this is random but was just rereading paragraphs from the Little Prince and feel that everyone should read it =P i wonder why there aren't more ppl who appreciate or read beyond its seemingly childish conversations. it's so beautifully written...You are beautiful, but you are empty..... One could not die for you...

Excerpt from Chapter 21...

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me, like that, in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near...

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

actually i also dunno what these things are, but found them strewn all over the ground while trying to hike up a trail at Tilden... initially i thought someone dropped a pile of rusty screws on the ground, but upon closer examination they were actually some kind of acorn-shaped fruit! and i was so amused by these well-formed thingies that i decided to collect some of them to attempt to take a nice picture. yes, i'm trying to take better pictures, but progress is slow. but hopefully i'll get there, some day. =) and i realized that i am perhaps not really cut out for hiking... ppl just enjoy admiring trees, nature etc, but i do random things like pick up funny fruits from the ground and lag behind everyone else. or spend 3 min trying to take pic of this pretty orange flower jacqui plucked for me...
tomorrow my monopoly over the house shall end cos housemates are coming back... and within 5 days two of Kai's fish died... even though i really tried my best to remember to feed them... sigh. fished out one guppy on Sun night and there's this stationary gold one at bottom of tank lying on its side. dunno if it's sick or dead... =(

a frivolous research question

i for some reason have recently become rather aware of how many authors dedicate their books to their spouses for the support given to them throughout the whole process of writing... or words of gratitude along the lines of, "if not for him/her, i wonder if i could have pulled through this"... of course ppl acknowledge the help and support of colleagues and family members too, but i get the sense of ppl being esp grateful that there's like this ONE person he/she can always rely on/ who is always there for them...
and i'm really curious. is such emotional support really crucial? i suddenly am thinking if any study on correlation/ relationships between say, marriage and authorship has been done? like to what extent can we really be self-sufficient; self-reliant? out of those bestselling works (be it books, art, films or what not) we have, how many percent of the creators are married/ have had long-standing, happy relationships with their partners...can any meaningful and more structured investigation be done to look into this? is there even any causal relationship between 'unflinching' emotional support (which i guess can be best estimated using marriage, though not exactly very accurate also, since ppl marry for so many different reasons) and corresponding success of person? hmm...... right at this moment i realize i'm actually trying to delve into how true the "saying"--' behind every successful man there has to be a woman', is.
possible Econ thesis for next sem? or pysch/sociology project?? any suggestions/ comments out there? =P am i being totally weird to wonder...

recently i've actually had a few ppl telling me that i seem happier and a teeny bit more self-confident... and i do think so myself too... it's not that suddenly good things have been happening to me; nor did i suddenly turn smart; pretty or whatever (ha, of course i wish i did, but these really aren't the most impt things in life) but i guess i've gradually changed my mindset... well. i guess there are always things that i wish would happen but never will, things i'm dissatisfied about; but ultimately there's nothing in my life that i should be seriously upset about... so why not just treasure everything i do have. not everyone gets to come to Berkeley for college... not everyone gets chance to make some really good friends in college... guess the list can just go on.
and i'm going to try harder... and hopefully write a good PEIS thesis this sem too... well, my only fellow classmate in H195 seminar has done most of his work and has even collected all his data... and i really do feel threatened cos everything for me is still pretty much up in the air, but instead of sitting at home and fretting at least i'm trying... i borrowed all these books and shall force myself to piece up something decent to talk about next class... and while my UCDC paper really wasn't fantastic, at least it made me read up more about my area of interest last sem..and it helps that i have a lot of time to myself this sem. i'm starting to feel like i can be alone for the most part, but perhaps not lonely. perhaps also good that i wun hav much free time to worry too much either =)

yay Berkeley's screening Born into Brothels at Wheeler next fri!

so i had my own taste of Ken Chay's lectures today.... he prob spent like half the time digressing from lecture stuff lah; but it was kinda interesting and amusing, from hearing him shoot down (not so subtly) an economist XXX (quote: winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, who recently published a BS bestseller) to presenting Gwyneth Paltrow's Sliding Doors plot as an example of a 'counterfactual'..... i guess i would have bits of trivia presented to me every tues and thurs from now on... =P
and i really enjoyed my History lecture today... i also don't understand why... the stuff is really interesting. i dun really understand why i can get excited over individuals trying to reform China in the early 1900s...factions within the imperial court... how Cixi usurped power... but i really did. it's just fascinating... i mean i prob wun remb this 10 yrs from now (or even 2? cos i'm so forgetful) but i just really enjoyed learning about them.. but 10 thick books in 15 weeks??
and so we were discussing famous Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong's text about xiang1 in Chinese class, as in like countryside... one of the characteristics being that ppl had tendency to settle down in little clusters and stayed in these communities (usually) throughout their lives... and as such there's this sense of familiarity and there's actually no need for the rule of law.. cos there's like this mutual trust among individuals.. whereas in the cities, ppl are usually strangers and we have to come up with all these rules/laws to ensure ppl keep their word etc.... and i was just thinking it's actually pretty true... (but i guess laws are also in place to make things more organized, more orderly....) then in the evening, i got a surprise cos something similar actually happened, though we're not exactly in any kind of rural area... picked up my long coats from laundry place on University and found that i had no cash to pay the auntie, and she actually let me take my coats home without paying... she was like... you can pay me when you drop by the next few days... i was just so touched... well, i've only been there once like last year, yet she trusted me so much... i'll be so totally guilt-stricken if this thing slips my mind and i forget to go pay her by this weekend...

today was a long hungry day... actually wanted to go from 930-630 with no break in between but i gave up and didn't sit in the 330-500 lecture. and was nodding off in my 5-630 lecture...(on 2nd day of class! typical me, some ppl would say...) but of course schedule's not confirmed yet. so no hungry tues and thurs yet =P
my most interesting classes were my two chapalang classes. i'm actually going to read stuff in Chinese for once! and will get to watch films and read authors like Lu Xun and Zhang Ai Ling... hope doing readings in Chinese wun take me ages. for History 116d i actually got a shock when i entered the room, cos i somehow thought my lecturer was supposed to be a guy, but was greeted instead by this taitai-looking middle-aged Chinese lady with a slight fobbish accent.. she was a lil long-winded initially, but eventually delivered a pretty decent first lecture. so hopes are still high =) only afraid that after 3 lectures in a row i might be a bit too braindead to absorb what she has to offer each time.

though it got a little draggy at times, i think Beautiful Life's one of the most romantic dramas of its kind. not many shows can actually make you feel like the couple's really in love. but then again i prob haven't watched enough dramas to make any sound conclusion... but i thought i could really feel the chemistry between Shuji and Kyoko... sad show, but really liked most of the characters in it.
then again, 'love' is so subjective. but no matter what kind of love, i believe it's something that comes really naturally/subconsciously... like caring about someone "involuntarily". not easily controllable. will miss. mmm..purely wanting someone to be happy? not intentionally seeking reciprocation. aiyah but of course, who doesn't like reciprocation. humans are feeling creatures after all... nmind... just rambling =P

To the lighthouse

it was such a beautiful day today... and it so happened that sumei and i decided to go check out the Marin Headlands near Sausalito this afternoon... i seriously LOVE the weather here. hmm anyway this lighthouse's at Point Bonita (haha name tickles me cos it brings back some silly but fond memories) the view wasn't GREAT, but nice nonetheless. and the drive up there was just so soothing, esp when it was still a little cloudy in the distance and i felt like i was driving into a sea of clouds! Feel like i want to check out a new place every weekend... what have i been doing the past 3 years??? either stoning in front of my computer or hanging out in libraries?? definitely aim to visit more places around the Bay area this year... and improve driving skills...=) Sch's starting in a day's time. am actually pretty excited about some of my classes. but feel like i'm morphing into such a chapalang major, cos i'm really looking forward to my Chinese 159 and History 116d classes! of course, look forward to taking Econ 181 too... =)

Point Bonita, Marin Headlands

mmm... intriguing idea... champagne-in-watermelon on she who eats...

i aim to be healthy this semester... free stupid Cali fitness in sg (compliments of Jeannice, who signed up for membership) says that i need to do weight training and cut down on fats! hmmph. weight training... as if i'm not heavy enough. cut down on fats... hmmm i guess erm that's partly accurate.. haha (deceive deceive myself) ... which also means like maybe one year ago i was REALLY fat.. hmm. oh well, ya lah still need to exercise more =P good lah, exercise more, eat less, then save money also... let's see how long i can sustain this... i hav feeling maybe two weeks into plan i will give up and succumb to like yummy cheap Haagen-Dazs...

