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...

nice reflections but not spectacular =P it's a little hard to imagine how the work that goes on inside this building impacts millions in the developing world huh....  

went out after class to explore my surroundings and discovered many sandwich places all around.. seems like washingtonians really like hanging out in these cool cafes.... unfortunately they aren't cheap though. also discovered the World Bank Infoshop yesterday online while at work... so i walked down to the store and it's amazing... the collection they hav there.. there are so many publications on development.... i was really excited looking at their selection, nerdy as it sounds. attempted to enter the world bank and IMF too but non-employees aren't allowed inside and security is really tight. so i'll hav to wait till april to do their monthly tour, to get a glimpse of what's inside....

i'm so schizo. today was much better than yesterday. or rather, i was just feeling more cheerful, so that's good. but it was an interesting day too. well had to ruch a response paper last night for my politics and ethics class yesterday night, which partially explains my bad mood i suppose. sat in a video screening "God Sleeps in Rwanda" during lunch hour and got to learn about the key roles women played in Rwanda in rebuilding a country ravaged by genocide. These women went through so much, but everyone's still emotionally strong and living with so much hope. puts me to shame really. i like how my center always has events, such as talks, book launches and stuff that i can go to. =) then i got to talk to my prof today and got to know a little more about her research.... i quite enjoy working for her and i hope i can really help her with her book. my translation thus far has been satisfactory and though i am not the fastest nor most accurate translator around, i guess i roughly fulfill her expectations, so that's good. and i am enjoying myself, learning about the ideas of this Chinese intellectual, Kang Xiaoguang. haha. that is quite random. and on the way back to my dorm room i met the black janitor who came to our room to clean up last week, whom my roommate very politely thanked. and so i said hi to him and to my surprise he was very pleased maybe and passed me this hiphop cd with 3 songs. haha. that was really random; i only regret how i dun really know how to appreciate hiphop...
and my roommate somehow pointed out that i was a little discriminatory, that i only liked to talk to my Singaporean frens online. hmm i was quite upset for a while, but i guess it was good that she was frank enough to tell me that... i guess i do things so subconsciously and i dun really know how ppl feel about me doing what i do, or what i don't do. but i'll try to talk more to her i guess and be more open and try to be more receptive towards new ppl i meet. in fact, it was actually a good reminder for me. why did i come here? did i come here to be sticky and AS just like i was in my own room or did i come here to accomplish something else and learn? i guess these are some things for me to think about. haha but i do miss my nice cosy full bed and comforter in my Albany room. and my nice toilet, and the good shower.

guess the initial excitement of being in a new place is wearing out and i'm beginning to think about what my next 15 or so weeks here will be like... nothing is bad at this moment but i'm just thinking i might get tired of having to read in the library everyday... or having to be around people you have to be cordial to consciously everytime.... i guess it will be kinda tiring. but oh well... i guess my worryey self has returned to haunt me today... and worried i will end up not writing a good research paper, that i will feel very lonely when everyone else is happening and i'm just hanging around at home... that i might get too clingey messaging ppl who come online to ask them how they are when they are going about their own lives... but i guess one good thing is that i have so much work that i cannot possibly spend a lot of time worrying. so that's good. if i can actually focus and concentrate on what i have to do that is....
well perhaps i can be consoled that i discovered two malaysian restaurants two blocks away from home on my way back from work today... i suppose i can treat myself to some yummy dishes when i'm feeling homesick =P

