i have to admit that I do not have a very high level of self-confidence to begin with... and it leaves me wondering what i should think of myself, when at some point you find that whatever u say is constantly shot down by others? or things that you appreciate, or find interesting are frowned upon by others? well maybe not exactly frowned upon, but perhaps deemed no big deal.... or that your beliefs seem to be somewhat naive and not worthy of any notice? should i then attribute it to the differences in people's opinions and welcome the comments or shoudl i start to question myself and reflect on all my inadequacies.... ok not sure it there is such a word...
when met with such a situation, when everything you do seems to be mediocre, is it not reasonable to get upset with yourself or should i live on with an optimism that all is well and that i shouldn't compare myself with others cos it would just make myself depressed? (ok i think my last sentence sounded a little suicidal but i hav no such tendency at the least.... ) just some thoughts...

am gonna start on some data entry work this week; hopefully i will get adept at using the number pad and be able to work efficiently and quickly soon =) i also just realized that there are many microcomputing facilities on campus for studnets to print stuff, save their work, use various software etc.... how silly. having only realized that after 1.5 years in berkeley!! prior to this i hav always wondered why moffitt 3rd floor computers had no other programs and is it only that ppl cna go the unit computing centres to do their work....how naive of me
cooked caramelized chicken wings yest and they tasted pretty yummy! just that perhaps i shoudl hav left them in the oven for maybe 10 min longer... i was just afraid they will get 'chao da' cos the aluminium foil had burnt sauce on it already.... also did some slightly different things this weekend; tried zachary's chicago pizza along solano on sat evening.... i'ts deep dish pizza and lotsa chewy cheese and tomatos... pretty yummy but burnt a little hole in my already 'depleted' pocket.... then washed my car on sunday afternoon.... it's not easy to ''take care'' of a car really...

i finally got a car!!! a 2001 silver honda accord coupe. stopped writing for so long i don't really know what to write anymore....
but it was def satisfying and exciting being able to drive my own car..... unfortunately after a week of driving i don't think it has improved tremendously.... and i am still as bad as ever in changing lanes and i would prob be stuck on a freeway going straight till goodness knows when if there weren't ppl in my car helping me look out and tellign me if i can change lanes.... but I hope practice would gradually improve and perfect my driving skills!
it's been a hectic week, but I must say it has been a pretty happy one? albeit busy. dun think i did well for my econ 140 midterm but shall not think too much about it.... i was strangely surprised a few days ago, when in one day i accutally talkead to 3 of my jap 1b classmates..... and someone came up to me to ask if i could email econ 140 solutions to him if my gsi forwarded it to my section...... somehow i felt nice cos it was indeed an improvement from my last sem, when human communication was like minimal..... though i still dun talk to a lot of ppl and hav few frens, i just hope i am gradually improving... =) failed a pop quiz in my eng class..... did a mini 3 min presentation on schizophrenia in my disability decal class..... there def seems to be much more variety in my academic life... =) yay. but i think i'm gonna be really busy.... paper coming up and things due.... but i will persevere...

i got into my alt spring breaks decal class "Understanding Disabilities"... first meeting later in the evening... look forward to it. hope i'll benefit and really enjoy it and help ppl at the same time =)
i am now hanging on to econ 115 and i hope i wun be overworked. can feel all the work coming in despite it only being the 4th week of school... and i quite love my poli sci 120a professor! she is so witty and clever and articulate.... and patient with students i think... eg if she asks a question and nobody answers she wun looked pissed or anything but say more things to make us think more.... and she uses many examples to illustrate her point... only regret is i either fall asleep on my bed or hav no time to do my readings...
been looking for a car for the past 2 weeks or so, but to no avail. it's so tough to find something u really want... and it's either too ex or the mileage too high. =(

