feels good to be back in Berkeley :) a little regretfully, circumstances were such that i didn't manage to do the two things i most looked forward to the on this trip... too many things but too tired to pen down thoughts on trip tonight, so will just write about the (un?)eventful today... i somehow managed to misplace my driver's licence on the very day i needed it to board plane to Grand Canyon and so i had to accept consequences of own actions and stay back in LV... (a part of me wants to blame it on the front desk staff, but have to admit that lesson learnt is that you always have to take responsibility for your own things. this lesson a careless me actually somehow manages to unlearn time and again) sometimes you really wonder if things happen for a reason? but roaming streets, shopping, reading at Starbucks and having a little peace and quiet to myself wasn't that bad either :) and unexpectedly, family returned with nothing good to say about the outing.... er so... i guess though i felt sorry it didn't turn out well, i guess it was a small consolation too? :P

so the last hour or so was spent sitting at one of the Jackpot machine seats at the hotel casino and i think it's only when you really sit and really look at what's going on around you do you see beyond the bustle and incessant human traffic.... first, i was somewhat looking over a shoulder of a casino patron playing those $1 per play jackpots... i was somehow horrified how she just threw away more than $100 or so in 15 min or so.... of course this is nothing compared to those rich gamblers at the $1000 per play tables... but still! and all this money goes into the pockets of those casino magnates when it could be put to much better/meaningful use... (but of course, who am i to criticize what they want to do with their money...) i also encountered two working class individuals- bus driver who ferried me back to hotel from airport, who lamented that she has to work 6 days a week and is too busy to go on one of those GC flights herself, and a friendly (er.. maybe lonely?) Jamaican cleaner named Riggly, who was going around collecting empty beer bottles, sweeping and polishing the metal surfaces of jackpot machines... who instead of shooing me away started talking to me and saying how he gets to meet all kinds of ppl there (which i totally agree... you see ALL kinds of ppl) the staff at Rio is really pretty international (the staff wear name tags with their place of origin under their names) and so you get to see where they come from... the front desk staff are mostly American (expectedly), but the more menial jobs appear to be taken up by non-Americans... eg. cashier lady at convenience store was from Sri Lanka... i dunno. it just really reminded me of all the "invisible" immigrant labor taking up blue collar jobs in the US... haha just random musings. going to conk out now.

hello. hmm... nothing i can say in 3 min or so.... but just so i'm not wasting the 3 min or so left on this public terminal in some gigantic Hollywood souvenir store. headed for LV tmr evening... look forward to my night in Caesars Palace! and the flight to Grand Canyon on Sat morning..... :)

hmm. i think i sounded a little sulky in the last blog... guess when you're tired you tend to complain more :P i hope i'll hav fun, really. :) landlady wishes me luck-- that i'll get a windfall at Vegas and buy myself out of a certain bond... haha.

will prob take a break from blogging for a week or so-- flying down to LV tmr evening and wun be back till Sat night. if everything goes well (and that's a BIG if...) i'll also see Courtney one last time and still visit GC on the same trip... if not... haha. perhaps just slack in hotel room and rot... (which at this point is actually HIGHLY appealing to me) i just want to be babied, pampered and waited upon.... :(

the econ commencement was rather unglam. walked up to the stage half-drenched... posed for picture with wet hair and raindrops-speckled glasses... haha. but it was especially memorable, i guess. perhaps it was good that i walked yesterday already... and so didn't feel particularly disappointed that the rain somewhat wrecked the commencement ceremony and most ppl just wanted to get out of Greek Theater ASAP... but i mean sentiments were still high; perhaps nothing can easily "douse" the joy and excitement felt by the many parents, friends and family members there... my very own lil sis claimed that she shouted 'shi min' very loudly, but was inaudible much to her disappointment.... :)

PEIS (IAS) commencement

i wonder if every graduate ends up like the 11th-hour me? had a good sleep yest night to make up for a finals-drained me... so after i woke up, (abt 2 hrs or so before fetching parents) i literally pulled out all my shirts from wardrobe and desperately tried to look for presentable-looking pants (to my horror, most of them dun really fit anymore.... ) i really dun get why finals and commencement have to be so close to each other... you barely recover from exam shock and then you're expected to be all nice and presentable and happy to walk, with little or no time to catch your breath in between!! but at least everything went well... it was actually pretty exhilarating to sit on stage at Zellerbach, feeling elitist and all... i guess for those 2 hrs or so i did feel proud of myself and hoped my parents did too; then, i certainly felt that those hours of hiding in the libraries, all that typing, eyesight-wrecking and regular fretting during thesis writing was worth it.so the first one shows my family.... and the second one, my thesis prof, without whom, i certainly wouldn't have had a chance to sit on stage today. i actually like this picture a lot (courtesy of my dad) because it seems as if we are engaged in some really intellectual conversation. (when in fact he was just asking what i was going to do after graduation haha) well, appearances do deceive.