read about one chapter of my chinese book today in the Woodrow Wilson Library. bumped into my internship officer at the lunchroom and some other scholar from UK joined us and i was feeling all weird trying to fit into the conversation.... but it was fine i suppose. just a little intimidating how during lunch all the scholars working there go for lunch there and i'm like hmm... i'll just hide in one corner haha. but no lah didn't intentionally do that...set in a talk in the auditorium but got bored listening to them debating about republicans taking over congress... then went back to lib and finished up my chapter then went home. met two interns from Georgetown Uni in the intern room and they were pretty nice. hope i get to see them again =) and came home and did laundry.... and so ends my proper work day... lots of reading to do for my research seminar on friday... and the politics and ethics elective i chose to take... which is due on wed evening. but i havne't even collected the thick stack of notes yet. and hav to do a memo due on wed night... aargh. hope my eyesight doesnt worsen significantly by the end of the semester cos i foresee myself doing a lot of reading... in the library...
also tried to iron my shirts but i am quite bad at it. =( and bought starch to spray on the shirts, cos according to my roommate they make shirts 'crisper'... erm but they dun seem to work. and i feel grossed out how blotches of starch fall on my nice shirts and leave faint stains when i iron over them.... wun my shirts get starchier and starchier by the end of the semester?!

just came up after freezing for 10 min or so in pajamas under extreme cold after a false fire alarm... aaargh... after receiving news that it would snow today, my roommate and i went out so that we could experience the snow and take some nice pics. unfortunately the forgetful me forgot to charge my cam battery so didn't end up with many pics...
visited the D.C. Holocaust Memorial Museum this afternoon and it was a very educational but depressing experience. all the smithsonian museums in d.c. have free admission, so i might as well visit most of them during my stay here =) unfortunately the american art one will only be reopening in July 2006.
it is just so apalling how fellow members of the human race can be so cruel and cold-hearted. to use jews for medical expts... hitler carried out a clandestine operation to wipe out many disabled ppl, to 'purify' the Aryan race... it is so horrible to make ppl believe that they are going for a shower when in reality everyone is just going to be gassed. and it is chilling to imagine the extent of devastation and desperation the few ppl in power can create...
on the other hand, i'm heartened and thankful for those compassionate souls out there who went all out to help Jews escaping their fate. total strangers yet bound by a moral duty to rescue these innocent souls. i wonder, had i been faced with a similar situation, would i have had the courage to do such a thing?

a short excerpt from a postcard at the gift store, intended for a display showing a mountain of shoes left over by millions of Jews who perished during the Holocaust:

"We are the shoes, We are the last witnesses. We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers, from Prague, Paris and Amsterdam, And because we are only made of fabric and leather, And not of blood and flesh, Each one of us avoided the hellfire"
Moses Schulstein, Yiddish Poet

out in the snow in the vicinity of the National Mall... 

thought i wouldn't be able to get in today cos we were stuck in a human jam for at least an hour and a half before ppl started moving forward. there were loads of ppl today.... quite revealing how many of the ppl who attended were whites? having been here for a week... i dun think the racial makeup here in dc is that homogeneously white....
i still haven't gotten over the snow! today on the way home my roommate and i passed by a little park covered with fresh snow... and she xin xue lai chao and made a tiny snowman... and so we tried to take pictures. but i was careless and so the head dropped off. and when i picked it up it had a distorted head and somehow i coudn't shape it back... but it was fun... i want to make more snowmen =P but dun hav appropriate gear for it... i dunno why i am so drawn to snow even though i have seen snow before like at Tahoe.. maybe in the middle of a city with all the buildings and other structures, the natural beauty of snow just stands out more? and i love how snow kinda 'records' traces of everything... like i saw squirrel footprints. human footprints... fresh snow is just so pristine and beautiful.... =)

on my way to my designated standing area for inauguration.... 

SNOW!
and so it snowed today... on my way to work, when i got out of the Metro Station i saw tiny flakes and when the wind blew the snow was just like white sand.. very fine and light. and then when i came down for lunch i was pleasantly surprised cos the whole ground was covered with snow. snow on the roof. on the statues... on the benches. on the top parts of branches.... it was so beautiful. so i couldn't resist it. had to take a picture though when i went out snow was blowing in my face... i guess cos it's my first time experiencing snow.. like real snow... that time in japan was like almost no snow kindof... but when it was time to go home, the snow had stopped and the roads were covered with gross sludgy snow on the streets... good thing i wore boots else i would have gotten gross dirty snow on my pants =P then on my way home i saw snow on the trees and it was just so pretty and i couldn't resist again and took more pictures. though i must have been laughed at by passers-by for being so suaku and mad taking pictures of random things in the cold.... but i just felt for a moment that washington dc was like a giant 3d coloring book and then snow just filled up all the gaps....tiny crevices in buildings... everywhere imaginable... =)

the pretty 'aftermath' of the snow...