a week ago at this time i was waiting for zy and shiyun to come home to all go for dinner at yue foo.... time passes really fast and my mum has gone for a week already... sitting at my comp and not wanting to do anything at all now... with the jay chou fantasy cd that huijun gave me playing on my laptop.... somehow feel very lonely all of a sudden, no mum to accompany me when i feel lonely...
haha but i should be fine lah. aargh i forgot to drop my econ 115 before the drop deadline.... adn now i hav to pay 10 bucks if i want to drop the class!!! irritating =( so i think i might stick to it and hang on.... unless i am doing really badly then i will drop it... and after all i bought the 'textbook'... jsut havne't gotten the readers.... sadly i fell asleep in eichengreen's lecture today AGAIN... but when i woke up he actually went through some things about international monetary econ that actually made some sense (as compared to my econ 182 last sem).... so maybe he can be a little boring but he isn't that bad at explaining stuff it seems.....
I wonder if i will get into my com service decal class, and whether I would really get involved, get to know new ppl and do something really meaningful. It's like I always hav all these great plans for myself... to get really involved in stuff and stop myself from hu si luan xianging and getting depressed.... but usually they are not realized.... like I went for Bears for Unicef meeting last wed... then like members had to help table at Sproul.. and I am just like somewhat shy and i dun want to sit at Sproul all alone by myself.... so in the end i dind't join. then I wanted to join this Girls Inc org, to teach girls to read...... but the sch is in San Leandro, which is beyond Oakland Airport... and so far how i go... sigh. hopefully nice surprises come my way and I can hav a differnet and enjoyable semester.... =)

glad my mum reached sg safe and sound.... i must admit i did have worries about her not being able to transit correctly, it being the first time she was taking a long dist flight alone... and it was funny how she complained that sg was so humid and that she felt really hot even at 2am at night... now she understands how i feel whenever i first get back to sg.. quite cool. and now she can imagine how i am sometimes 'bullied', who i am referring to when i mention names....
jacqui and i baked chester an ice cream cake yest... and i tried to make this 'strawberry dream cake' for jacqui and glad both turned out well =) i also realized how diff it is to spread cream.... prior to this i thought spreading cream evenly on ur sponge cake is a breeze.... till i made a unsightly mess out of mine... haha but i covered it up with choc fudge so it wasn' tthat obvious =)
and i have been eating out so so often i havne't cooked a single meal this week!! but somehow today made me feel really nice, that i was on pretty good terms with ppl in our batch.... somehow there has never been a sat weekend last sem i think when i actually had both lunch adn dinner with our batch ppl.... i will usually be cooped up in my room, making a sandwich for lunch or something. mabye cos it's the start of the semester and everyone's relatively freer.
went for the Bears for UNICEF meeting.... but am put off by the fact that i have to table at sproul at lealst for an hour each day... i guess it's not a very valid reason to not volunteer, but i really dread the idea of having to sit at sproul during the busiest and most crowded hours of the day and watching ppl walk past u.....so i guess maybe i wun join.
hope i get into the alternative spring break decal that i wnat to join though. =)

my mum is leaving in 2 days' time! i will then be relegated to no one filling my water bottle in the morning for me... no one cooking dinner for me... no one gossiping to me... no one living in my room... warming it up wiht her presence.. haha ok i am starting to talk crap... but i hoped my mum enjoyed her stay here... and i am sure she got really amused by my frens, esp chester and ziyang who are so crazy... glad that she got to get a taste of my life here =)
many things to look forward to this semester.. hoepfully i get into the decal which seems to promise a meaningful spring break... and maybe i'll just drop econ 115 and concentrate on my remaining 4 classes and really enjoy them.. and hope i have the chance to drive myself around and not 'leech' on others all the time.... that i will not get depressed over little little things... in the meantime i somehow feel like i dun hav enough time everyday.... though it's like 2 weeks into the sem i am somewhat behind in all my classes cos i havent' been really reading and doing all the work assigned... but nmind. hope i can catch up!

