after tidying up my room a little (still lil messy) i decided to take a picture of it =P nothing fancy, but furniture and facilities are pretty new, so satisfactory lah.
writing a book seems like a very long and tedious process i wonder how all these authors do it. my prof has to go to her office everyday to work on whatever she has....and she has so much info, everywhere... it just seems impossible to even organize everything. she admits that sometimes when she reads what she has written last time, she is amazed that she actually managed to put such a book together. i think i'll never be able to do that, considering how i have problems writing even a 20 page paper haha. and i guess i'm not that brainy either. and to think that there are like so many scholars in the woodrow wilson center working on their respective books. lotsa brilliant brains out there.

my side of the room... erm... it's usually not this neat haha.  

visited the Library of Congress today to check out if there's any stuff relevant to my internship and research....it claims to be the largest library in the world... took 10 min to make a reader registration card which allows u to enter the reading rooms...it's free! once again very pleased by how this city is so research-friendly...books can't be borrowed out by the public though. the librarian at the Asian Reading room was nice and i discovered they hav two online databases on China, with up-to-date periodicals and stuff. wonder if i will end up using the resources there, but it's good to know what's out there =) then walked down Pennsylvania Ave to hunt for lunch and found this eatery with the new york style pay according to how heavy ur food is thingy. finally some place with cheap sushi. can eat there next time when i go to the library. though not that cheap also lah. DC has so many nice sandwich shops and coffee joints for working folks... if only i were richer =P
everyone is out at instructor's apartment watching state-of-the-union address but dunno why everyone is not home yet. feel blissful to have the whole apartment to myself haha... and fickle me decided not to drop my politics and ethics class after all.

feel a little left out that i can't celebrate the two birthdays in berkeley and am stuck here with a paper to write. on why there was such a high voter turnout in the 2004 elections and reason it out according to how the two authors we have read will assess this. sigh. i guess i can do something decent if i had the motivation but then i just dun really hav the motivation and am like being =( about it. bad attitude. after this, i shall go and write..... aiyah but i am fine lah. dun feel depressed or anything, just that it would hav been nice to hav been able to join in the birthday celebrations!
decided to drop my politics and ethics class today and i wanted to go under units but then realized it's a huge hassle. have to call up L and S and financial aid and tell scholarship ppl etc etc... sigh. so i'll probably switch to the otehr class, which is not that heavy-going. and hopefully that will be interesting... not that i am super busy, but like stuck with things i am not like highly interested in. i iwould rather devote all my time to doing work for my professor...

read about the slashing of the Chinese syllabus from P1 to Sec4.... that's sad. what would kids learn in future if this goes on. maybe they wun even be able to converse properly in Chinese anymore. well ok not that i can, but things seem to be going down the drain. and am somewhat disappointed by those parents they interviewed.... "so will the chapters that aren't going to be taught going to come out in exams"... sigh. quite sad. i guess i feel a little strongly cos i quite enjoy what i am reading. though it's dense and like kinda tiring to plough through, if i am in a good mood and eyes not tired, i really enjoy reading what i read. =) but am turning into a couch potato, sitting either at the computer or table all day doing translation or reading. and get quite tired when i get home. yet hav to do readings for my class. =( wish i didn't hav to take the elective class on wed nights.

was sorely disappointed with my dinner. went to daobao from malaysia kopitiam, expecting yummy authentic yellow and white hokkien mee... =( unfortunately it turned out to be some highly soya-saucy udon like noodles which tasted fine but not at all like the hokkien mee i wanted to eat. and paid $10 for it. =(
continued visiting some museums at the mall today. still like the holocaust one best. visited the air and space musuem, which was not that interesting. had a preview of the national gallery of art and the national archives. bought a really cool Monet magnet set from the museum shop. it has so much cool arty stuff but of course not very affordable. wanted to visit the natural history museum but there wasn't time. guess i'll go back next time. lost a glove. =( i wish it would stop snowing. and that the temperatures would go up. i'm rather sick of having to dress warmly every time i go out. i wish it were just above 0 degrees. then it would be at least more comfortably cold... and then my skin wouldn't get so dry and itch. a new york times article i read today had some tips from experts. apparently to prevent your skin from itching u can put oatmeal in your bath (which sounds gross) or baking soda (which sounds gross too) and alas! i don't have a bath, only a lousy shower that 'leaks' cos it only has a shower curtain...