i finally hav internet! haha. just one night without internet and i was feeling hun2 sheng1 bu4 shu1 fu2... i even dreamt about discovering the wireless password... quite scary how dependent on internet i have subconsciously become... but finally got wireless password this morning =) sigh i got jet lag so even though i didn't sleep all day yesterday i still couldn't make it. woke up at 330am and tried very hard to get back to sleep but just couldn't. good thing i had my jap dramas to pei2 wo3, so watched my Beautiful Life starting from like 4am... the quality's really good and i really regret not getting more Jap dramas to keep up with listening to Jap. plus relistening to the nice piano piece in the song was really heartwarming too. oh well. =(
received a piece of bad news yest... that they uncovered my dishonest reporting for car insurance and so premium will be raised to like $2900!!! crazy. have to look for car insurance again today. wondering if i should drive without collision insurance.... sigh and there are funny bumps on my tires i guess i would have to send it in for inspection. it's actually really rather cold here, for a normal summer morning... but i like... haha and i hav little Kai crying in the morning not wanting to go to sch again... haha a bit noisy, but somehow unlike some ppl, i just dun think i can ever hate kids... =P

i'm flying back to the US for the last time... i know i will really treasure this last year so much... yet knowing that i prob wun be back till next June makes me feel a little bu she de my family... not that i haven't been away for a year before, but this time it's like planning to be away till i graduate...and after bout two months of being showered with love from parents i feel just a teeny bit hesitant about leaving=P hmmm but anyway, plan to keep myself very busy this year and aim to study harder... so there prob wun be much time for me to miss home and before i know it, i'll be yearning i had another year in the US... k... back to last min packing =P

and so i finally 'met' my sister's bf, but in a rather bu4 guang1 cai3 way, since mum made me open door for sis in my jian4 bu4 de2 ren2 night gown.... sick. always come home when i'm like in ready-to-sleep wear... then got no time to change cos like by that time the bf wouldn't be at door anymore...(my hesitation the past few times have resulted in a few missed opportunities) sigh. what an embarrassing first meeting. and i feel so funny, why cannot guang ming zheng da meet him, must like purposely open door then like tou1 kan4... but chap looks like decent guy lah.. least i got to see him once before i leave on tues =P
after touring the Asian cities i did this summer, i have decided that Singapore's perhaps one of the few Asian cities (out of all the Asian cities i've toured so far, which is not that many lah) i would actually want to stay in...I actually quite like Tokyo, but living expenses are too high. maybe when i'm rich and retired... anyway, would def return to tour other Japanese cities soon! i hope. this sounds dumb, but i really do feel quite at home here... when i first came back from China, somehow i really appreciated how u hav ppl speaking singlish again, how u have all kinds of familiar-tasting local food again... and i mean no matter fluent i get in Mandarin over in China, it's still not natural somehow...

it's sometimes good to be sick huh... u get extra attention and parents fuss over you... haha... my usually lazy dad peeled and sliced an apple for me yesterday! have been sleeping so much over past few days that i feel very tou hun nao zhang. glad i'm feeling a lot better today and am ready to do some last min shopping/ meet up with frens tmr before i leave on Tuesday =) sometimes, i really think parental love is the most wei3 da4. they can be a lil bit fan2 sometimes, but their actions are always well-intentioned lah.

Pictures!

Jingshan Park, Beijing.

Buildings at The Bund, Shanghai.

Xi1 Hu2 (West Lake) in the evening, Hangzhou.

hmmm too many pics to post on my blog... for more pics, click here! i find myself getting more and more interested in photography... i want to take nice pics. There's a visual studies Intro to Photography class at Berkeley this Fall, but unfortunately it clashes with my other classes... =(

yay. back in Beijing... and quite ready to go home tonight. i'm almost over my cheap-food euphoria, had enough of horrible weather (yest was so scorching; it's now pouring in Beijing...no wonder i'm getting sore-throaty and falling sick) and of course, quite sick of hunting for cheap DVDs... but happy i found my jc-era Beautiful Life Jap drama for acceptable price. also a little sad though that i'm leaving just when my conversational Chinese is actually getting pretty decent =P

hmm. i forgot to add that with such uncomfortably hot/humid weather, you get interesting sights on the street though. every now and then i will see adult men with shirts rolled up to their chests walking around. hmm actually i just changed my mind. it's not interesting at all. rather gross, actually =P

of Suzhou, Hangzhou and nightmarish train stations
am now slacking in Hangzhou before my evening 13 hr overnight train that will take me all the way back to Beijing... i am starting to get burnt out; aching muscles and sore feet, plus uncomfortably hot and humid weather makes travelling really somewhat unpleasant. and i've decided that i've had ENOUGH of train stations in China... it is really a pain to have to wade through swarms of people to get to your destination each time...well. but this is China; what did i expect? =P i've also started wondering if Chinese really enjoy peddling their wares... was pretty amused/amazed to see railway staff peddling gadgets on some trains! from 'special' socks to toys and weird gimmicky gadgets, complete with detailed live demonstrations (for toys and gadgets)... i mean food/ magazine carts were ok, but "officially"selling random toys on trains was just weird.
Suzhou's gardens were really picturesque; but there's really little else to do beside touring the gardens. the whole place is pretty small and somewhat touristy too. but some gardens can be really beautiful. at some point i just sat at stone benches/on bridges to admire all that was around me. would have been very peaceful without the tonnes of ppl touring the gardens at the same time. the effort owners spent into designing their gardens was amazing. gardens were really meticulously planned. eg. to view a certain scenery, u can only stand at this particular spot; anywhere else you wun see the complete picture... who on earth has the time to do such things these days...
came to Hangzhou mainly for the famed Xi1 Hu2 (West Lake) and it's also very pretty... esp if you go at the right times. it's not immediately breathtaking, but it's nice to just stroll by the lake and take in the view at different points of the walk. Ting and I decided to catch the sunrise and escape the heat; so woke up at an unearthly hour this morning. by 515am we were by the lake and i was surprised that there were already many old folks strolling around, doing their morning exercises, hanging around etc....also partially felt like i was reliving my pri/sec sch Chinese textbooks, what with attractions like Yue Fei's temple/tomb, Wu Song's tomb (all fake and reconstructed one though, and apparently Sima Guang's house or something but that i didnt see) and the famed Lei2 Feng1 Ta3 from Bai2 She2 Zhuan4...
hmm anyway hav to stop now. glad i'm going home on Tuesday.. think i've had enough of China in sucky weather for now =P

Shanghai is somewhat disappointing. it's actually rather like my pre-conceived notion of what Beijing might be like, 10 yrs from my last visit to China... but it turned out that i found myself liking Beijing a whole lot more. Well, yes, i was mesmerized by the night view at the Shanghai tan1 (The Bund) last night... but other than that, it just feels like it can be potentially any other international city. it's very modern, you see quite a few ppl driving luxury cars... but dunno, it just feels like it doesn't really have much character. i tried to hunt down bits of old Shanghai, but the so-called 'old town/old city' seems rather fake. everything seems catered to tourists... perhaps my most enjoyable experience was looking at antiques at the antique market area.... where tog with those wares you really get to see some old residential buildilngs; the less glamorous bits of the city. but they seem to be disappearing... quite a lot of rubble near these older areas, i guess to make way for the new buildings. quite sad, really. and meeting Warner for dinner and hearing about his interesting encounters in the process of searching for old Shanghai posters for his research was of course another highlight. other than that, ppl really pushing you hard to get in/out of the subway trains, some really bad service at stores and the homogeneity of many areas just made me thankful in a way that i didn't plan to stay for a longer time. hmm dunno. perhaps 1.5 days here wasn't enough for me to really get an accurate picture of what Shanghai's like?

