down but not out

after a pretty gruelling session this evening, i half felt like my world was falling apart and that my next 4 weeks would be pure hell. but at the same time, i also felt like i probably can't find a better bunch of classmates (and prof) anywhere else. i feel like there's so much i can learn from other ppl... at this point in time, i feel sorry for having made all these inaccurate preliminary judgements about my classmates. on the contrary, they are probably some of the smartest and worldly ppl i've come across. and i dunno why this is the case, but i feel so slow-witted in comparison. like SERIOUSLY. i wonder if it's just me, or if it's cos i still can't break away from the way of learning that i was brought up on, or if my character has something to do with it.... and i should be totally ashamed to confess this, but it was probably only about 4 hours ago that it finally dawned on me what it really takes to write a good, proper thesis. and if tragedy really befalls mine, i can at least console myself that there were all these other things that i took away from the class...but of course i hope i can avert that tragedy. and it's really up to me how i want it to turn out eventually. but right now, i'm so exhausted and brain dead that i need to conk out soon.
(this was written last night but server was down and so i couldn't publish it then)

Fraud alert

discovered an hour ago that i fell victim to an online credit card fraud some time last week without even realizing it!! relieved that i wun be liable for the fraudulent charges but it suddenly made me VERY aware that i should always be EXTREMELY cautious with divulging personal info over the internet... so how did i get tricked? remb i mentioned those pok emails that try to make ppl enter into business partnerships that were obviously fake? so this trap came in the form of an email too, (ironically and i guess cleverly) warning me that there has been fraudulent activity on my account and telling me that i should log into my acct to verify my info etc... can't remb exact wording. and fraudsters did an excellent job imitating the Chase interface that i didn't even suspect that it was fake... and stupidly clicked on link and entered info. now that i think about it, that link prob led to the fraudsters' victim database (which also looked totally authentic)... i'm actually also reminded of this similar Citibank email that was circulating prob a year ago.. this is the prob the very first fake Chase email i've gotten... oh well. i was really careless too. certainly a nasty shock, but definitely alerted me to the lurking possibilities of online credit card fraud!

just watched a Three Gorges documentary at Wheeler. i'm probably repeating myself, but just really appreciate how documentaries often bring the lives of ppl in obscure places to the outside world... i went for this 2.5 hr-long screening mainly cos i'm doing a case study on Chongqing now and recently found out that one of the government's big challenge was to relocate the residents living around the dam area... and i came across provincial publications that said things like... this year we successfully relocated this many folks.... but in reality, as the documentary shows, there's so much more to it. when HUGE national construction projects like this get implemented, yeah, it's good for the economy, it provides hydroelectric power... but at the same time so many ppl are literally FORCED out of their homes... so many lives get disrupted... notices with seemingly arbitrary deadlines for evacuation are just put up on doors, walls etc and residents are expected to be able to relocate themselves (there's also like compensations etc but like everything seems rather confusing and poorly managed and many ppl get left out etc). to force ppl to evacuate by a certain date, electricity and water supplies eventually get cut off and the film shows these probably dangerous and unprofessional ways of doing it- ppl literally sawing off pipes and sticking pieces of wood into them to stop the flow; after demolition of buildings workers try to get some cash for scrap metal/ bricks or something and the ways they went about doing it just made me really fear for their safety...

i dunno, actually seeing what it might be like for myself kinda puts everything into perspective. 'extrapolating' this to my own research topic--i can read all the academic papers in the world, look at all my primary sources; but not having witnessed things actually going on at the ground level just impairs my overall understanding... it made me rethink what i've been doing. i wonder what all the statistics i have for urban-rural income inequality translates into in reality... what does it mean to have an annual income of 2500 yuan? sadly i wun hav the time nor opportunity to find out before i turn in my thesis. but it made me realize what REAL research really entails.

i probably just wrecked my eyesight-- watching the remaining 6 episodes of PRIDE late last night and this morning, after half a night of thesis typing and almost a week of staring at thesis on computer screens.... but it was seriously addictive. even though plot isn't that unpredictable; i fell for all the soppy stuff all the same and prob cried away 1/4 of my tissue box... haha! not only that, there's just the friendship, the 'brotherhood' stuff and good sideplots that made me really love this show... =P and now the instrumental pieces are just ringing in my head.... haha. aiyah, i think sometiems you just cannot be too cynical if you want to enjoy these dramas... not that i really believe that such things happen in real life, but all the same i really admire ppl who can produce things that really touch ppl's hearts.