu qu.... hmm but i am a little surprised by how most ppl really sincerely want to get married and have kids. more than 2 frens within span of one week said something like that. and one was rather shocking- she made a pact with fren that if they are both not married by 30, they would marry each other...

shall create two posts for today... went out with our da pai yest night and had yummy dessert at fullerton... but our pleasure was short-lived, with 5 ppl feasting on two tiny plates of 1) tiramisu and 2)pandan creme brulee with coconut ice cream.... da pai has long hair now! but she insists that it's to prevent her hair from scratching patients or something... seems like everyone is getting so womanly etc.... =P
went out with jeannice just now, who just came back from her yellowstone working stint... and her experience sounds really cool! and she happened to be with many nice ppl... for a while her two months there made me feel like she had done more than my 2 years in US... rediscovered far east plaza.. goodness knows when was the last time i frequented that place.. and stumbling onto sunny bookshop just brought back memories of my RGS days... they seem to have a lot of 'funky' stuff there now... haha perhaps can go shopping there after my attachment ends...
then proceeded to TAKA and they happened to have a food fest event there... cannot help but conclude that eating is kinda a national pastime... there were long lines of people everywhere, ppl squeezing past one another to get samples of free food; looking up at the second storey, i spotted this angmoh aiming his video cam at the crowd... he must have been really amused..

who said what?
 
was scrolling through my 100 over smses in my inbox and decided to 'publish' some memorable smses that I have kept in there....
 
an unexpected compliment.... Eh I think u are v cool u're my idol now yeah!
wedding bells ringing?......Pinnacle at duxton is so cool! I want! HDB not gonna build anymore this kind?
an unflattering but amusing insult..... Thats why its interesting. When u cant fit into anything. Then u have nothing to wear tmr how.
secret complaints.... Screamsss. My mum shoopping for swim suits! lucky that din last long. 

I am feeling more comfortable with the bunch of colleagues i lunch with everyday... and i am starting to think that I will grow to miss them.. they are a very different bunch of ppl, chinese-speaking, very shuang kuai and though i don't really have any common topic to talk about with them, I do feel that they do try to make an effort to include me and I am really touched. Some people conveniently forget you when u dun say anything... well I am not saying in such cases it's their fault, because i mean if i myself want to be heard I should take the initiative to speak up as well... I am just touched by ppl who make that extra effort =P and in turn I also tried to share some stuff... like how i got unclassified for maths c haha. cos we somehow started talking about hwa chong and jc and courses we took..
am also pleasantly surprised by the niceness of some ppl. and it's rare that some ppl, even though u dunno them very well, u can tell that they kinda treat everyone with the same kind of sincerity and kindness and u just feel like u should really emulate them...

announcement!
haha actually it's nothing- i just turned on my comment option so now ppl can leave comments... but i think ppl cannot see them and they just get directed to my email add.... not sure though =P will try to look for a tagboard some time later...
got a new laptop on thursday.. so have been trying to transfer files to my new laptop the whole of this weekend. was pretty domestic today too.... made green tea ice cream using jap mix this morning, then cooked dinner for my family for the first time since I came back... haha but very very simple dishes.. my usual sweet and sour tofu plus fried vege... mum cooked lian ou tang. went to pasir ris library and found a cookbook on eggs and learnt an interesting and simple fact about how to tell if eggs are fresh... haha it's probably common sense, just that it never really came across my mind. according to the book, just place your egg in a glass of water or something and if it sinks it's fresh but if it's stale it will rise or float in middle. cos eggshells are porous and if it has been out for a while, there would be more air in the air sac... i shall try that some day... =P
I will have a new colleague moving in beside me tmr...transferred from some other unit.. and app she is familiar with housing demand stuff! yay finally have someone to ask... but also means that I will feel pressured to be more sociable, instead of just slacking away with no worries about socializing with ppl as i have done for the past 4 weeks cos no one used to sit near me... but perhaps it's a good thing =)

I have grown increasingly piggish at work. stuck with my regression and ppl i appealed to for help didn't get back to me... so skived and chatted on the internet for half an hour... then went back to desk and stoned around and tried to look at data i asked from my colleague but nothing productive came out of it... also slightly embarrassing that every single day i never fail to have twix wrappers in my dustbin and there was a strawberry jap yam yam addition to the bin today... cleaners must be thinking this girl does nothing all day but eat... =P
had lunch with a female colleague who to my surprise told me that she had her 1-month anniversary with her bf yesterday and then proceeded to show me his picture... was a little taken aback by this type of 'intimacy'... but then it did create some lunch conversation... felt a little strange... ppl seem to be really open about their ling yi bans huh... shu also mentioned how ppl at her lab all like rave about their bfs, and one 23-yr old girl got upset with her bf cos he wants to study and doesn't want to get married in the near future.... seems that everyone seems very concerned about their impending 'fates'... or is it just at this age ppl think about such stuff...

very girlish for the moment and went shopping with mum and tried on like many many dresses.. haha. but sadly the one i like are too small and those i dun are too big. so came home with none... and disappointed my mum by rejecting those that she thought looked nice on me... =P
this week i did something that mustered so much courage... and i dun regret... and hopefully i will be happier and more confident in future... am trying really hard to not care about what other ppl think of me... i really really hope i will be happy next sem and not get depressed over little things once again.
i got pretty inspired by my attachment project to learn applied econometrics... just that it really is pretty difficult to learn it on my own. looked up spring schedule of classes for 04(by mistake actually) and realized that there was c142, which i would definitely sign up for if it were available next sem.. sadly no. so regretful that i dind't take econometrics earlier... realize that it really is an essential tool for doing research in econ... wonder also if i should go take h195a this year instead of next, and try to write two honors theses?? but might be too ambitious. hmmm dunno, still kinda confused. but somehow, i am beginning to understand how so many ppl can do research in econ....
oh and the amazing race is returning to channel 5 next week!! yay.