i thought i would be bored slacking 6 days in Beijing... but i was wrong... the past 2 days have been esp memorable =) i dunno why the typhoon doesn't spare any place i visit... when i was in Hong Kong weather was horrible apparently due to typhoon in Taiwan and yest there was supposed to be a thunderstorm in Beijing cos typhoon has apparently moved up here... but luckily it wasn't that bad... but we had to scale the great wall under less than optimal conditions... but still awed by it nonetheless. wind and rain made navigating treacherously steep slopes esp difficult, but also more memorable... u really really wonder how many ppl sacrificed their lives building this amazing wall...
today was one of the more interesting days. it really struck me how perhaps 99% of the tourists i've seen these past 6 days at major tourist attractions are Chinese. i guess from other provinces... the snaking line to enter Mao's mausoleum made me wonder if the Chinese really really still respect and admire him even decades after his death? also, to some extent, i still observed traces of communism all over. eg. people still call one another 'tong2 zhi4'... i could not believe that there was some loudspeaker voice in the square near the mausoleum advising ppl lining up to be quiet, to be respectful when filing past Mao's (apparently formaldehyde-filled) corpse...blah blah. and ppl holding loudspeakers to keep the crowds orderly... sigh there's so much i want to blog about but can't =P shall reserve till when i return from my trip. then in the evening, i took an interesting hutong tour on trishaw with Ting... our guide (i felt bad like we're ripping him off like that cos we paid quite little for like a 1.5 hr ride and he was this puny guy who had to zai4 us round sights and kept sweating profusely) I think these hutongs (dwelling units most Beijing folks used to live in) are SO interesting. many of them have been converted into shops/bars/touristy places already, but many remain real dwelling units for many ppl. they seem really cramped from the outside (can peek in a bit but like quite rude to go in to take pics cos after all they're ppl's homes) dunno. even though i can never imagine myself living in one, nor do i want to live in one, i really liked them...
what else? hmm food again i guess =P so far none of the eating places in Beijing has disappointed me... from Chinese fast-food, streetfare to more ex restaurants... everything tastes pretty good =) and i never fail to eat ice-cream everyday (cos it's so hot!!)... and they have yummy Walls and Nestle ice-cream flavors we dun find in Sg/US.... i esp like this orange-vanilla ice-cream that looks like our lime Split but tastes like sunrise....
mmmm ok talk too much already. setting off for Shanghai tmr... wonder what surprises await me? =)

PS: btw i can't access my blog in China, so i'm sorry i can't really reply to comments. but i receive them cos they get sent to my gmail...

Bargaining
initially i was rather enthusiastic about bargaining.... cos like u can actually feel a bit accomplished if u successfully sha1 jia4 and got something for good price... but there comes a point where something is actually very cheap already, yet you wonder if person is cheating you when he/she says he/she is not making a profit. and if u really think about it, u are already getting it for a good price, but yet u just want to make sure that u are not being cheated. then u start wondering if u are being too jian4 and not even letting person who's selling you earn a bit of money. like seriously i dun think reducing price by 5 yuan makes me lose out a lot but then perhaps 5 yuan makes a lot of difference to the seller... u wonder if you should be kind and let person earn some money or be totally selfish and minimize his profit. and you get tired of bargaining and u start wondering why you are bargaining to save that few yuan... and so i've decided not to really buy anything anymore unless i really need it or really like it. sigh dunno. hmm but some Chinese can really be quite li4 hai4 but rather jian4. like they want something, bargain bargain... then vendor dun want to sell but like dun care, ying4 ying4 only give seller the price they want to buy merchandise for, then walk away, leaving vendor to curse at his/her own bad luck...

Bargaining
initially i was rather enthusiastic about bargaining.... cos like u can actually feel a bit accomplished if u successfully sha1 jia4 and got something for good price... but there comes a point where something is actually very cheap already, yet you wonder if person is cheating you when he/she says he/she is not making a profit. and if u really think about it, u are already getting it for a good price, but yet u just want to make sure that u are not being cheated. then u start wondering if u are being too jian4 and not even letting person who's selling you earn a bit of money. like seriously i dun think reducing price by 5 yuan makes me lose out a lot but then perhaps 5 yuan makes a lot of difference to the seller... u wonder if you should be kind and let person earn some money or be totally selfish and minimize his profit. and you get tired of bargaining and u start wondering why you are bargaining to save that few yuan... and so i've decided not to really buy anything anymore unless i really need it or really like it. sigh dunno. hmm but some Chinese can really be quite li4 hai4 but rather jian4. like they want something, bargain bargain... then vendor dun want to sell but like dun care, ying4 ying4 only give seller the price they want to buy merchandise for, then walk away, leaving vendor to curse at his/her own bad luck...

visited Beida and Qinghua today. somehow after hearing how they are two of the most famous unis in China, i had rather high expectations of the campuses so actually i was pretty 'shocked' by what they turned out to be like, esp. Beida. i mean for example i didn't really expect to find a dimly lit bookstore with makeshift plastic fans in the middle of campus... there are some really nice bits, but also some really run down bits. somehow after a few 'surprises' the past few days... i didn't really know what to expect of each new place. some things are better than expected, while others astound me. for one, i didn't expect toilets to be still as 'open' as 10 yrs ago... yes, i'm still very mei yong, but i really felt uncomfortable when i stepped into the toilet in a bargain fashion building and saw ppl doing whatever they needed to do in cubicles with no doors.... of course, nobody cares to look at you, or rather, wants to, but it's still so uncomfortable... i mean in the end i had to use that toilet cos when u need to use toilet what else can you do... but it just made me realize how idealistic i was perhaps 4 months back when i thought i could tolerate less than satisfactory sanitary conditions to do com service in rural areas (which i expect would be much worse)
also had a rather amusing pseudo cab driver (cos technically he's unlicenced driver out to zhuan4 wai4 kuai4) who talked about everythign from the '89 Tiananmen incident to reasoning why it's ok and why Beijing ppl should spit on the streets (including live demonstration, twice spitting out of car window onto roads).... dunno. feel so much more drawn to way ppl here live, rather than the tourist attractions i'm "supposed" to and did visit.

yay jing is back so i have internet at home... =P i guess i still can't really get over how cheap food can be. on way to subway today walked past residential area and sat down in one of street stalls to have lunch... and whole meal only cost shu and i like 13 RMB or like around 3 Sing... and food was ok. pretty sumptuous restaurant meal yest evening also wasn't that ex....maybe 7 Sing each? but then even though we think things are generally cheap and ppl here can buy a lot of stuff... i guess it's actually not the case. was curious and asked waitress what her monthly pay roughly was? and apparently it's around 500RMB.... which is a mere $100 Sing... so like even though things are cheap, it's prob only cheap to us (cos we're used to paying more for food) and to other well-off local ppl but perhaps not to many locals....
also find it quite ashamed that i kept stumbling trying to converse in Chinese! like i have no clue what certain terms are in Chinese. then at restaurant some things look totally foreign. like though we're all Chinese (somewhat...) cultures are still very different. haha when i asked what this drink on the menu, xiao3 xue3 bi4 (Sprite), was, waiter gave me weird stare and had to bring me the can of Sprite...
also felt sorry for the poorer ppl cos like met quite a few kids/old persons collecting empty cans/ plastic bottles from passers-by... and saw some beggars in underpass who really look very ke lian. like ppl begging with kids with deformities... but sometimes really dunno if should give them money or not.

first impressions
day one in Beijing and observed some interesting things. first, jing has such a luxurious apartment all by herself! nice condo with security guards in lobby and with van gogh and other imitation paintings hung up in apartment. then i step out and like few streets down some ppl live in dwellings so tiny and cramped i cannot help but really feel the stark contrast.... and i thought it was interesting how you had to go up to counter and buy paper tics to take the subway. and u hav 'subway conductor' sitting at entrance to tear your ticket.... which made me wonder, what if it's rush hour.. how they manage? i guess i'll see in the days to come. cos when i went out today it wasn't even rush hour and there were already quite a lot of ppl.... what other random things did i do? ate a o.60 RMB (about 12 sg cents) dou4 sha1 bing4 and felt very happy. ate very cheap jiao3 zi at dumpling fast food restaurant. visited one of the biggest bookstores in Beijing and was really impressed. cos there really were a lot of adults seriously pouring over non-fiction books.... ppl sitting on the floors really studying books... dunno if it's cos everyone is so thirsty for knowledge, or driven by pressure to upgrade themselves in competitive environment, but their shang4 jin4 xin1 is quite impressive. and baffled by how they have so many translated foreign texts... saw like translated Stiglitz econ textbooks among others.... yet they have no foreign mag. perhaps only National Geographic. no TIME, no NEWSWEEK/ Economist whatsoever... why. i mean if they allow foreign texts, which technically are considered foreign publications, why not magazines... hmm unless maybe this bookstore doesn't stock? dunno yet. haven seen enough =) anyway quite difficult to find internet cafe here... so prob wun be able to blog till some days later. =)

ruthless competition or outdated technology?
when i tried to put Itune files into my Creative MP3 player, they could not even be found, which led me to rashly conclude and wonder if fierce competition between Apple and Creative MP3 players has led to Creative players not supporting song formats created by Apple products? but then upon looking up aac files, (Itune songs are saved as aac files; all the technicalities confuse me; only know it's supposedly better and newer than mp3 file formats or something =P) realized that it's a relatively new thing and my old mp3 player model prob didn't support such a file format... i'm guessing lah. if anyone else is better informed, can enlighten me =)

and so i leave for Beijing tonight... wonder if i will be able to access blogger? since according to guidebook there is a "Great Firewall of China".... would try email blogging, good if it works; if not, i guess i'll disappear for 12 days. let's hope i dun meet shady cab driver tmr and really disappear... i'm hoping so hard i'll be fine (which i think i will be) else i'll never be allowed to travel alone/with a fren even say a teeny part of my trip, ever...

