Thrilled by the prospect of seeing tonnes of nice kites flying in the sky, I made my way down to the mall this afternoon for the annual Smithsonian Kite Festival despite having lots of work... just so i could soak in the atmosphere and take nice pics. unfortunately, i was a little disappointed cos there weren't as many kites as i expected. but was still impressed by kite enthusiasts and parents keen to hav fun with their kids trying to get their kites up on a cold and gloomy day... after observing ppl for some time, it suddenly struck me how everyone seemed to fly their kites somewhat low. i remb going to places like marina bay and pasir ris park when i was a kid and i always saw kites really really high up in the sky... whenever i flew them, i also liked to release all the kite string till the full length was used up... so i thought it odd why everyone seemed to 'cling on' so dearly to their kites... hmm perhaps cos the lawn still wasn't exactly conducive for kite flying, since it was technically in the middle of a city...
my mum is going to shanghai with some friends tomorrow! wished i were in her place... =P

cherry blossoms at the tidal basin weren't in bloom yet =(
but other flowers were... =)

i have no idea why, but this is one of my favourites! Lobster Mickey...  

crowd pleasers outside the ronald reagan building (which houses the wilson center) there are 75 different mickeys on display till mid April...

isn't it sad that ppl want to murder you just because you move around creepily and look hideous? that's what i wanted to do to this really gross bug that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in my living room... it was like half the length of a centipede, complete with many legs and all... good thing a kind-hearted and brave neighbor came in to transport the creature away....
i just finished typing a 5-pg 'research plan' and am supposed to give a mini presentation in class tmr... can just imagine ppl sleeping when i'm presenting... cos i seriously dun think anyone would care about what i want to research on... sigh. brain-dead now. shall wake up early tmr to print out my paper and think of what to say. =(

the weather was so brilliant today i could walk back from work without my coat.. and i'm starting to see more and more pretty flowers on trees =)
had lunch with a fellow intern today, after weeks of being AS...she was originally from Kuwait and according to her, there are many American schs there, and that was how she learnt English... the foodcourt was teeming with high sch kids and so it was a bad choice to go down...it's prob their spring break now? or either that school trips to DC have started, since the weather has improved substantially...
i had the privilege of reading the first part of my prof's unpublished book and it was pretty interesting to hear her narrate her experiences as a foreigner involved in the Tiananmen Incident. one thing that really struck me was how many Chinese had to lie, during the 'biaotai' after the incident... in order to 'survive'.. so much so that they sometimes couldn't distinguish what was truth and what was fabrication... similarly, during the Cultural Revolution, people sometiems had to lie blatantly.. accuse their loved ones of deeds they never committed to prevent persecution or being labeled as rebels... i can imagine how horrible it must have been to have to live amidst all these lies, to be forced to commit atrocities against innocent ppl... was also somewhat proud to see a few sentences of what i translated for her in the text, but was totally freaked out upon discovering that she used them as quotes when they weren't exactly direct translations from the original book... so i had better tell her that else i might get her into trouble!

felt somewhat harrassed all night by an abnormally bored roommate who started arranging the random things on my table, folding some leftover crumpled bits of laundry on my bed, throwing wang wang wrappers i accumulated on my table (as the night progressed) into the bin and dancing randomly in the middle of the room... good amusement if i were bored too... but i really intended to do my reading, yet could not help getting distracted... sometimes its really good to hav your own room huh.

felt somewhat harrassed all night by an abnormally bored roommate who started arranging the random things on my table, folding some leftover crumpled bits of laundry on my bed, throwing wang wang wrappers i accumulated on my table (as the night progressed) into the bin and dancing randomly in the middle of the room... good amusement if i were bored too... but i really intended to do my reading, yet could not help getting distracted... sometimes its really good to hav your own room huh.

i suddenly loaded many songs onto my mp3 player yest night and listened to them on the way to work today. and somehow i suddenly grew very aware of the lyrics of some chinese songs and all of them are so sad... ppl either lose things, or things never belonged to them... or ppl have to leave... or things were once there but no longer... i suddenly wished i had the time to look at the lyrics of all the songs i have. i feel like selected ppl who zuo4 ci2 are so zai...

