even though i woke up early to do work, i have been doodling around for an hour or so..am feeling a little hungry cos i finisehd all my good cereal and am only left with this gross maple buckwheat cereal (which my apartment said tasted like cardboard) that i refuse to touch and cos i prob ingested 1500 calories last night and so i'm too guilty to eat now...after my lousy presentation (though ONE person commented how i had nice pics, layout and fonts! =P) i couldnt bear doing any more work and so went out for dinner at this place my roommmate and i have been wanting to try for a long time.. it's this diner place and it had such good sandwiches and the best fries! it's like crispier mos fries but soft inside and with more seasoning.... and almost everything on their menu was less than 10 bucks!! haha and we had to discover it only 5 days before my departure... and then on the way to Georgetown to return our library books we spotted this ice-cream place... and somehow i gave in to two scoops of yummy ice cream despite feeling bloated already... it's pouring incessantly outside and even though i really want to go grocery shopping and inquire at the UPS store i'm now stuck indoors... ok shall be couch potato and try to finish up my paper (but i know i won't....)

i finally finished my powerpoint presentation! i'm too sleepy now so i think i'll go sleep and wake up early tmr to think of what to say... haha i'm very proud of myself even though i'm sure i spent half the time fretting over whether my chio font would show up on their computer tmr, cropping my pictures and attempting to arrange them in a tasteful fashion... like anyone would care... i'll probably be the only one who appreciates all the effort gone into that and the only one who will derive pleasure from looking at them... half the ppl would prob be asleep or extremely bored tmr since i foresee this last batch of ppl sitting through perhaps 4 hours of presentations... i had better not get too nervous and screw up...

tonight i am stuck at my desk tediously editing my paper and trying to link all the sections together but not much luck so far... roommate is at multi-purpose room presenting her paper, so is apartment mate... mine's on Friday, thankfully, but i'm not sure i can articulate a coherent argument by then... Prof Thurston was really nice to read through my whole paper and thankfully she thought it was fine... but i was embarrassed for some inaccurate bits of info.. she too agreed with my GSI that i need to fit this into a 'larger argument/significance'.... i dunno why everyone seems to be able to write pretty brilliant papers in short periods of time whereas i spend so much time and keep changing things as i go...
tmr's my last day of work! and by this time next week, i'll be back at Berkeley... i dunno. i'm very confused now i really dunno if i should be sad or happy... yest an innocent phone call led to a series of silly thoughts and me getting really upset for silly reasons. and at the most inapproriate times... sigh sometimes i really dun understand myself...

after some major reorganization of my paper last weekend, i thought i solved the problem of a disjointed paper... only to find out today that the whole thing doen'st seem to be very focused and requires reorganization again....stressed! prob have to tweak all i've written once again... tiring... not in mood to write also. =(

whole of last night wasted cos this program mate suddenly decided to hang out in our apartment after one whole sem...unexpectedly narrating her party experiences and hook-ups... such a bewildering conversation...despite my roommate's subtle hints, she stayed for a really long time... she's nice, just hmmm... a little random...
my hair was getting really unkempt and so decided to risk another haircut in the US... and i'm now devastated! dun get why ppl here cannot do layering... and i guess after she trimmed my hair i was visibly unsatisfied and so attempted to tell her what i wanted but it wasn't of any use... cos hairdresser insisted it looks fine and better than when i first came in... aargh. exasperated. she prob thought i was the pickiest person on earth... =P and so paid and came home and tried to trim my own hair once again for like an hour... but it prob didn't help that much... wish i didn't had such thick hair that sticks out.. =( aaah so chou3... i'm goign to be depressed for a week.

and so my roommate claims that i'll miss her after i leave this place.. actually i think i will. i'll prob kinda miss my apartment mates too, cos if i actually think about it, they have been really pretty decent and cool people =) the sad thing is i prob wun ever see them again... unless i visit my roommate in LA or bump into them on campus...
this sem has also made me a lot more 'acquainted' with the idea of exercising.. cos one roommate exercises every single day, even more than once a day, while the other two exercise moderatly... i'm like undoubtedly the laziest person in my apartment... even though i try now to exercise like once a week... but hey seriously, exercising is so 'bu hua suan' for shedding calories.. if i like do a slow 20 min jog on the treadmill, i prob only shed 150-200 calories for all the work, and that's like the equivalent of one white choc macadamia nut cookie, or like 22 potato chips... haha so i figured the best way to not put on weight is to exercise self-restraint and not eat rich foods... and so i have been trying to stay away from ice cream... haha but in place i have fallen in love with chips... the lightly salted Whole Foods tortilla chips are so good! and so are the new Kettle Cooked Lays potato chips....(which are always on sale for $2 at Safeway) =P