thought many thoughts this past week, but now i cannot remb them...
think on monday night was moaning and thinking about how i dun feel like i am prepared for sch at all...
tuesday was mortified that my R and C class required 30% class participation and 2 oral presentations, was disappointed that Eichengreen turned out to be pretty boring...
wed saw me busy the whole day.... helping a tiny bit in the making of pineapple jam and lotsa preparation for our steamboat 'reunion' dinner...
yest? what did i do yesterday....
but had a pretty nice day out with my mum today; we went to SF....(finally!) the past few days cos i had sch i coudln't really bring her out either... toured chinatown and i visited the fortune cookie factory for the first time... i guess it cannot be technically called a factory if there are only two workers making the cookies? but the warm 'spoilt' samples were yummy and i bought a packet of fortune cookies... then went shopping in SF... somehow there seemed to be more things than usual to buy and managed to find quite a few cheap deals yesterday!! sadly time flew and had to get to cheesecake factory around 6pm to prevent long waits of 1 hour or more.... and we ordered so much food, not knowing that the portions were REALLY huge ( think our plate of pasta could feed 3 ppl) and it ended up that our tiramisu cheeseckae didn't turn out as nice as we wanted it to be.. cos we were just too too full.
was trying to take a pic of my mum and was pleasantly surprised when an american at the next table offered to take a picture of both of us.... once again struck by the friendliness of americans... it's a nice feeling really, not that i havn'et had this kinda experience before, but somehow experiencing it all over again just makes u feel warm... kind gestures of strangers... haha and it so turned out that one of them in the group could speak chinese! seems like u never know who can speak chinese.... eg. the black guy at gelato place could speak chinese too! made my mum comment that we cannot gossip or say bad things about them in chinese anymore..... cos they might understand!
shall try to catch up on some sleep this weekend...

finally back in berkeley after 5 'grilling'days in tokyo! but it was fun though, wading through masses of people clad in smart long coats in the morning hour rush, trying not to get lost in the most confusing subway/rail system i have come across so far.... it's sch tmr! and i feel kinda lost and unprepared.... and i hav classes from 8am to 5 with only a 1/2 hour break... hope i will survive this sch-reopening 'ordeal' and start off the semester well! =)

today marks the last day of my 3.5 week stay in singapore... will be off to tokyo in less than 24 hours... though i do not have a very comprehensive itinerary for us, i have a few places in mind and hopefully everything will go smoothly and i'll enjoy my stay there =) look forward to shopping in tokyo actually, wanna buy a watch.... swatch watch straps are so unreasonably expensive... wanted to change my elastic watch strap.. but to my horror i realized it cost $36... its like half the price of the watch... =(
wished my winter break was longer; but i guess i slacked enough for the past few weeks, but meeting up with old frens was definitely a big bonus... nothing beats the company of old frens, them asking after you.... catching up with one another... i feel somewhat strange though that despite having been away from home for one whole year, it was pretty true that i had nothing to do in Singapore after like 3 weeks.... I am not sure why this is the case too... so I think i will try to travel more, say one week of travellign next time if i come back during winter. I quite look forward to the new semester ahead though, excited about the new classes i will be taking; this is always the case whenever a new sem starts! =) and it dies down midway into the semester when all the dreaded midterms start.... and i will be moaning away how i cannot manage them....
shall meet up with a few frens for the last time later, get more packing down, the last of my errands run and then it will be takeoff!