yes i know it's just anime, but then there are still tiny lessons in life we can learn from the characters... =P i like hinata... perhaps it's cos i see traces of myself in her? she used to give up really easily... but then her willpower grew stronger and eventually she could finally fend for herself... i feel like i always give up too easily too and always look down on myself. if i could just hav more self confidence, be more optimistic and really strive for the things i want to achieve, i probably can accomplish a lot more. i will try harder... and unlike what neji san firmly believed in, people do change. finished all 50 episodes of naruto last night... no more for now... =(

stayed in for the most part of today, inefficiently typing two things which took up most of my time today. it's a little random, but if my application gets through, i will have the chance of being paid a small stipend to survey the streets of El Cerrito in the days after i return haha. speaking of which, i feel time really flies cos i would be back in Berkeley in a mere 5-6 weeks. feel rather nervous about my research paper; first draft due in less than 2 weeks and i have no definite idea what i am going to put in it. also feel very uncertain about my housing situation next year. sigh. dunno whether to save money and get a room in a house or to splurge and get a studio? whether to live near sch or live far away? i can't decide what i want yet. doen'st help that it's impossible to look for housing in the west coast when you are in the east coast. but guess i still have time...

two days ago i was freaked out by trespassers commenting on my blog and not knowing what was being said, which reminded me how i'll never know who visits unless they leave traces... today i am annoyed with ppl who persist in declaring themselves something they are not...i thought of practising censorship on my tagboard cos technically i can, but then again what's the point of a tag-board if i want to censor everything ppl choose to put on it and limit their freedom of speech.... so.. ya. i've decided to keep my tagboard comments intact. grudgingly though haha.
indulged in sinful treats yest evening... cooked pasta with portabello mushrooms in creamy sun dried tomato alfredo sauce... and had sara lee cheesecake with haagen daaz mac brit ice cream. then snacked on cheetos and m&ms while watching movies... prob gained a few pounds, which i would hav to work hard to shed over the next few weeks... but it felt good eating such rich food since i have been trying hard to abstain from ice cream... =)
i realized that i can actually take Art 8 with PEIS in summer, but that would mean 16 hours of art per week! and full-time studying all summer. i wonder if i am up to it still. i used to only hav 4 hours of art a week one afternoon after sch when i was taking O level art in RGS... but who knows? it may rekindle my love for art. my desire to do artsy stuff again... these two days i dunno why i cannot really sleep. i keep getting up early in the morning. =( but i know it's not cos i hav a visitor.. =(

looking at apartments on craigslist suddenly made me miss my old room... i miss all my pillows, my comfy full bed and soft comforter.. my huge carebear, doggie and other soft toys (or 'stuffed animals', my roommate would try to tell me...) i miss my car too... and i'm so afraid i wun be able to drive properly after i get back... guess it's good i'll end about 2 weeks earlier. leaves time for house-hunting, settling down and catching up with ppl before everyone is gone =(

day 2 and the last day of my hermit existence... finished A Clockwork Orange this afternoon! it's kinda dark and violent, but a very good read nonetheless...because of its themes.. and as i progressed i also gradually began to understand the narrator's invented slang in the book and started enjoying it more and more. i mean it's somehwat creative, to call eyes glazzies isn't it? apparently Kubrick made it into a film but i can just imagine all the graphic violence and all. so it's a no-no... and then i headed to H&M for a shopping spree... wanted to get groceries from Chinatown, but ended up going into Urban Outfitters and chanced upon this pair of pants with a belt i really liked and then thus splurged... still ex despite being on sale =( it was the only pair left and it's like fitting so i have to work veyr hard not to get any fatter for the rest of the sem at least... hunted down the second Teaism in Penn Quarter and discovered that they sell more stuff than the one at Dupont Circle! but too inaccessible... i also prefer the ambience at the Dupont Teaism... their salty oat cookies are really yummy! they def taste better than they sound =P

today.... i finished half the apple cake i baked yesterday. walked to adams morgan to see what's there... bought three books for the price of two at Borders... started reading A Clockwork Orange by Antony Burgess...found reasonably priced decent sushi at Whole Foods and rented Farewell to my Concubine (Ba Wang Bie Ji) starring Leslie Cheung and Gong Li from blockbuster...excited! shall watch it later =P yes, i feel "phonily-cultured" today... i haven't purchased any book to read for leisure for a long time.. yay. i can go try all the sushi at Whole Foods for the rest of the sem. i wonder why i have turned into such a sushi fan this sem? it's actually good that i kinda hav a day or two to myself.. i feel so sad that i haven't been keeping up with my reading. i remb in RGS/JC i really read a lot a lot of novels.. or least i really tried to. guess it was good that i alwyas had like one-hour return trips all the way back to the East... hopefully i'll get into the habit of reading again this spring break.. or least a day or two before jing comes ;)