a really short post before i head off to some final studying.... it's been great meeting and hanging out with family, yet emotionally and physically draining at the same time... sure, they aren't the most adventurous and independent when it comes to travelling, but perhaps i was also so afraid that everything would be too foreign that i might have babied them too much? and little glitches that come up at untimely moments might have made me excessively upset/worried. oh well. i'll hopefully be able to feel my way better the next 2 weeks or so. in meantime, had better really concentrate on studying for the LAST final....

am trying to study but not really either... but at least i'm trying =P anyway, it's a great day and i'm studying at the table in my backyard (it's great that you get wireless here!) and i've done this before, but weather and stress has prevented me from doing this very often. anyway, am blogging just to say it's great how while studying, you hear insects buzzing, birds chirping, neighbors' dogs barking; you hear cars in the distance, leaves rustling.... i feel like there's life all around. nothing like being cooped up in room, studying on your bed and straining your back :P yes, i should get back to studying...

and so parents are coming tomorrow afternoon! it's like one of those big moments in your (MY, i suppose) life where you can show your parents that you're really not the little girl they thought you were when you left home anymore... that you're capable of taking care of them... (ok technically i guess i'm still naive/unworldly in some ways but have definitely matured i think!) and let's hope my driving skills dun immediately make my dad think otherwise! else i'll almost certainly get endless nagging to fly instead of drive to and from LV to LA every single night from tmr till trip:P am of course exaggerating, but it can be that bad... :P hmmm.... it's just 5 days to graduation/commencement! dun really feel any excitement yet, but i think i soon will... in the meantime, i have to try very hard to motivate myself to study for my last final... am also debating over whether i ought wear a free 5'6"-5'8" (the size) graduation gown passed down to me by good gal frens, which unfortunately almost reaches ankles; or be vain and get a proper right-length one... we'll see :P

i will really miss my cool school... we had 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi drop by yesterday afternoon, and also just sat in a discussion with famous war photographer James Nachtwey earlier this evening... when will i have the privilege of listening to distinguished and inspiring individuals at my doorstep ever again? :( also had a free IAS sponsored lunch with my thesis professor and class, and people seem to be going on to all sorts of cool interesting things/jobs. i just find it very inspiring that more than half the class is going to do something related to international development... these high-flyers in my thesis class actually made me feel somewhat depressed for one afternoon, but fortunately i didn't remain very upset for too long. i guess instead of somewhat envying what exciting lives ppl are going to be leading, i should just make the best of what's laid out in front of me... and making the best of that can be rewarding too. also found out that my thesis prof actually thinks that Singapore has the best food, generally, anywhere. i felt a very odd sense of joy, despite having totally under-explored all the food places back home! well, i guess that's one thing on my agenda when i return....

stress!

maybe i'm just finding excuses for myself, but there are so many things on my mind now that i find it pretty impossible to sit down and concentrate on studying for finals... plus i guess i wun get any 'peace of mind' till i sell my car :( and have been trying to meet up with ppl for meals these past couple of days, since ppl prob wun be available once finals and commencement start. and will prob be super busy when family arrives next Monday. not too surprisingly, HDB doesn't really mind having their scholar start work earlier, and one consolation for me is perhaps that the rough posting plan i just received actually seems somewhat interesting.... :) in meantime, can't wait for ought-to-be-happy-but-highly-stressful period to be over! i REALLY yearn for some one or two weeks where i get to do anything i want and have nothing to worry about at all.

at times i can't help but be thankful for my taciturn nature. esp when you know that saying too much can easily make you end up saying unintentionally bad things you didn't mean to say. yet i can't help but kick myself too, cos reserved as i am, i slip accidentally from time to time. aargh. perhaps it's also "mind control" rather than "mouth restraint" :P

and so i didn't get my Japanese homestay... i guess i never really imagined how disappointed i would be, but it turns out that i'm feeling really rather disappointed. and now there's more headachey planning to do... should i still visit Japan to tour? should i just stay a lil while more here? should i just go home and slack? or should i start work a little earlier.... oh well. perhaps i should look on the brighter side. and still aim to improve my Japanese when i get home...

