will be driving my Honda down to LA tonight (poor car...) and will be spending Christmas in San Diego... doubt will be able to blog till i come back from this roadtrip; so Merry Christmas to all my dear friends =) i'll return on the 26th.

Thanks to Netflix, i managed to watch Promises from the comforts of my bed; without even going to the video store to rent the dvd... i know Netflix has been around for some time, but i've never really bothered signing up....no time to watch videos during semester! but last week i was both free and boliao after finals and so decided to sign up for the 2-week trial subscription and be cheapo and watch say 3 or 4 shows i've always wanted to watch, for free... =P
the children in the documentary left a really deep impression; though they are only 11-13, they seem to be pretty mature for their age... and hold pretty individualistic views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict... but it's rather saddening too how because of this conflict many also hold grudges against children from 'the other side'. whom they might not have even met before...

i think i look like a hippo today. sumei says i look 'cute'; like those actors/actresses who intentionally put on weight for their roles.. sigh. how flattering =P but whatever lah; decided i had to run errands and couldn't hide in house forever so i went out. =P

so even though i can't really eat solid foods; diet hasn't really been compromised. if anything, i'm afraid i might have packed on more calories.... i made a blueberry smoothie for dinner yest; finished more than half a pint of Haagen Dazs this afternoon... ate two Yoplait yogurt whips within these two days- choc mousse and lemon meringue; and nibbled on two blueberry muffins i made this afternoon... in between i did have porridge twice but i think i ate far more unhealthy stuff! bad Shi Min. i had better be careful those swollen cheeks dun become permanent ones by the time real swelling has subsided.

AARGH. i look like a total goldfish/hamster that likes to tuck food in its cheek pockets now!!!! totally disfigured and mei2 lian3 jian4 ren2 now... sob. =( and cheeks are so swelled up i can hardly move my mouth. good news is though that bleeding is starting to stop...

i'm actually not as goldfish-faced as i expected myself to be (so i'm relieved) but there's still some swelling (which hopefully wun get worse over next few days...). So the whole surgery was actually surprisingly short; in slightly less than an hour all my 4 wisdom teeth were taken out. it's actually not as painful as i thought it might be lah, but it was still a pretty nasty experience. i HATED the grinding sounds... and unfortunately, as "she has a tiny mouth" the oral surgeon had some problems reaching in.... dun think my mouth is that small but perhaps it's not too 'stretchable' and i can't open it very wide... =P other than that i think it went fine.
am just feeling =( cos wounds refuse to stop bleeding and jaw feels really kinda sore and weak from biting on gauze all day. and of course, got mini 'scolding' from mum upon hearing that i took all 4 out... and should have known better than to have told her that wounds have been bleeding ever since the extraction... oh well. in the end i decided on the spot that i'd rather listen to the doctor (and NEVER have to go through this again) than to listen to mum... =P i hope it wun turn out to be a bad decision....

i'm scared.... IT will take place in about 2 hours. i think the reason i'm getting so nervous is cos i keep thinking about how the surgeon will go about extracting it. cos the tooth is under the gum and i keep wondering how they will cut up the gum to yank the cosily-lodged tooth out.... and it conjures up some random horrifying images in my mind.... pain shouldn't be that bad; i just can't take the "goriness"... Dentists ought to have TVs in the surgery room; or other wildly distracting things to distract patients with vivid imaginations from inducing undue fear in themselves......

though i have a stiff neck; and ache all over right now, i'm so thankful everything's over... shall postpone all the worrying till next week. but another big 'worry' is gonna come up in a day-- am going to take out my wisdom teeth on Saturday! aargh. now i have ONE day to eat whatever i want before being 'reduced' to a semi-liquid diet on Saturday.... mum has been telling me to just take two out at a go... was also regularly warned how dreadful and horrifying taking all 4 out might be...to much amusement. hmmm maybe i'll just take 2 out... cos i fear the pain but above all i'm also vain and greedy and wun want to hav a swollen face and to have go hungry over this festive season.....

am rather upset that i'm about to turn in a crappy history paper, esp cos i really enjoyed this class and cos i really invested so much time into all the readings. and i'm so gonna screw up both my econ finals and i only have myself to blame. =(

i hate myself for always doing things that will screw up my finals during the finals period... and i hate how there's never allowance for 'emotional regulation'.... life goes on, whether you are upset, sick, unlucky or not. stop and cry and risk getting a double, or even triple, whammy.