i must say i'm pretty impressed by how efficiently can be done here... just applied to convert my foreign driving licence last tuesday and i received it via registered mail today! it took ONE week... even though they told me it would prob take two. anyway, reason why i was so ON about converting was cos fren told me that they are going to change to new system soon whereby if u convert ur foreign licence to spore licence, u will only get class 3A instead of class 3, and cos dad drives manual car, means i'll never be able to drive here if i get a class 3A licence (auto cars only)... and i'll prob take ages to pass if i attempt to take manual driving test here... so i cheated and converted while old system is still in place =P but actually dunno how true rumour was... but better to be kiasu and get everything over and done with than hav to go through all that trouble right... =P

i finally watched two shows i've been wanting to watch for a long time- Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love, and Zhang Yimou's Not One Less . Despite many ppl telling me otherwise, (eg. mum said show only worth watching for the many cheongsams Cheung looked ravishing in) i quite liked the former... true, Wong Kar Wai's films aren't exactly the most exciting films to watch, but i kinda liked how he explored the simple theme of what happens when your spouse strays? so then is it justified for you to be unfaithful also? (on other hand, think 2046 has more themes packed into it and i dun quite understand quite a few bits) i actually quite liked how the characters Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung played remained for the most part mere companions though they liked each other and despite it being so tempting for them to gao3 extramarital affair... sad ending though. and i didn't get why Tony Leung had to go to Cambodia to whisper his secret... what was significance of Cambodia?
Not One Less reminded me how rare an opportunity it can be for some kids to even attend school... and the different ways poverty was portrayed in the show reminded me how i always take things for granted, complain about trivial things, mull over silly probs... to some, even having chalk can be a luxury. or having a sip from a can of coke, which you share with 15 other classmates...

songs are supposed to lift your spirits but i think so many of these Chinese songs have such sad and depressing lyrics that they can make you more depressed... and songs jun sent me are so sad too... why's everyone pining for loved ones all the time...are there really a lot of broken hearts out there. maybe cos when we're happy we revel in the moment with others and tend less to pause and reflect. only in our darkest moments do we really think about lost friends/relationships/things that didn't work out that are still haunting us? and i'm totally overplaying JJ's Jiang Nan (which i only very recently discovered); i bet i'll grow so totally sick of it =P

ps: why are pop song lyrics mostly about relationships or relationship problems. imagine if a pop song has a nice melody but lyrics dominated by political content/ preachy stuff/filial piety/poverty in Africa.... would it be able to gain as much popularity/ become a megahit?

i'm actually quite disgusted that many sec sch kids hav the latest handphone models in town.... and are more than willing to flaunt their expensive high tech gadgets.... not because i myself have an 'outdated' phone but cos i think it's such a waste of money...? i wun be surprised if many squander their parents' money to compete with classmates to see who has the coolest/latest phone model... how often do we need all these 3G services and all the additional functions that come with phones these days... well at least i only use my phone to call ppl and sms... i dun really understand how many ppl here are so "phone-conscious"... like when new models come out then like must go and change new phone kind... though phones are getting more and more advanced, i still personally feel that energy spent on making cooler gadgets that sometimes have somewhat limited practicality can be better invested in other industries/ used for coming up with more meaningful inventions?

sounds-like-she's-sore-old-spinster entry
i'm really happy cos meeting up with old frens the past few weeks reminded me that i have quite a few old RGS frens and a couple of JC frens i can always rely on... and i'm thankful that things haven't really changed much even though i was physically separated from many of my good pals. i hope all these friendships will last a long time to come, though i'm worried i'll be left with fewer and fewer when i gradually lose my single frens as other things take priority in their lives.
was also having nice talk with y and we observed the curious phenomenon of many perfectly eligible but still single RGS frens... and postulated some likely reasons (not ranked in order though)

1) a lot of guys out there cannot make it. or put it in a nicer way, maybe we have too high expectations. ;P
2) girls we hang out with are from biased sample. quite right to say many of us are conservative folks who prefer to get to know ppl better first instead of immediately diving into relationships. but how often do you get the chance to really do that. (and like-minded ppl are gradually disappearing...) on the other hand, if u're the clubbing and partying sort, maybe diff story?
3) choice.... so often affections are asymmetric. sad but guess hard fact of life.

but nothing conclusive derived from discussion, mere casual banter.
aiyah but life is so unpredictable maybe the next time i see them they'll be giving me wedding invitations =P then again, recently been wondering why ppl hav to get married. why is it so wired into the brains of our parents... even many of our peers...even myself...and if u come to think of it, marriage is such a huge commercial ploy... ppl willing to spend tonnes on wedding, cos what it's "zhong1 sheng1 da4 shi4". and marriage always gets romanticised by relevant businesses; even media perpetuates possible myth. u hav ur classic nice happy bride in white gown looking really xing fu, deceiving innocent girls who then grow up with image in minds. then some ppl never think properly, once reach marriagable age then think of getting married. or we somehow automatically think we ought to get married some day...doesn't that sound scary. we've all been brainwashed in some way.... haha hmm... oops i think i suddenly made something supposedly so lang man sound like a huge plot. mmm.. unintended lah. just rambling =P

recently mum's been hinting that i should dress more nicely when i go out... complains why girls my age all know how to da3 ban4 nicely and i just like to be tomboyish and wear jeans all the time... given that sis has bf that parents approve of, whom i still have not had the "honor" to meet in person, wonder if these are subtle hints that if i dun want to end up being old spinster i have to care more about my appearance... but seriously, if a guy only cares about a girl's appearance, he is hardly worthy of any attention lah. think sis quite cute, subtly bought things for bf while we were shopping in hong kong but like never say outright... but we all know who they are for... jealous. sisters for so long never buy for me.... haha just kidding. happy for her =)

MINI REVAMP
just spent few hours doing a mini revamp. not impressive, as usual, cos i'm still html idiot, but tried to insert picture... was looking at old pics and found one of myself in dad's glasses! will update pic with other kid pics from time to time. (if i have time =P) did away with tagboard, but changed comment box such that anyone, not just blogger users, can comment... so feel free to leave comments/criticisms, whatever =)

was reading through lyrics for Yuan2you2hui4 in Jay Chou's Qi Li Xiang album and i was struck by how certain lines were really well written. esp the bit bout how longing is lengthened tog with shadows in the evening, and how the admission tic pei2 him count sheep... ok i am giving a horrible translation here, but it's really nice in Chinese. simple longing written in such a lovely manner.... i did catch some parts of it when i listened to it some time back, but not all the lyrics...
also recently purchased Nakashima Mika's album and it has this really nice song too... Yuki no Hana, it sounds a bit familiar though. might have heard it before. not a new song. unfortunately i can't play songs here...

funky specs for me?
just went to the optician and i realized that 'in'-est frames now are cool plastic jap/italian plastic frames that come in all shapes and colors... and they really look pretty funky =P made a more normal-looking one, but also tried on all the cool funky ones... actually wearing specs can be quite fun =) and so much more convenient than wearing contacts, perfect for lazy ppl like me.
and so i tried on this bright purple one which actually looked not bad. and a bright blue and orange one... and white opaque plastic ones (not the primary sch type!) i was so tempted to buy them... but then again might be wasting money cos after the fad is over i'll be left with really odd-looking specs haha. i want to do something fun, but then i dun want ppl to think that i go to halloween parties everyday or something... but i also realized that i am gradually growing more bochap about what ppl think of me... that's progress. so maybe i should really consider buying those bright purple ones.... =P

Snippets of my holiday

somehow seeing these dingy old buildings in hong kong shows never really left deep impressions on me. only goin to the place itself and seeing how some ppl live, did i really realize how cramped the living quarters of a sizeable portion of the population can be. there are many buildings much worse than this. though a little unsightly, but i thought they were really unique.
a bit random, but this pic was taken while scaling the 264 steps to the Tian Tan Buddha at Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It's apparently the largest bronze seated outdoor Buddha in the world. Lantau Island is really mountainous and i thought it was interesting to have marble(?) handrail (hmm or whatever u call it) against some really pretty trees... unfortunately the extremely bad weather made everything a lil foggy. but in the end it kinda created a nice overall effect.