and so my roommate claims that i'll miss her after i leave this place.. actually i think i will. i'll prob kinda miss my apartment mates too, cos if i actually think about it, they have been really pretty decent and cool people =) the sad thing is i prob wun ever see them again... unless i visit my roommate in LA or bump into them on campus...
this sem has also made me a lot more 'acquainted' with the idea of exercising.. cos one roommate exercises every single day, even more than once a day, while the other two exercise moderatly... i'm like undoubtedly the laziest person in my apartment... even though i try now to exercise like once a week... but hey seriously, exercising is so 'bu hua suan' for shedding calories.. if i like do a slow 20 min jog on the treadmill, i prob only shed 150-200 calories for all the work, and that's like the equivalent of one white choc macadamia nut cookie, or like 22 potato chips... haha so i figured the best way to not put on weight is to exercise self-restraint and not eat rich foods... and so i have been trying to stay away from ice cream... haha but in place i have fallen in love with chips... the lightly salted Whole Foods tortilla chips are so good! and so are the new Kettle Cooked Lays potato chips....(which are always on sale for $2 at Safeway) =P

instead of counting down and feeling =( about the work i have, i've decided that i should make the best of the 12 days or so i have left in DC... and try some of the restaurants i have been wanting to try all semester! while walking down the streets of DC every morning has become a daily ritual that i no longer appreciate that much now and going to the wilson center is no longer something i really look forward to, i'm sure i'll look back at this semester some time in the future with fond memories... it's funny how every morning i walk past these really cute flowers outside this hotel and go, "aargh! i forgot to bring my camera out again".. i finally stopped and observed the traffic policewoman directing traffic at this busy junction this morning... actually she seems to serve no purpose.. like the traffic lights are all working perfectly... and who actually follows her signals? and her whistling seems to be somewhat erratic and serve no purpose... baffled. we're going to take a group picture outside the Capitol building tmr morning... dress code: Business attire... i feel quite phoney haha. i have never ever dressed so formally for work, then for this, i'm going to look/supposed to look all professional.... =P

my eyes are on my book but my mind is somewhere else... i dunno. getting somewhat distracted at work recently for no good reason. maybe that's what happens when there's little interaction with ppl. think my productivity is going down and i'm glad i'm going to end my internship next thursday, else i shall feel quite guilty. getting stressed about my research paper now too, cos i got comments for it from my GSI this afternoon and apparently it's somewhat disorganized. i thought so too actually. which means i hav to work hard to improve it next week, cos there will be a presentation next friday. aargh. so many thigns to worry about now. then i hav another 5-7 page paper for my politics and ethics class to write... hmm well i guess i did learn some interesting stuff from this class but i have concluded that it's not my cup of tea. stressed! cos if my research paper turns out bad, i'll get 10.5 units of bad grade... ok should stop complaining cos it's not going to help =P

attended two talks today at the Wilson Center. the first was the book launch of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat and another was a panel session on reform to the UN Security Council with Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, and two other distinguished individuals.. haha whose names i've never heard of. but anyway, i enjoyed Friedman's short lecture/intro/summary of his book more.. it was a pretty entertaining and informative talk and i now feel compelled to buy his new book.. =P once again, open source software was given honorable mention... including Firefox and Wikipedia! well Linux too, and apparently the Brazilian government has or is going to switch to the Linux operation system.. and he foresees China doing so, since she wouldn't want to be made vulnerable to possible sanctions by Microsoft if the Taiwan issue heats up... also learnt that UPS doesnt just do shipping.. apparently it has this whole logistics business.. what he terms "INSOURCING"...the eg. given being that if ur Toshiba laptop screws up, you get UPS to pick it up and u think they send it to Toshiba ppl to fix it for you, but in reality they send it to some place in Kentucky (if i didn't remb wrongly) where UPS technicians fix it for you and then send it back to the customers... and many of these brand names have become nothing more than marketing shells.... hmm i was just pretty fascinated by the number ongoing innovations... that change the way everything is run...that we (or maybe it's just me) don't even know about!
also got an email today from a paranoid dad telling me that i should postpone my plans to visit China and Japan till things cool down... which actually reminded me about some silly things i've come across in the midst of this newly-triggered China-Japan animosity... i feel it's so easy for us to associate things or think they are the same just because of one obvious thing in common... perhaps i'm guilty of such a tendency at times jsut that i might not be aware of it... i think i came across an article headline in Zaobao few days ago on how Cecilia Cheung has boycotted eating ramen or something (i guess because of this incident?) and how many Chinese are boycotting Jap goods... i cannot help but feel unlucky for these Jap shops/companies cos why on earth should they be blamed for the Japanese govt's decision to publish misleading history texbooks... yet for many Chinese right now there seems to be this blanket hatred of all things Japanese...