had an eventful but extremely cold day today. lips are cracking, ears are freezing off and vain me didn't want to put on ear muffs... but guess i will try to get a pair or something soon. else i will definitely freeze on thursday cos might have to stand for hours at the inauguration ceremony... tmr roads are goign to start getting closed off in preparation for the inauguration. i feel a little uneasy that every single day i never fail to hear police sirens when walking on the street...
went to the Woodrow Wilson Center today and it seems like a nice place to work at. but i dun get a designated workplace.. so prob will camp at lib most of time... met my prof too and she seems pretty nice and i got a few books on NGOs in Chinese! feel excited to start on them, yet totally inadequate to absorb its contents i believe. but will start slow. also visited Brookings Institution for a talk today... and felt veyr thrilled to be amongst so many intellectuals and like just soaking in the intellectual atmosphere was kinda exciting for me.. haha. i hope i will get to attend more lectures in future, cos my schedule is pretty flexible i think, so i can alwyas take time off to listen to talks at my own place as well as other places like Brookings... =)
also went to Georgetown Uni area to look... and they have so much shopping!!! they have H&M, Zara, Banana Republic, A&F, GAP, blah blah... but of course didn't stay long lah cos have to work tmr... but yay. preview. next time can go Zara and H&M... =P
also getting to know my roommate a little better and i find it amusing she has familiar traits... i guess we all know who goes to talks for free food?? well she has that kinda mentality too haha.

i finally understand how it can be totally torturous to be cold!!! it was SO cold today i think my nose practically froze... scarves are totally necessary and now i am really thankful i brought like at least 3 of them. i bet the wind was like around 0C today and it is really horrible. horrible horrible. so when we were walking from the Metro to the Capitol Building this morning and the wind just kept blewing and i felt like my lips were going to crack.. .i'm so lousy. then got laughed at by ppl who are used to East Coast weather. i thought Berkeley was cold... now i know... attending my orientation at the Woodrow Wilson center tmr morning... hope i get some really interesting stuff to do. =)

i walked past the World Bank, The White House and the Ronald Reagan Building yesterday before getting a free ride to Chinatown for dinner... all alone yet felt somewhat carefree. maybe it's cos nothing has started and i have nothing really to worry about yet. I think i will be working at the Ronald Reagan building and though it was closed yesterday, it seems like a pretty cool place. high security though.. there are security checkpoints at like every entrance... i was thinking of walking to work, to save money since every trip costs $1.35 and it isn't exactly that far... maybe 2 miles or so from my center?? but judging from how cold it is (for me!) i think i will prob freeze if i attempt to walk to work every morning. but i'll see how.
went grocery shopping with my roommate this morning and i was somehow re-acquainted with frozen foods, pasta and stuff again... ended up not buying much groceries and can't figure if i am going to cook or eat out. cos i really dun want to eat frozen food everyday. but which means i have to go and find a rice cooker. and like sauces. and all the cooking stuff... dilemma.
sat in, with shu, some mini RI re-union this afternoon, again at Chinatown. i guess it's quite impossible to not meet any Singaporean here... even though i didn't even mean to. After everyone left i managed to find a chinese supermart! haha i was secretly amazed how relieved i was to find a chinese supermarket. but unfortunately its standards are far from Ranch... they have hardly any fresh vegs or poultry and seafood and stuff... but at least they have most of the other stuff. dry stuff or whatever u call it. and when walking out of the supermart this old man suddenly came to talk to me cos i asked about an ATM machine and it so happened that he was from Malaysia.. what a small world. but somewhat interesting to have strangers wishing you well... haven't really met anyone esle on the program except my suitemates, who are pretty fine... guess i will at my residential and academic orientation later...