Hong Kong actually has a really pretty skyline... and buildings on Hong Kong Island look really nice when you look across the bay from Kowloon. This was taken behind a tall glass panel on a walkway linking a shopping mall to the MTR... i'm pretty impressed by Hong Kong's MTR =P haha and talk about Singapore being crowded... it's even more impossible to escape from the crowds in Hong Kong. It has twice Singapore's population; and even though it has a bigger land area, only a small area is habitable... supposedly less than what we use. and no wonder they have really really high rise residential buildings and extremely small units.

i am melting in hong kong... haven't been doing that much really, but some memorable sights/experiences include getting droplets of water falling on you at random spots and getting scolded by dad for being silly when attempting to figure out where random drops came from (from older airconditioners suspended outside residential units above the shophouses); the old dingy residential blocks scattered all around the city... hong kong's also a lot more mountainous than i expected it to be... dun really think it's a place i would like to live in, but i definitely dun dislike it. it definitely has a lot of character...

with a well-intentioned but really rather naggy and risk-averse dad who suggested cancelling the trip for fear of typhoons hitting Hong Kong, a mum pissed with a prefer-to-stay-at-home dad and a sis not used to walking for long periods of time, i wonder what my mini getaway with my family to Hong Kong will be like? it's been like nearly ten years since the whole family went on a holiday together... and i'm really rather scared that i'm so used to travelling with frens that i will not enjoy myself... sometimes i really wonder if i'm getting really self-centred. but aiyah, am trying to be optimistic about it and it's a chance for me to spend time with my family members... will still attempt to blog when i'm there.. but if not, i'll be back on Thursday =P

btw Together by Chen Kaige is a really good, tear-jerking show as well =P has a very good, touching plot; it also raises some problems faced by rural folks wanting to move into the cities...think it won quite a few awards.

just looked up the show and it has a terrible english title!! (most hong kong movies do, actually) but the chinese title, mei you ni mei you wo, is really appropriate and totally makes sense... =P it has a pretty nice cantonese song at the end too =P

sometimes those late night channel 8 Hong Kong shows with ulu and seemingly random and forgettable titles can be surprisingly good. i really haven't watched any hong kong movies on tv for a long time and i was just sitting at the comp trying to search for something online with the tv on.. and my attention was increasingly drawn to the TV till i just sat in front really engrossed in the show...ended up sobbing by myself (luckily) at 2am at night in front of the tv. just a simple plot but the scriptwriters managed to make it really touching. ok lah a bit cheesy but still... haha. maybe was a bit moody and got too drawn into the ju4 qing2.

thanks to huining, i got a really late but pleasant belated birthday present- Howl's moving castle soundtrack =P now shall just try to get the DVD when i go to China to complete my collection.... i would love a Calcifer (the sometimes spiteful but endearing fire demon in the show) plush, but nobody sells Howl merchandise here, sadly.
i'm really upset and mad with myself cos my comp crashed!! aargh. and lazy me DID NOT backup my files.... and got scolding for being careless...all my data might be gone... oddly and quite sadly when i think about my files i care so much less about the papers i spent so much time writing and instead fear the worst for some of my most precious pictures... and all the songs i have painstakingly accumulated... of course things that i need, like my resume, major assignments, papers i was very satisfied with are terrible to lose, however these are still replaceable...but not all those special moments captured in the past. =( guess it's my fault.... reinstalled ARES yesterday and was happily happily downloading lotsa jap songs. maybe got some virus...

tech talk
after reading about the newest addition to the Canon IXUS series, the 7.1 MP SD500, on the comp magazine my dad orders, my urge to get a new and better digital camera returned... not that my V2 is bad or anything... it has served me pretty well the past 3 yrs... but i feel like splurging on a new dig cam now that i am slightly more into taking pics... =P and so went down with dad to Sim Lim Square... but nearly every shopowner recommended a different camera to me, ranging from Pentax Optio to Konica Minolta cameras.... when obviously Canon IXUS series cams are one of the best compact cameras around (according to the many online user reviews i've been reading) which makes me wonder how honest these dealers are? are they all trying to cheat my money.. promoting the less popular models to me, such that i will buy a model that is more difficult to sell... since without even trying to promote Canon IXUS cameras customers come in demanding them? hmmm after reading the reviews and seeing some cams for myself today, i wonder if i should switch loyalties and purchase the Panasonic Lumix FX8 that's pretty good and chio and has a huge LCD screen... instead of the Canon IXUS SD 400 which i know i'll prob like...

Singapore is SO overcrowded... one day out and ppl EVERYWHERE kinda got on my nerves... and i feel like with every break i grow increasingly aware of and affected by this... took the MRT home tonight, not only was it extremely packed; this bunch of p sch kids returning from some NDP rehearsal streamed into the train and made so much noise that this old man couldn't stand it and started ranting and shouting at them... though i don't exactly approve of shouting at ppl for making noise, it is true though that rowdy sch kids can give you a terrible headache.. esp when u are jetlagging and tired and just want some peace...
on some days i really wish i were a guy; then i can be totally gluttony and eat all the good cheap food EVERYWHERE... then i won't be forbidden from travelling alone and be restricted from touring all the places i want to visit. though i dun really see how significantly less dangerous it is for a guy to travel alone... but unfortunately my parents think so =(

coming home is always some kinda discovery for me... at the airport, when my dad's car pulled up at the loading area i was just innocently admiring how new his car was and how scratch-free it was... and wondering how he managed to keep it so intact though he has had his car for quite a few years now... and then secretly condemning my poor driving skills.... only to discover 10 seconds later that he went and bought a new Nissan Sunny in the exact same color in March... he prob told me some time ago but i totally forgot about it and made myself a laughing stock... how typical of me to do things like that.
also found new pieces of furniture at home but somehow everything seems kinda random... also discovered a pretty chio new LCD screen tv at home, but placed on top of this old wooden coffee table in the chapalang room... cannot help but laugh. i think the longer u live in a place the more difficult it becomes to make everything go together...u get all kinds of interesting juxtapositions of 'new' and 'old' and i really dunno what to make of everything... my bedroom and bedsheets make it seem like i am perpetually stuck at age 12 or something... =P but it's kinda sad how short my stays here usually are, for me to actually feel motivated enough to do something to my home...

i'm going home! =P

the view at the peak of Mount Tamalpais was simply breathtaking... and from high up above all the cities seemed so insignificant compared to the vast expanse of mountains, trees and rocks...and human beings are but little specks seen along the mountain trails... and so on day 2 of the "shimin-explores-the-bay-area" long weekend I continued to be mesmerized by the beauty of my natural surroundings. then in the evening, after accepting an invitation from my housemates to go watch the July 4th fireworks at Berkeley Marina, i found myself sitting on the rocks by the waters watching a slightly foggy sunset with cold wind blowing in my face... i am really really struck by how beautiful these places close by can be. and really quite horrified by how i have never bothered to really explore any of them. i now have in mind destinations i want to visit/ visit again in fall before term starts... =)

and i found myself above a sea of clouds... 

imagine watching the sunset here... 

at the top of the world...? 

thanks to ziyang and sumei today i explored places close by but never ever visited...it was somewhat amusing though that i spent bout 2 hours on a morning trail in a state park in Napa only to find a somewhat disappointing and obstructed view of the valley at the peak; whereas when cruising through Tilden Park in air-conditioned comfort in the late afternoon i was able to get an awesome view without even trying... this was my very first time going to Tilden Park in the 3 yrs i've been here and i'm pretty surprised that we actually have a gem of a park right in our backyard... perhaps just 5/10 min away from Lawrence Lab and we enter this world of difference... of course it isn't as spectacular as the popular national parks... but for something that's so close to us, i agree with Sumei that it really is something to 'crow over'...
and i am extremely pathetic at playing frisbee... despite trying yesterday and today to learn the correct method of throwing it i still cannot get it... what a letdown to my dear patient coach, Sumei... guess certain things u really need some talent.. =P oh well... i will take a break for now then return in fall and attempt to master the art of the frisbee throwing, the seh3 way...