i was so lazy this weekend and i really hardly did anything. did some constructive stuff that was unrelated to what i was supposed to do for work here though. read another 100 pages of The Kite Runner.. it's a pretty decent book really! and considering how part of the setting is in the Bay Area, i felt that i could relate to what the author was saying.... and the last bit i read... it touched on the oppression under the Taleban regime... and so i got slightly 'on' and exchanged my last '3 for 2' Borders book for this book titled "Booksellers of Kabul"... wonder when i'll finally get to read it though.
I am kinda sick of browsing through Craigslist almost every other day without spotting any really good housing deals out there... 2.5 weeks more and i'll be done with this program. it's also time to start working on finishing up my existing stock of food...i feel like i'm counting down to going back, not that i have any really spectacular thing to look forward to... but i dunno. i just feel like going back...

i slacked yest and today and will finally be going up to the washington monument later in the afternoon after waking up early in the morning to queue for tickets.. hopefully the good view up there will make up for the slight lack of sleep... will prob slack tmr too cos i'm going to meet some person coming to dc and try to show her round a bit/ give some help... which means i myself will have good food again. after teaism yest evening and a yummy cosi omelette sandwich for breakfast today i feel slightly guilty for having spent so much money on food.. oh well. i'll only be here for a few more weeks so i should just treat myself.. and i also chong3ed myself yesterday and bought quite a few things yesterday while shopping at Georgetown.. didn't intend to but the tops were really so cute. Urban Outfitters can have such cool stuff but it's way too ex for a poor undergrad like me so i cannot afford anything when there aren't tremendous mark downs...
rented Hotel Rwanda from blockbuster... really good show. but depressing... and something really stuck in my mind, how the whites were evacuated while the Tutsis were left to die.. cos they were "not even blacks".. they were "Africans"... "like dirt".... so sad.

i made cranberry almond biscotti! =P 

i refuse to do any work tonight after a few nights of working on my paper. prob hav to start working again this weekend/next week cos there's still so much to write. had a really bad day yest, but an unexpected and pleasant phone interview late last night with someone from HPI China somehow allowed me to do a 3-pg case study write-up just in time for submission of my draft this evening... and so after completing my draft and registering for telebears i tried really hard to do all my readings for class this evening... only to find out that our prof expected everyoen else not to do the readings due to the draft..and so she gave us next week's readings and left us in class to read on our own... everything seems to be working against me somehow. oh well, i dun regret having done the readings cos i should have done them anyway... it's just that when i really tried preparing (to make up for being quiet the past few times) i don't get a chance to redeem myself... =( shu's visitng late tmr night and early fri morning/afternoon so i'll get some extra company... and perhaps gives me an excuse to bake something...=)

very pissed with myself today cos i left my research draft at work even though i really meant to remb to bring the floppy disk home... =( and upon reaching home i realized how forgetful i was and immediately went back to the Wilson Center... got into the Ronald REagan Building via the only entrance open... got to the elevators.. pressed the button... and... the elevators didn't work! sigh guess they shut the elevators down when they closed the place. =( aargh. now feelign paranoid. hope no one takes my disk away.... else i'm dead! shall go early tmr to retrieve it...
while tryign to do soem case studies for my research, i keep coming into contact with info on how all these kids in China don't get to go to sch even though they really want to learn. which made me think about how there are also all these kids in sg who don't want to go to sch even when they have the chance to...
mum just complained about how polluted Shanghai is, how oily the food is, how 'evil' one of her travelling companions is.. haha.

i'm still not over flowers.. i apologize.. =P was walking to the metro station this morning when i realized that the tulips they planted in this tiny park have started blooming... and even though i don't like red, these tulips were really really pretty. i'll love to go to Amsterdam one day to take pictures standing in the middle of tulip fields.. it somehow made me discover that a lot of things you don't really have to own to feel happy... and perhaps sometimes it's better to leave things there...
realize i have so much to write for my research paper and draft's due wed evening!! i kind of enjoy writing, cos it makes me think... but i take such a long time to write a single paragraph... i'm a slow thinker. =( but i discovered a really good and free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia... was trying to figure out the diff admin units in China and was really confused but then stumbled upon a Wikipedia article which was so brilliant and explained everything so well... not that i havent' heard of Wikipedia before, but it only just caught my eye. cheers to open source websites and all things 'open source'!
sigh.. 3.5 more weeks to go. in the meantime it's work and more work....

the streets don't really pale in comparison... =) 

no... we are not in Japan... 

flower mania! 

to this!!