still afflicted with senioritis, i went shopping in SF today; bought two things from H&M; had late lunch with Jing; came back and spent 1.5 hours chatting online at night and gobbled up half my packet of remaining choc chips meant for baking.... and did no work at all... i have to admit that despite having committed all these frivolous 'crimes'..... i feel rather happy... but yeah, i think from tmr onwards i should start doing something to rescue myself from being 'conquered' by this disease.... and chang tong bu ru duan tong... all shall be over in 2 weeks... and then the real break will begin.

i stumbled upon this video, which was shown at the beginning of my Econ 115 class say a week ago. (think Columbia Business Sch students produced it just for kicks?) apparently Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School, was dubbed to be one of the candidates for Fed Chair; but of course, Bernanke got the position...

(yes, as you can tell, Shi Min is suffering from senioritis and can't get herself to start studying though her finals are starting next week)

Berkeley's cherry blossoms?

was sitting just outside Golden Bear Cafe some two weeks ago when the very pretty sight of the Campanile with cherry blossoms in the foreground caught my attention. that was when i was super-stressed over thesis... anyway went back the next day to capture this picture. unfortunately, the weather was pretty gloomy during those weeks and so i didn't manage to get the clear blue sky that has showed up in so many of my Berk pics... and as you can tell from the leaves peeking out from between the blooms, the cherry blossoms were approaching their 'end' already... nonetheless, i like how they frame and add subtle pinks to my pic of the Campanile and the Sather Gate. strangely enough, i never noticed cherry blossoms on campus till i came back from DC...

A planner's concerns

am trying to make use of this short window of free time i have this week to plan for short getaway with family to Las Vegas and surroundings but doing a good job seems exceedingly difficult, for several reasons.... eg. i want to go to Grand Canyon, and apparently it takes about slightly more than 5 hours to drive there from LV. so then i have to think 1) will parents let me drive?? (will ask later, of course) 2) am i really capable of doing it alone? 3) even if obstacles no. 1 and 2 are overcome, will family actually be able to stand a 5.5-hr road trip? will they be carsick? and quite importantly, will we totally get lost?? and this time round, i'm pretty wary of superimposing my own preferences onto my family... my lack of foresight in making my mum walk around all day with me in Tokyo some 2.5 yrs ago resulted in her getting pretty tired by early evenings... while i'm really happy to be able to bring my family around; and i really want them to have an enjoyable holiday, i'm also somewhat clueless as to what they will really want to do... though they prob wun have any major grudges even if some things dun go that well (since they arent exactly that picky about stuff), but you know, you still want to make sure things dun go wrong etc etc.... haha. and it doesn't help that i might hav different incentives from parents... eg. i might want to save on costs and rent car whereas dad might want to be safe and get ripped off by tour groups.... hai. and it certainly doesn't help that i'm a natural worrier :P

Black bottom muffins

i would treat myself to one of these at FSM/Bear's Lair from time to time and they are SO yummy! i've been wanting to make them myself... but never got the chance nor time to. now that i need to make something to thank ppl, i finally embarked on this baking proj this afternoon... they turned out fine, looking pretty cute! but the cream cheese/choc chip part doesn't taste as good as the professional ones... somehow my cheese is softer. but maybe it will harden later.

tried to take those cool close-up pics... but still cannot really make it :P

muffins fresh from the baking tray! the third one in the third row has a longish smiley face on it...and this one has an almost perfect heart shape.....

am taking time off to catch a few shows before finals start again in about 2 weeks' time! i really liked Walk The Line though it took me a little while to really get into it. now it has made it to my 'honor roll' of shows! =P next up is one of Wong Kar Wai's older films-- "Chun guang zha xie" (aka "Happy Together") :P kudos to Elephant Pharmacy's $1/day DVD rentals!!

good guys and good friends

day one of freedom and went 'shopping' along Bancroft after class... feels GOOD to be free.
anyways, chanced upon one cute bag and one sweet card. the tote bag i saw had two little girls on the front and they seem to be pretty upset that, "all the good ones are gay". HAHA.
the card i saw at Avant-garde said something like.... good friends are like stars. you dun see them all the time but they are always there. aww.