i turned all rabbit-ish since last evening, almost devouring the whole packet of baby carrots (which i normally wouldn't even finish in a week) within one day... the reason being that i decided to copy my Thanksgiving hosts by making myself some fresh ranch dip using sour cream and the dip mix.... and it turned out to be quite addictive so even though i dun usually have any particular affinity for RAW carrots, i quickly depleted my supply of carrots.... haha. well at least they aren't chips this time round. (though i hav to admit the dip isn't exactly very healthy =P)

while on the issue of animals (somewhat) i had a close encounter with a squirrel today! was eating a sandwich outside Gianini before my review session when a squirrel came into close proximity (eyeing my food i guess).... and so i pinched a piece of bread and held it out, staying as still as possible.... and waited for a min or so (in attempt to convince it i wasn't an evil person) and it actually came forward and picked the bread out of my hand! so cute... but haha i guess squirrels dun like turkey and cheese so it sniffed at it for a lil while before discarding its 'find' and bouncing away....

finally up after a long sweet slumber and sleeping never felt so good... haha. =P well so everything's turned in but certainly somewhat "substandard".... ended up with only 16/17 pgs or so of prospectus; wonder if prof would take that as sign of incompetence or sloppiness? but of course i myself also realize that it certainly wasn't a very well put-together one... and seriously..... i don' t think he'll even get a good sense of what i intend to do... i'll be rather surprised if i get in. but whatever lah, i will toss it out of my head for time being =P while i really do like writing, it now pains me that i have yet another 10 pgs of a history paper to turn in next week.... tog with finals, of course; but after next Thurs, i'll be DONE! =)

decided since i'm gonna embark on paper-writing marathon from about now till 4pm tmr... what's 200 words or so about a random blog-worthy incident this morning? =P

today's the last day of class... was in 142 lect when a fair-skinned jap/korean-looking lady stepped in and started shooting Ken Chay lecturing, with her digicam... didn't even notice her till KC announced, "oh, that's my wife".... then for like 1 min or so after he seemed a little nervous and couldn't really continue lecturing (with her standing there silently taking his pics....) haha. thought quite sweet though like quite weird too... well she left after 3 min or so but it was funny witnessing KC's "weak moment" after getting so used to him being always all-confident.... he's one lecturer who doesn't even get the least bit uneasy when bad-mouthing some of the most accomplished individuals around (good-humoredly, of course)

i think it takes some skill to be a good GSI and my 142 GSI is pretty cool-- cos he really tries to be 'fair' to be everyone.. he ensures that everyone who turns up gets to ask his/her question and lets ppl take turns... and what made me pretty impressed was that he could read my cues.. like he could tell when i didn't seem to understand and then double-checked to make sure i did... =P (not just this time round; at previous office hours too...) oh well, unless whenever i am confused it's so obvious that he picks it up straight away? haha. alright, back to studying for midterm in evening.

it really struck me today, after listening to a presentation on online advertising in China (touted as the next big market blah blah) that the way a presenter chooses to present the material to his/her audience can really skew the "receiver's" consequent view of a particular issue.... ( i doubt she did it intentionally but it somehow turned out that way in my opinion) esp for an unsuspecting person, and esp if he/she happens to possess no prior knowledge of whatever he/she's are told... i'm not claiming i know a lot about China though, nor that i'm critical about everything i'm told (on the contrary, there are plenty of instances of my gullibility, i have to admit....) sigh i guess i can't blame ppl wanting to invest to target big cities... maybe i get a little worked up whenever ppl seem to neglect the fact that the urban population makes up less than half of China's population.... just reminded me of how one can be made so "powerless" by being unknowledgeable and uninformed...

the rest of the week will be very rough cos things erm arent going that well... shall try to ban myself from blogging too... hopefully =P

i got home this evening to find christmas lights hanging outside the house. heard the bells hanging on the other side of the door upon entering, and found an undecorated christmas tree and a crackling fire at the fireplace in the living room.... and a whole bunch of ppl having dinner. the house had such a cosy and festive atmosphere.... a refreshing change from the probably si3 qi4 chen2 chen2 house i would prob return to if i were living with fellow Berk students stressing out over finals.... yet i felt oddly 'alone'... i dunno. somehow the house being so cosy and decked up for Christmas suddenly exacerbated such a feeling... not that i was made unhappy or anything, just really aware of them being a family and me being just me...

and i will be terribly terribly busy next week, with 4 things due and a midterm in the last week of class... and extremely worried.

if heaven were a single most treasured memory you'll relive for eternity, what would you choose? just watched this japanese film, afterlife, and was very drawn by this really kinda bizarre but interesting idea (i chanced upon it at the East Asian library when doing research and couldn't resist borrowing it... =P)

but what if I want to choose a "memory" I don't even have?