summer sch is finally over, but strangely instead of feeling really relieved i feel like i'm gonna miss it. even though during that 6 weeks half the time i really just wanted more time curling up under my comforter every morning; fell asleep on countless nights over matters classical thinkers spent their lives mulling over and writing about, i still had a pretty productive and enjoyable time... and i'm really really happy with my lamp. even though it might not seem much, but for the first time almost i embarked on something i thought i couldn't do, yet with every step i took i could really see the whole thing materializing... it's just such a satisfying process that for a while it really convinced me that if i really set my mind on doing something, perhaps it isn't that impossible... now i am pressured to pursue all those lofty goals i once had... haha. oh well, but glad that i now have some free time to read all the novels i wanted to read, over summer... =) and i can't believe i just bought this book that i never would have taken a second look at had i not taken PEIS 100 this summer... hopefully i will go on to shock myself by finishing it =P

the revolving lamp i spent hours and hours making... yes, looks kinda out of this world, still imperfect, but that's also kinda what i like about it... in a nutshell it has my friends revolving round me... and if you think you see your own lun2 kuo4 don't worry, your eyes aren't failing you, since some of you who frequent this blog are probably in it... =P

i really do respect individuals who are really brilliant yet extremely humble and do not make ill-informed individuals like me the least bit uncomfortable even though i can ask silly questions =P it also turns out that some of the best instructors i had at Berkeley are mere GSIs... i would rank my PEIS instructor as one of the best instructors i've ever had, not only cos he's passionate about what he's teaching...he also REALLY knows his stuff and tries to make dry, more philosophical material at least more palatable... i'm really inspired though there is so much more i dunno or cannot understand properly... and just a little piece of trivia that i probably ought to have known long ago but don't: where did the left-right terminology in politics originate? was enlightened during office hours today. can't put it properly in words myself, so here's a mini explanation from Wikipedia-- The terminology of left-right politics was originally based on the seating arrangement of parliamentary partisans during the French Revolution. The more ardent proponents of radical revolutionary measures (including democracy and republicanism) were commonly referred to as leftists because they sat on the left side of successive legislative assemblies. And though it doesn't make much sense now, use of these terms have kinda stuck...

just to convince you that i really am not obsessed with child rearing, there shall be no part III nor any other instalments in the near future. the weather these few days has been horrible. it's cold and foggy, totally unlike summer. dunno why i am blogging at 3am in the morning instead of sleeping; just spent a good 4 hours finishing up my frame and selecting pics for my lamp and i am hoping that everything will turn out the way i want... actually i'm mad, spending so much time over this when i have my PEIS prob set and finals due on friday!! but i dunno, i just cannot forsake it just cos i really really want my idea to materialize... we had a pinhole camera workshop on monday and i got some really cool 'negative images' on photo paper.. if i have time to take pics of them in the next day or two, shall post them on this blog ... but prob not cos i foresee an almost sleepless 2 days ahead=P didn't know that there's a darkroom in Wurster till 2 days ago...=)

Child Rearing Part II

and so i continued my mini investigation this evening and asked my landlords if they ever beat Kai, cos it's somewhat unimaginable if kids never ever get spanked even when they are really bratty... and i guess it's somewhat misleading for me to make a sweeping statement-- that angmohs don't spank their kids while Asians do.. cos i'm sure different people, even within the same culture, educate their kids differently... and while generally Americans don't use canes, many of them (according to my landlady+ speaking for her friends...) do spank their kids, when they really need to... so the main reason why my landlords never beat Kai is cos he is usually never that 'bad'... and also because it doesn't work on him... and apparently once his dad got so mad at him he slapped him; yet Kai just started laughing...(seems like we have quite a cool crazy kid here) and so just as his dad said, "you lose all leverage... what can you do? slap him harder??" it seems like child rearing really does have to involve some creativity too...

Child rearing 101

having lived with my 'family' for about a month or so, there were quite a few occasions whereby Kai started crying for no apparent reason and i never once saw my landlady/landlord hit their kid to 'teach him a lesson'... and today was esp funny. Kai didn't want to wake up to go for dinner and started crying.. after initial stern attempts to make the kid stop, the parents decided to cry along with their kid.. and so from the living room (where i was sitting trying desperately to twist my wire), for a few min, i heard this communal howling emanating from Kai's room... and i really felt like laughing... i dunno, i just felt that their way of bringing up their kid is so different and 'fun'.... such stark contrast to the caning or threats of policemen arrest or 'babu-singh-kidnappings' that i'm so used to... or for that matter, many of us are used to... the group confession of having once been caned by our parents before, and comparisons of the diameters of the canes our parents used to own (at In and Out some weeks ago) still remain fresh in my mind... =P and the scary thing was (which i didn't really dare to voice out then) that out of the 4 girls and 2 mums present then, 3 of us agreed that the best way to discipline the kid is to cane the kid.. else the kid wun learn.. i didn't say anything, cos i really dunno what i would do... does caning really work? is it a very Asian thing to do? i should ask my landlords one day what they think about caning...

don't you ever feel like some ppl though you have known them for so long, kinda well but you never really talked to them? in a way i feel like i'm making friends with my old friends all over again and it's nice in a way cos though i might have known them from last time, yet in a way both parties have grown and changed and so in a way it's like a new experience for both parties again... and i dunno i kinda like this feeling... and it's nice too cos like there's already this basic 'foundation' in place, yet it's possible to go a step further...
i hope to make my own revolving lamp for my very last art project, but i wonder if it will end up being a total flop cos i have never tried doing anything like that before and am just going to experiment... it will be so cool if i can replicate the image i have in my head. but if not, then i will be screwed! sigh, but i def wun be able to spend the bulk of my weekend fretting over this, cos i have lotsa PEIS readings to do... prepare for finals... only 5 more days of summer sch... so fast..

i guess the issues raised in this article will sound very familiar to many of us at Berkeley?

i'm exhausted from the endless assignments and readings i have to do.. i really want to just sleep all day but i'm so torn cos i really do like both my classes... my PEIS instructor is really so good i feel that i'm doing him an injustice by being lazy, by being unable to gain a deeper understanding of my material.. by falling back on my readings... and Art yesterday was so cool; i was really impressed by everyone's projects.. to see so many different manifestations of the same fundamental idea... shall post some pics here.
Even though i'm so busy, i am somewhat reluctant to take too long a break from blogging. it has really become something i'm almost addicted to. why? i'm not sure either. perhaps i just like to hear myself rambling on and on about things that excite me, things that bother me, but fear that no one wants to listen. so if i just blog, ppl have the freedom to choose if they want to read whatever i write (assuming some bored/kpo/amused/concerned individuals out there frequent my blog regularly... =P) while i have the freedom to express myself without being imposing on any particular person...and of course it's nice when your friends leave little msgs from time to time... anyway, here are the pictures, complete with one-liner introduction/commentaries... enjoy.

this, in my opinion, was one of the coolest projects. this girl, a musician, tried to attach strings tied to tubes of paint, to her violin, such that paint would drip onto the canvas as she played...her set-up didn't work very well, but the whole idea was really cool and the resulting piece of art, though totally spontaneous, turned out to be really unique.  

if i dun say anything, u wouldn't be able to tell that the table is really made of cardboard, and the box, wood. so subtle yet so clever! 

these images were really made by poking needles into the banana skins and leaving them to rot... and u can see the 'aging process' from right to left 

larger-than-life furry veges... some kinda commentary on GM food,, 

after repeated failures, lotsa precious time wasted, i finally came up with my tiny collection of 'fleece tank tops' for my art project... started off destroying my nice towel and making a small towely tank top that i ended up really liking but cannot fit into no matter what; then progressed to making this huge light blue furry one that ended up looking like some sort of animal skin on some ppl... figured those didn't give me the really summery feel i was trying to create.. then i found some cheap fleece and finally created these bright summery ones that aren't very well sewn (cos i was getting backaches sewing and sewing) but good enough to serve my purpose... haha and they look better from afar... i really like the yellow one and the pink toga-looking one in the picture =P hope that the string that i bought from Ace Hardware will allow me to replicate this backyard set-up at the balcony in my Art Room tmr afternoon =) wonder if ppl will get the point though.

my fleece summer collection... 

considering how difficult it usually is for the neutral me to really like something, it must be somewhat telling if i start and continue raving about Howl's Moving Castle in the next 2 min or so? =P the movie reminded me why i love Studio Ghibli so much more than Disney or Pixar; what a brilliant art/animation genius Miyazaki is, how you definitely don't have to understand certain things to really love them, how a lovely music score really makes the movie so enjoyable... i definitely liked it better than Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, The Cat Returns and possibly even Laputa Castle in the Sky, which i quite liked... dunno if it's my favorite, but definitely one of my favorites! the creativity and talent of these animation folks just puts me to shame. aiyah of course it would be hypocritical to not admit that i was from time to time blown away by the male protagonist, Howl... no harm indulging in fantasies when watching something as magical as this right? =)