am sitting in the 3rd flr comp lab of the UC Washington Center, really sleepy after only 1 hr of sleep on the plane and another hour on my new bed and waiting to go out to explore a bit and look for lunch. can't use my own laptop till maybe monday till i get some network key. have no idea where everything is but i'm just going to go walk around, but i hesitate to even step out of this building cos it's just so so cold outside. when attempting to unload my luggage from the super shuttle van just now this cold gust of wind just blew straight in my face and i was like half shivering when i walked in.... but all seems to be good thus far! my apartment is really nice and clean and the kitchen, though small, is nice. i also got this tiny cool grey gadget called a sonitrol or something that gives me access into the building and the ability to use the elevators.... i had better STOP leaving my wallet, phone and keys behind everywhere cos there wun be anyone to 'pick up' after me or look out for me anymore...
am very happy though that shu and guoming decided last min to suddenly come visit me today!!! so i'll have some company for a few days... after which i'll be all on my own. but everything seems pretty exciting so far and i hope i will grow to really enjoy my stay here. =)

i find it amusing how i always end up having big 'farewell' parties. not that i don't appreciate what people are doing for me, but i just feel somewhat odd and paiseh. am finally 99% packed now; managed to squeeze everything into 2 bags but both are on the verge of exploding... in the end, i did not do any reading for my classes, nor much preparation for dc... dunno what i have been doing...sigh. the sense of directionless and leaving broken ends is coming back to me. maybe that's why i feel like i am not as keen as i should be? but it should be fun lah =)

i am finally almost done and have moved most of my stuff over to the kearney garage. i just wonder how i am going to move everything when i come back in summer... my walls are all bare now and even though i still hav a lot of luggage in the room the whole room just feels empty...
somehow over the past few days a few people have coincidentally shared with me how they have had very good memories with certain people under certain circumstances and even though they haven't exactly kept in touch with these friends, those moments of fun and joy were pure bliss... i suppose i should try to have such a mindset and then i'll be happier wherever i am and let things take their natural course?

these few days this song keeps ringing in my head....
" Cause it’s all in my head
I think about it over and over again......" well haha perhaps it sounds so me.

sometimes happy things make you sadder because they give you ephemeral moments of joy that you yearn for when u look back at some point in time in the future, when often circumstances have changed and things wun happen again.
was clearing up and i discovered my old burned cd and a nice song by Lighthouse Family titled "Run" =) esp like the intro part with the guitars and a jazzy saxophone feeling even though i dun think i know how to appreciate jazz.

have been going out so much that hardly any packing has been done! but i feel happy going out doing things here and enjoying the last few days in a place i have grown quite attached to over the past 2.5 years. and met jing and minglee at Stanford yesterday and it was nice just chatting the whole afternoon away and hanging out with 'old' frens... =) and good thing it didn't rain, which made driving a lot easier for me. i think craigs list is cool.... now my economist mags wun go to waste cos i think some ppl want them. and ppl have emailed me about my rugs! =) but then my books are unlikely to find new homes in the next few days. went to SF and got more stuff cos there were pretty good sales. I've decided that this shall be the last of my shopping here and i shall attempt to devote the next few days to really packing.... help. none of readings for next sem done at all.... i rediscovered the joy of understanding and reading Chinese today... in a way i am glad that I will be working for a prof specializing in China! i hope to immerse myself in chinese texts next sem and re-aquaint myself with his lovely language... i miss the days when i used to be able to write somewhat well in Chinese, with all those flowery cheng yus and phrases.... received a cute jigsaw puzzle note from my housemate =) it is really comforting sometimes, to know that you actually mean something to ppl around you, whether or not you are really deserving of that attention.