Sebastiao Salgado's pictures

This picture above comes with the following caption: The children must be weighed and measured in order to adjust their rations. In a nutritional center, Gourma Rarhous, Mali, 1985.


i really cannot prioritize =P am reading about this Brazilian economist-turned-photographer for our Chinese class tmr and got sent his website by our prof... and i couldn't help blogging about it... He takes such hauntingly beautiful but depressing pictures. Check out his other pictures

sad to say, i think i've reached the point in the semester whereby interest in every subject is starting to wane and i just want to get over everything... am looking forward to my holiday... bout 17 more days... unfortunately there are so many things due from now till next Fri!! aargh and a 142 midterm next Wed! sigh i fear the worst for my GPA.

a series of unfortunate incidents

just when i got up early enough to drive down to Honda for an oil change, i see a sign "open tues-saturdays" upon pulling up at the service window... (when its normal service reception opens on Mondays too) Yesterday, when deciding to reread the history response paper i turned in on Monday night, i discovered to my HORROR that it was nowhere to be found and the file i saved it under turned out to be an incomplete (2 out of 4 pgs!) file... and that i actually sent my GSI that incomplete file... really dunno what happened cos i distinctly remembered saving the final copy... so had to rewrite bits of it to turn it in again and prob will suffer some penalty from turning it in late now. =( aargh. and my wisdom tooth also chose the best moment to start aching... and i might have to extract all 4 of them before finals, esp if the evil one tooth continues to give me trouble. why why why...
ok the first i only hav myself to blame; cos i checked the opening hours some time ago and didn't recall them taking Mondays off and so didn't bother double checking again before driving up. and it's not a big thing lah-- it isn't that far. second incident... i dunno why i was so careless... i REALLY did save it.. why screwed up on me i have no clue =( and i'm upset cos i really spent so time on it to make it good...hmm as for my tooth, perhaps all the crap and sweet stuff i ate over Thanksgiving weekend made it overworked so it's now complaining and punishing me... sigh whatever. i need those cute chocolate band aids they sell at Fisherman's wharf for life's "boo boos"....

hmmm. dun really know where to start but that Courtney's family was really kind and hospitable and despite being a first-time visitor, i really felt comfortable and at-home =) Disneyland was fun, shopping today was enjoyable (when is shopping ever a horrible let-down =P) but baffling as it might sound, my favorite day was the first day, spent at home most of the time, baking, having dinner and just chilling out... having a pseudo-family for a day... =P nevermind how many calories i put on these past 3 days.... i shall (hopefully) shed everything over the next 3 weeks or so stressing out. it was a minor tragedy though that the careless me brought the faulty converter for my camera battery charger and batt went flat on first day... so... anyhow, still hav a few pics to share!

our grand creation

front and back of our gingerbread house! the gingerbread house kit from target was initially for Courtney and I to 'play' with, but we ended up getting almost the whole family involved! it was extremely funny how when the Dad decided to make his small contribution, he unfortunately 'tore down' the whole house and got a mini scolding for it...everything was fine in the end though. it's supposed to contain a total of 53 servings of 120 calories each... but considering how we added all the additional m&ms, marshmallows and what not. i shall not even venture a guess =P anyway, it's not meant to be eaten...though i totally had the intention to do so before we started...
yes, it's me with a stroller again... but with a most unusual passenger-- it's a cat stroller! i''ve never seen any family that loves cats this much... out of the 4 cats in the house, 1 was extremely affectionate and friendly, 2 were moderately afraid and the white furry/fluffy one (and most comical-looking too, cos its face made him look as if he were perpetually in shock or something) was extremely wary of me... so ya, didn't get to hug him even though he looked the most cuddly.

hmm what else? guess shopping today (esp during the holiday seasons when there are so many nice things to buy) just made me realize that even though getting rich definitely isn't one of the big priorities in my life, money can make buy you so many lovely things and when i saw things i really liked, i did wish i were rich =P while not all expensive things are good/chio...(in fact, some can be extremely ugly) it also happens to be true that chio things are often expensive... but ya, i guess even if i did become really rich, i still cannot bear to be too extravagant...