Of John Stuart Mill and nude women in Renaissance paintings

Mill's one of the favorite thinkers i have read thus far, just cos some of his arguments in "On Liberty' are just so well put... shall share some snippets i like.. =)
On following customs..
"He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used"
then, "he who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation"
On individuality...
"even despotism does not produce its worse effects, so long as Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism...."
And lastly, one of my favorite parts in this piece,
"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates.... a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.....he who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect- must expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their favorable sentiments, but of this he has no right to complain...."
so dead right, but not something i can claim to dare to live by...

hmm ok this has been a really long post, but i really want to add something on a video i saw in my Art class today... the art expert was saying how in Renaissance paintings, nude women were painted in such a way to appeal to their male spectators... and so according to him, these women were often looking out of the pictures, even if they were engaged in some scandalous poses with the men in the paintings ; that they were in languid poses, lying around...i guess in a way to boost the male ego subconsciously... and of the thousands of painters who painted nude women, perhaps only a handful depicted women and their bodies as they were... others manipulated their images in some way... i never really thought of these paintings in this manner and i wonder how true it is? but then i guess cos i am not particularly enthusiastic about Renaissance paintings... it's something to ponder over... if i go Italy and visit musuems again... =P

My chio, silver, look-in-Sim-Lim-for-one-whole-afternoon optical mouse has malfunctioned and i'm very upset cos i dun think i can find anything like it again... =( but i guess it's my fault cos i dropped it once recently...
sigh but i've also come to realize that things may be irreplaceable but we can often work our way round things...i guess for the time being i'll just end up using my touchpad all the time instead of anyhow getting some ugly mouse... haha i'm so picky =P and i guess when a lot of things fail or disappear we get upset for some time but we wun die without them...moaning all day over your loss perhaps isn't the most constructive thing to do...

and so plans for my parents to visit have been shelved and i guess i'll go back to sg after summer sch... wonder if i'll have the time to visit my DC roommate in LA and go to (a) Disneyland for the FIRST time?? haha. Japan travel plans have been put away too and now i'm planning to just go to China... i really do look forward to going there, to experience it for myself, and after reading so much and hearing so much about it... i really want to see it again for myself... my most vivid childhood memories of China were of the stinky no-door toilets, esp the one on the way to the Great Wall, when my mum had to put 'feng1you2' on a piece of tissue to cover up my nose in order to make me go in... hmm not something i want to remb China by... and of course, it would be cool to visit Jing in Beijing and DC friend in Shanghai... and my Prof once told me to tell her when i go visit, such that she can give me contacts and let me see some of the migrant schs/ schs for the poor..... though i doubt that's going to happen lah. i wonder what i'll get out of a short touristy visit? anyway, i'm excited! but in the meantime, it's sch and more sch... and figuring out how to make tank tops for new Art project =P

Rod of Asclepius
baffled by the snake and pole (it's actually a staff) on the WHO logo while researching for my art that day, i finally looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently it's an ancient Greek symbol associated with medicine. Without knowing the story behind this, i guess most ppl, like me, would associate the serpent with something bad...the shedding of its skin as a symbol of rebirth and fertility didn't even come to mind...
i got my first parking citation today!! aargh. cos i forgot all about street sweeping and forgot to move my car to the opposite side of the road... =( my PEIS instructor is really quite brilliant.... but the GSI for this class, in contrast, is really quite disappointing.... can compete with my pretty boy PEIS 101 GSI already.

After! i decided symbols of international organizations, NGOs etc made it too explicit... so i left them all out... 

Before (gesso transfer image in raw form) 

hmm... kinda finished my art assignment in class today and am somewhat pleased with it so am being egoistic and posting it on my blog... mixed comments though. i wonder if ppl get my message? =P

today i learnt a gesso transfer technique in class which allows u to transfer mag images onto canvas or other suitable surfaces.... and i was really excited to see my Economist pages on canvas! cool =P cos i decided to have a political edge to my piece... but it struck me how little i knew about poverty... i shall resolve to read up more after summer sch ends. but in meantime, quite excited about my project, though it's just a small in-class assignment... it's just cool u can 'combine your passions'... i mean i don't think i'm good at doing such stuff... but i realized i just love doing it... even though class is 4 hours everyday, i dun even fall asleep like i do in some haha. and i rediscovered the power of images...

was trying very hard to do my readings today again cos wasn't very successful yest.. and it was such a clear sunny day i decided for the first time to make use of the little table in my backyard.. and it felt really cool using wireless in the garden haha. and my landlord was really nice and brought out a hammock for me.. and so for the first time in my life (i think) i climbed onto a hammock and lay suspended in the middle of two sturdy hooks on walls reading my Rousseau... u know... nice ppl sometimes really make your day, no matter how small the gesture.

i finally sat down to do my overdue readings today and while reading through the first few chapters of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, i was just very pleasantly surprised... things that you learn in JC, that came in a very 'processed' form- in the form of JC notes or textbooks was suddenly presented to me in its raw form... i mean when i first started taking Econ, i knew who Adam Smith was... but i guess it wasn't till this week that i finally sat down to read about his ideas... and it's just so amazing how some thinker centuries ago sets down all these fundamental ideas for modern economics...
in the spirit of cheapo-ness, i scouted around for parking meters with remaining minutes... and while hopping around from meter to meter, i guess this lady driver slotting coins into her meter knew what i was looking for and informed me that the lot that she pulled out from earlier had a failed meter.... highly embarrassed but secretly delighted i immediately pulled out and drove to my new lot... and from today onwards i formally begin my whole semester or even year of perfecting my unhoned 'look-for-failed-meters' skills...

nothing can be worse than feeling pent-up and =( yet hav lotsa hw to do and 5 hours of class ahead of you...
while doing my art proj i was reminded of the quote i put on my blog.. "grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference"... sigh. i guess i have been able to discern...but where is my 'serenity to accept' and 'courage to change'.....?

i'm such a silly girl.

art materials are so expensive i'm going broke buying stuff for my art project, though mine's a really simple one...eg. a piece of letter-size reflective PVC costs nearly $6...must learn how to make use of scrap material next time round... and once again i'm spending a lot of time fretting over how the thing will end up looking...

was browsing the Straits Times and stumbled upon this story on some popular blogs in sg.. apparently some girl appealed to her fans/readers on her blog to buy her a camera and she got her wish... being nosey and feeling slightly accomplished after finishing perhaps 3/4 of my prob set, i decided to check out her blog but was pretty horrified after reading through some of her more recent entries that i can almost predict who those donors to her camera fund were... on the other hand, i also recently discovered a very cool food blog, thanks to redpolkadot; the splash of well-taken pics of jap food on her blog are just amazing and very mouth-watering... and it's plain how eating can really be a luxury =)

while making my way to the bathroom this morning i was greeted by the aroma of fried bacon and my earlybird 'housemates' who were having a wholesome Sat breakfast... i wonder when i last had a properly prepared breakfast... despite not being able to have bacon (good lah, else make me fat too) i was offered some leftover coffee... which was a mini blessing given the horribly cold weather these few days. and while sorting out her books, my landlord dug out an old copy of Machiavelli's 'The Prince' and lent it to me.. cos i casually mentioned some days before that i was reading that for my class... small little gesture, but so awfully nice. i did feel a little =( that i seem to have fallen out of the little fellow's favor... guess cos the novelty of having someone new in the house is gone! but good lah, since i have so much work piling up anyways.. took a long time putting up some photoframes last night.. dug out the cute Monet magnets i got from the National Art Gallery in DC. keep getting distracted from work by frivolous little things i want to do to my surroundings.. have to do some serious research for my first art project and rack my brains over my tough PEIS prob set this weekend. =(

i am suddenly confronted by deadlines every single day... am suddenly so tired that i wished i had a day off! fortunately classes are still worth looking forward to. i think my PEIS instructor is pretty cool, cos not everyone can make Machiavelli or Hobbes actually interesting to study... and he tries to analyze how these thinkers think, to show us how we should think and analyze... then today i somehow had slight disrespect for my art instructor.... cos i think it's the most zuobo job around! (maybe just for today) cos she just left us to our own projects half the time while walking around talking to us about our ideas... haha i guess i'm so used to GSIs teaching some really hard-core material that merely giving 'creative' suggestions suddenly seem odd to me....haha and i'm biased now cos she wanted me to redraw this whole thing i did in class (an assignment due tmr) and i have absolutely no time and i'm debating what i should do.... sigh. foresee a night of more readings, finishing up assignment and thinking up art proposal due tmr as well...