havent' blogged for so long! think the blogger site was down the past few days and whenever i went to my blog nothing came out but the blogger homepage... and as a result i didnt' blog....
but so many things hav happened the past week.... sadly i cannot remb them as vividly as i could when i had the urge to blog.... nmind... a quick glance back....
1. Cat + P sch chalet last sat met cat, after a long 1.5 years.... and saw me going for my p sch fren's 21st birthday chalet... that was kinda awkward though cos she invited so many people and i ahvne't been keepign in touch even with the p sch friends that i went to the party with and it was just pretty odd....
2. Karaoking last sun saw me going karaoking with jeannice joyce shu elaine and kailin and it was really fun.... cos everyone was just so 'bu gu xing xiang' and we started jumping on the sofa and doing crazy stuff... and it was like the first time i think i just didn't care about being shy and just sang along...
3. Girls' day out can't remb what i did on monday..... but watched mona lisa smile with my mum on tuesday... it was so spontaneous... almost liek 'sprung' it on my mum... i find it so amusing...... plus the fact that my mum hasn't watched a movie in the theatres for ages..... but we both enjoyed it...
4. Journey to the west.. (haha so crappy) Went to NUS on wednesday to visit my sis's hostel... she lives at sheares and the whole building is so new... or rather, the whole dorm resembles a mini new HDB estate.... it felt strange though stepping into NUS, seeing so many peers walkign around... felt kidna intimidated; wonder if it is because of my fear that i would meet someone familiar? but whom i would know but hav nothing to say to... then met up with huijun and watched sound of colors at her house... it was a lovely afternoon.... watching dvd and sharing our repective experiences using our digicams....
5. Errands day went for a medical checkup this morning, plus to get medicine for this huge insect bite on my arm... =( then went to get birthday prez, bought a scarf for myself... made new specs.... bought paper from the nice paper place in bugis, but i think i left the whoel pack in the winter clothing shop...!! quite upset with myself cos i specially selected all those paper for makign cards.. =( now i cannot make any cards.

but come to think of it i have been goign out practically everyday i havne't done anything serious nor productive..... but i guess that's what holidays are for? though one of my biggest regrets is that i didn't take the chance to revamp my blog.... so i suspect it will remain this borign old template for some tiem to come... =)

cross my fingers and hope that shinjuku washington has spaces from 15 jan to 19 jan.. else i will hav to look for a hotel again... after a few nights of searching for hotels... my initial choice of a cheap ryokan in ikebukuro was met with opposition and some nagging from my dad, who thinks it unsafe and inconvenient.. and i also figured that it would probably be a hassle for me and my mum, considering the items piling up at home which i am thinking of bringing back to berk... and as such i decided to look for a hotel with the limousine service from narita airport.... to save all the trouble...
cooked for the first time at home! for shu and joyce... terrible me made my mum go to the market in the morning to help me buy ingredients... and i think i kinda terrified and probably disgusted her by making a mess in the kitchen, not knowing where all the diff sauces were, having trouble trying to open my new bottle of hua diao jiu... it feels really strange cooking in sg.... plus the wok is different etc etc =P hmmm but luckily i didn't burn anything...
been going out every single day for teh past week i am really really really tired... and i still hav so many thigns to do, errands to run, things i want to get... people i haven't met. seems liek there is no time left.. less than 2 weeks! and i somehow haven't had much time to myself... =P hmm remnants of my berkeley life... with all my time spent alone usually... somehow i now yearn to hav some time to myself, to just go shopping for my own things alone...

it's 2004! my new year resolution is (and i think has been for the past few years but i think i never ever successfully realized it) to be less passive, less introverted and be more optimistic and confident and less affected by what ppl think of me.... =) wonder if i will finally succeed thsi year?
been goign out almost every single day and i am so so tired.... yet i still go out... been buying so much stuff too i think i wun be able to stuff everything into my luggage when i start to pack in like 1.5 weeks' time.... and cannot imagine myself and my mum having to lug like at least 3 pieces of luggage to our hotel from the train station?! really watn to blog more but it's really late and i jsut got back home not long ago and i guess i shoudl go and bathe....

finally watched turn left turn right on vcd today at home.... but i still very much prefer the book. i dun really like how they inject too much comedy into the whole plot... kinda changes the whole mood of jimmy's book... but i guess the movie is just an adaptation, and has to cater to the popular crowd and a more 'sullen'/ less dramatic plot would be less appealing for the general puclic... but what i really liked about the show was how the producers managed to make teh whole setting of the movie really similar to that in the book...down to the armchairs they sat in in the book haha.. well tehre were touching bits too i guess... but thought the end when there was an earthquake and it brought down the wall separating the two of them.... that was somewhat exaggerated and incredible...
doing a lil research for my japan trip... think it will be really ex... hope i can get to visit the studio ghibli, and get to see hayao miyazaki's characters in the museum! but u can't get tics that easily, so i might not be able to go if i can't get the tics beforehand...