i have been trying to pack but not much progress thus far. i just somehow cannot organize which task to do first. what to pack into boxes. whether to throw away some things or not. whether to sell certain books or not. have to make all these many trivial decisions and it's getting me somewhat bothered. coupled with other things on my mind.... feelings that i have to sort out. pre-arrival readings to do. worrying about what to bring and what not. sometimes i really wish i weren't moving anywhere. but such inertia would get me nowhere and i think this program should do me good. sigh. why can't i be more shuang3 kuai4. forget easily and adapt easily. dun think so much about every single thing. but i just can't... in a way my room is like my life... there seems to be random things everywhere distracting me. and broken ends here and there. not much order. i dun seem to be able to really 'tie' everything together... i have goals in life, but i dun even know if i am really working towards them... like this lost girl in the middle of an ocean... trying to swim in all directions not knowing where the shore really is. and giving up quickly after each time and trying another direction. actually i will probably eventually drown cos i can't even swim half a lap in a normal swimming pool.

the cute green bear is watching silly shimin telling her not to cry cos shimin also doesn't know what she is upset over 

I received a really special gift from two dear friends- a ‘debut’ album with “ ba shou qiang li zhu da”, including solos and duets from the self-proclaimed ‘rarely sing for ppl’ laogong and the musically-inclined baking buddy. Haha. Now I have made them seem so surreal and out of this world. But ya, I am really touched. and thankful that I have such sweet friends. And I know that when I am feeling cold and lonely and upset in Washington D.C…. I can always pull out this special album and listen to the familiar voices, relive the happy moments we have shared together =) I guess I will actually miss a certain individual who intentionally keks me sometimes by making insensitive comments about my figure. And someone who almost always sides with me or pseudo-scolds me for shopping too much. Was also really touched by my aunt, who took the trouble to take bus all the way to the airport to send me off, who in her own way showed me much affection, who over the past week or two made yummy fruit cakes and Chinese new year cookies specially for me to savor… and just before I made my way towards the departure gates stuffed me two packets of preserved peach pulp for me to snack on on the airplane… though I dun exactly like preserved stuff, I’ll definitely finish both of them.. =)

i finally got down to developing some pictures taken last summer on my boston/canada trip a few days ago and realized that the lomo pics are actually pretty cool! perhaps i should go experiment with it again... =)
am going back tomorrow.... am quite pleased that i managed to meet up with almost every single person i wanted to meet up with. hope the new semester will be a good opportunity to move on, to enrich myself and grow more confident. haha but knowing me, i will probably be bothered and get stressed by new ppl, new tasks...

pic from my lomo camera!  

it was quite coincidental how while watching phantom of the opera, right after spooky things started happening in the opera house (in the show) there was suddenly a blackout in the movie theatre, leading ppl to shout "phantom" etc... and it turns out that there was a power failure. how unlucky... but the power returned after 10 min or so =) really love the songs even though i dind't enjoy the movie as much as i thought i would. i dunno. oh but i quite liked the masquerade scene where all the actors and actresses, despite being only clad in black and white, looked really spectacular together because of the qian bian wan hua designs of the costumes...the show made me really miss the phantom musical i watched in new york, though it is just but a faint memory now... but perhaps cos it was the first proper musical i caught and cos it was at Broadway... =P i hope i can go back to new york and catch more musicals during my stay at d.c. =)

was greeted by an unexpected visitor when i entered my grandma's place this afternoon.... a peach-faced lovebird named "Baby". it so turns out that someone gave my cousins this cute pet bird and they brought it to my grandma's place.... after some initial squeamishness i managed to get it to mount my jeans pocket.... after which it got kinda comfortable and started making its way up my t-shirt by clinging on to the folds of my t-shirt... and when Baby started moving up to my neck i started screaming and jumping cos it was really ticklish... (after the picture was taken) haha but felt like a kid for one whole afternoon, making cooing sounds to attract its attention. =) it was pretty tame though.

new year resolutions? dun really have anything in mind since i dun usually keep to them... but i suppose i will resolve to be less pessimistic and hu si luan xiang less, constantly remind myself to treat every single person i meet with respect, restrain myself from snacking too much, treasure every moment with my loved ones and make the best of my stay at Washington D.C..... and i hope for the many less fortunate souls in this world that no more disasters will hit them and worsen their already dismal living conditions..

Did i suddenly turn birdwoman?  

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...