day one of summer sch was really long but despite a seemingly ultra-busy and intensive 6 weeks ahead of me, i feel pretty upbeat. my PEIS instructor is this puny boyish-looking Indian guy who seems really passionate about what he's going to teach and seems bent on convincing us that this will be one of the best though toughest classes we will take at Berkeley. i'm a little doubtful, but am pretty inspired to work hard for it. Art 8 didn't disappoint me either... it really seems intensive.. 3 major art projects in a short span of 6 weeks and 4-hour classes 4 days in a row every week... but 2 hours just flew past this afternoon without me feeling any drag or boredom... so... hopefully it will be fun =) it seems pretty promising and definitely refreshing... i'm pretty excited. =)

while uploading my commencement pics i somehow stumbled upon the numerous pics i took over the past 3 years... pictures that have gradually accumulated but have always been overlooked whenever new ones are uploaded. somehow today i paused and looked through quite a few of them again and i was really struck how different we all looked 3 years ago... how happy, enthusiastic and innocent we all seemed to be... amused by how in the first few months i took so many pics with the most random ppl around.. though i know that some things never did really change, a lot of things DID change and i can truly say that i think i've grown up quite a bit... attitudes towards certain things have definitely changed... feel a bit old and jaded now that i'm going to be a senior at Berkeley... even though i don't think i've accomplished much in the past 3 years, it really feels like i've been through so much (but of course i didn't...) Witnessing zai fellow singaporeans getting dept citations, ppl going on to grad sch etc... i cannot but feel how some of us have really come so far...

my dear girl friends at Berkeley 

i'm happy, yet really upset at the same time. some things will never ever be the same again and i don't think i want to accept that. and when everyone's moving on, i choose to cling on. i know it's stupid cos it only makes me sad. i think my carebear really suits me. the sit quietly at one corner and cry by myself type.

no more encounters with kid for now... and actually i perhaps interact with him like for a few min everyday... but then why does it seem that when i blog about it it seems like i'm always playing with him or something...
horrible horrible rainy weather today. and all my efforts to scrub my car clean have utterly gone to waste =( it had better turn sunny tmr else commencement would be horrible too... with the mass arrival of parents today, you also hear about last min bathtub-scrubbing tales, the-night-before apt cleaning... same morning kitchen-mopping, fighting over vacuum cleaners... haha if parents were here all the time our rooms/apts must be spanking clean all the time... well but petty complaints about their kids aside, i guess it wasn't difficult to tell how proud of their kids they all seemed to be.

day 2 in Josephine St and as of now i seriously love this place... my little friend, Kai, is really endearing... not that he is a very guai1 kid or what.. very inquisitive, bit noisy just like many little brats... but unassuming and lovable... cooked instant noodles for dinner today and Kai was having pizza with his dad.. then he saw my noodles and was like.. i want to try your soup... and very bu ke qi-ly said that he wanted the carrots in the soup.. and when feeding him one i just could not help but wonder what the rest of my stay would be like... i think i love this kid already... then chatted a little with Peder (his dad) and found out a bit more about the couple.. that they met each other in the UN, travelled all over... they've actually been to East Timor on a UN mission... sigh. so cool and lang man... haha. i'm really impressed how they can pursue their own ideals and yet settle down with their own (seemingly very happy and fulfilling) family life.

and so from today onwards i'm a Josephine Street resident... =) move-in was pretty smooth... set up my bed and totally fell in love with my room! i realized how pampered i had been... how i miss big comfy beds.... i'm so glad this room came with a double bed... am thinking if i should get a nice new ikea table and make my room really homely... cos there's already a long no frills table in the room and me being very vain would like a nicer table... but oh well, might not be feasible... what if they end my lease... i really do look forward to my stay here... it's a nice neighborhood and my cute 4-yr-old friend made me a lego plane this afternoon... after peeking in and proclaiming my room "a mess!" i really hope i made the right decision... rent's a bit ex... but it might be well worth it. =)

i finally looked up the title of the nice song that keeps playing on the radio.... =P and of course 'googled' for it on Real Rhapsody...

Collide by Howie Day

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

I'm open, you're closed
Where I'll follow you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find you and I collide

I'm quiet you know
You make a first impression
I've found I'm scared to know
I'm always on your mind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
Somehow find you and I collide

Don't stop here
I lost my place
I'm close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find you and I collide

the baking buddies have returned with a whole new gingerbread collection today! i actually really enjoyed bumming at home with jacqui today (though i must have been a really bad influence causing her to not do anything constructive) it was somewhat fun.. her eating all her flatbread and me munching on my blue corn tortilla chips for lunch... deciding to bake gingerbreadmen for ppl and muscular men for sumei... being so lazy and walking to Safeway in our PJs...
also had an interesting glimpse into the work life of a Google employee this evening... thanks to someone who didn't want to pay for gas alone... haha but seriously they had such high quality free food! no wonder some ppl are willing to drive all the way down... =P

of gingerbreadmen, ghosties, cats and out-of-shape AIM guys... 

and so i signed my lease today... actually i have no idea why... the closet is kinda small, i dun get my own bathroom (which is what i've always wanted..) and once again will end up in a room with 3 doors and just one corner to put my stuff...but i somehow feel like i'll like staying there... =)
strangely i didn't feel especially sad nor reminiscent at seniors' dinner yesterday evening... it was cool remembering the crazy things we all did together as freshies and it was def fun getting to know a whole bunch of people but honestly speaking it's too impersonal a setting. call me callous but ultimately, it's perhaps really just a few people who are really important to me, who really matter... i'll probably be curious about everyone else but not care enough to constantly keep in touch. and for those who really mean a lot, i can only hope very hard that at this point in time next year, and for many years to come, i'll still occupy some lil spot in their hearts and continue to share both the excitement and heartaches in their lives...

some of us girls at seniors' dinner... 

and so i cooked a proper meal yesterday evening for the first time since I came back, and it really did feel like a family, sitting down with Jacqui and Evelyn to enjoy the same dishes, with rice bowls and all... =P Josephine Street lady replied and decided to offer me the room!! now that i think about it, it's actually really a bit EX just for a room.. and the 4-yr-old boy may be noisy... but it's a really nice neighborhood to stay in... and somehow i just have this gut feeling that i should try living with an American household just to see... after all it's a month-to-month lease and if i really don't like it.. i can always move out.. just that it will be slightly troublesome.. but i think... if i don't try this i'll be left wondering all the time what it would have been like... and so ya.. i'm going to take up the offer, well knowing that i shall be fully responsible for whatever befalls me... haha. after all it's going to be summer sch so even if it proves disruptive it wouldn't be too detrimental.. sigh... i feel like sometimes i'm just veyr stubborn... i'm so picky and it's quite diff for me to really like something yet once i like something, i can really like it and then grow irrational....
Brad Delong is going to teach PEIS h195a this coming fall! emailed him to ask if i could expand on my UCDC paper and he thinks it's fine and so i have something constructive to think about in the meantime...
my dad spent at least 15 min trying to persuade me to sell my bike... and though i really don't see why it shoudl be THAT dangerous to bike around.. i guess i'll give in... not that i bike around that much anyway... hmm and i have nothing cept maybe jeans or my black dress to wear this evening for senior's dinner... everything else is prob in garage and i'm too lazy to plough through my crap.. maybe i'll go shopping at Emeryville later... =P

house hunting
in the past 3 days i've looked at 7 places, mostly studios and two rooms in proper houses... from studios tucked away up in the hills to cute rooms with loft spaces in existing households... somehow i think the more i look at studios the more i think that i shoudn't live alone... cos 1) I prob won't have many friends over since i don't have many to begin with and i can totally foresee myself all cooped up in my own studio stuck online all the time or something... and yet i think i don't want to be all cosy and live with people I am very close to. i am not sure why too... I felt really tempted to take up the cute $600 room with the loft space I saw yesterday but driving up and down the hills really isn't that appealing i guess. plus mum is ok, but not very comfortable with the random 40 yr old guy housemate. today someone whom i emailed perhaps two weeks ago emailed me back and asked if i would like to see their room... and now i think I am going to take up their room... in a house with this couple and their cute 4-yr-old son (i'm not taking it up just cos the kid is cute, nor cos the room is super nice or anything) but i dunno... i feel like they will be a good influence for me, and I feel like it might be a good 'cultural experience', living with an American family... it's a nice neighborhood, room is decent and though the rent is a little ex and it's not that close to school, there's something that draws me to that place... and the move-in day is flexible and just right... now i shall await her reply and i guess i'll know in a day if my housing search will thus end... =)