made mashed potatoes for the lunch gathering at home yest.. but they were too salty and somehow the masehd potatoes weren't mashed but somewhat "liquidy"... but to my surprise it was almost finished at the end of lunch... strange how my failed potatoes didn't turn out to be that unpopular after all...
managed to borrow the tokyo lonely planet guide from pasir ris community library... and they recommended this cheap but pretty clean and comfy ryokan to stay in... really hope they are not fully booked!! cos it seems like a really good deal... shall call them tmr and hope they still hav places!! getting excited about my trip to tokyo..
and splurged on a coat at zara just now! aargh. am very very poor now... aggravated by the fact that we had lunch at lawry's today cos jeannice happened to have a lunch voucher, buy two set lunches get one free... and though it was somewhat paiseh 5 ppl sharing 3 set lunches... we nonetheless survived our lunch and the food was pretty good.. the worst thing was that we each paid 6 dollars plus for water!! bottled water... 5 bottles of water plus a little more can buy a set lunch....

my plans to lose weight back in sg have been foiled... my mum has been constantly stuffing me with all sorts of food, and it doesn't help that shopping centres are 'littered' with food stalls or eateries where we can buy finger food really easily. and slight jet lag has also made me too lazy to get up to exercise in the morning... and i am just horrified by the amount of fats i am accummulating each day. i had better stop this 'routine' else i will really regret it....
am very baffled why i manage to lose my temper once i come home.... liek i dun think i hav ever been really mad for the past year in berkeley and one small thing, the internet not working properly and sis hogging the comp just made me irritated.... sigh. and i can't use my laptop... =(
am feeling somewhat contradictory.... am supposed to go to aunt's place for dinner perhaps... it's my "dad's side" and i dunno them very well and i just dun feel like going.. yet it's very bad and kinda rude to be so AS... argh. one good thing about staying abroad is that u can avoid all this somewhat superficial socializing.... i mean i dun think all my relatives mean any harm but i think its just awkward....
watched LOTR 3 with Ting.... and it's nice to see her again!! dun think she has changed much though.... =) think most ppl havent... went to eat yong tau foo and tiramisu at shing's place and i think both shing huei and huining look pretty much the same... cept that huining dyed her hair... =)

first time ever blogging at home in sg!!! home feels so familiar, yet strangely distant in a way at the same time. my home seems to be filled with objects that i am unfamiliar with, didn't even know my dad got wireless internet, my bed actaully looks almost exactly the same as when i left it yet so strange when i slept in it... i forgot the color of my bathroom mirror rims and asked my mum, u changed the bathroom accessories ah? and when i landed and saw the familiar faces at the airport.... i was just so filled with joy! and my cousins and aunts came to the airport as well and upon seeing my parents i was just suddenly so overwhelmed, that i haven' t seen them for so long that a sudden surge of emotions make me suddenly break down... but they were happy tears though. and my dad got me a new nokia 6610 with nice polyphonic tunes... yay!! haha i feel really spoilt already.... hope i can make good use of my time here and have a really fulfilling and enjoyable stay at home... get recharged before i start my next sem...

HOME!!!

when ppl are nice and u can't do anything to reciprocate their kindness i feel awful...
when u know u hav a final tmr and yet u are panicking over not knowing how to do maximization problems i get desperate and freak out...
when u know there are lotsa nice ppl and things to do back home in just 3 days' time i get highly distracted
when u know ur econ prof suddenly tells u that there will be essays on ur exam just 2 days before the exam and u realise u hav absolutely no time to study for them i feel doomed
and when u know u hav two finals and u keep complaining and keep getting distracted and not get down to studying i ought to be smacked....

5 more days!!!! had two finals..... and feel really guilty, took a whole day off today and went to watch movies after my 8am finals today.... watched stuck on you and love actually; both were pretty decent.... and a nice distraction from studying..... hopefully not at the expense of my grades though next week. wed and thurs... then i will be done and i can fly home on fri!! never looked forward to going home so much..... ppl are starting to leave starting from tmr onwards. but it'll be my turn soon.... =)