went shopping at pentagon city today. bought 2 pounds of grape tomatoes and prob genetically modified unbelievably huge portabello mushrooms at COSTCO. also bought 3 tops but i hope i'll return them within the next month. prob justified buying everything by my not going anywhere for spring break. really wanted to go up to nyc with my roommie and her sis but then turns out that there isn't really a bus to return on tues morning when jing comes and so i just got too lazy to look for other bus lines. there are really a lot of things here to do if i really bother to look for stuff to do. i will just slack, chill, maybe bake, read for fun and explore more of dc =) if only the cherry blossoms were out this week. they will only be in full bloom mid April or something! discovered that you can take a bike tour round the cherry blossom area near the Potomac... sounds cool but then again not fun to go alone. after the cherry blossom festival next Sat there will be a kite festival! i hope i'll be free enough to go for both! =) watched the Incredibles today finally, 2 days after it came out on dvd, cos my roommate and i share a blockbuster pass and were kiasu enough to go down to the store this morning to grab a copy of it... haha.
i feel really happy for ppl who got what they wanted. hope to hear more good news from my friends in the next month or so =) my favorite song of the week, strangely enough, is Robbie William's 'She's The One' =P

what happens when your roomies refuse to wash their dishes no matter how many times u tell them to?? hide them in your room and only leave 2 or 3 in the kitchen cabinets.. least that's what i heard from my roommate. apparently in her bf's apartment they all refuse to do dishes so the anal roommate got so mad he hid all the dishes in his room and all of them thought the dishes went missing. till this person told the rest they need to learn how to do dishes... on the other hand, the rest of his roommies had to endure some ox-tail stench in their apartment cos according to hearsay he cooked this ox-tail thingy for 6 days and so the whole apartment smells of that..
i hope spring comes real soon.. while walking along the streets to work today i spotted ppl transplanting all kinds of pretty flowers onto the flower beds along the streets.... few days ago i thought how come spring all the flowers spring out of nowhere. silly me =P it's really nice; i've never seen this in Berkeley! and there will be a cherry blossom festival next Saturday.. i wonder if all the trees will hav flowers blooming in the next week or so... er.. i dun think so lah. =P hmm but look what happened to death valley! =P

Bush appointed Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank... so eeky. that Bush got re-elected and thus got to appoint the new president of the World Bank...
i think i might end up doing summer sch this summer. suddenly feel like doing a public policy minor, after reading about all legislation regarding Chinese NGOs etc... but then if so i wun be able to finish everything in 4 years... but then again i'm so greedy; i think my Econ is so BAD now i need to take so many other courses to pull up my Econ GPA... my summer plans have changed drastically over the past month or so. hmmm if so then i'll prob hav to look for housing when i get back... doubt HDB will approve of my summer plans since i wun be taking Econ classes. I have had a long hiatus from Econ. i feel ashamed of myself cos i think i'm more like a PEIS major now... even my research paper is going to be on PEIS-related stuff...

feel really depressed today about my research topic. i came up with something, after doing so much reading... but only to find out that it isn't really feasible and that there isn't a strong argument for it. sigh. what do you do in such cases. and then my prof suggested a totally new topic... but i feel so lazy to have to look up a whole new set of material cos it's like u feel like u dun want to abandon something u hav invested so much time and energy into looking into. sigh dunno. and so went out with my roommate to eat ice cream. when it was perhaps 5C outside. and so walking to potbelly's made me freeze already... feel so stuck with no one to help me... sigh. but i know no use complaining also cos it doesn't help... hav to just keep trying. if only i were smarter.

clumsy me twisted my foot three times and almost got knocked down by a car when walking on the street today; wonder what got over me; good thing didn't sprain my ankle though. that would have been horrible. spent the whole afternoon going through some papers and most of the night just slacking and watching anime. good way to occupy yourself when u dun feel like doing anything else. i kinda miss some ppl but i'm fine, not really depressed or sad or anything, cos it would be silly of me to get upset when there isn't anything seriously wrong with my life... =) haha. my roommate is now cursing my other noisy roomies in the hall cos she's trying to sleep... i know she doen'st mean it though =P

idled away all day... but i finally received my naruto dvds in the mail today! and so just watched 9 at a go.. only at episode 19 now though. hav to sleep now lah. but ya, it's so nice! haha. the plot is actually pretty meaningful...i think it's the first anime series to make me cry... but then again i hardly watch any anime series..only hav till episode 50 though so have to think of way to get hold of more =P or maybe not..else i'll just rot all day glued to my laptop screen...DAME YO! cos have impt assignment due next week. but i also like to watch naruto to listen to the japanese... my japanese really going down the drain... so hav to watch anime... haha. excuses excuses.

i feel very overwhelmed with information. i'm like wading in this big pool of info and dunno where i'm heading. sigh. feel kinda lost for my research paper and i'm getting a little tired. i think i print too many things to read but dun really have a direction. which is bad... and as a result i'm kinda discouraged. and spend more time than i need on unimportant stuff....
the other UC ppl are all leaving and so are the two hongkong girls across the corridor... one of them gave me a small box of choc! though i dun really hang out with them, i'll kinda miss them... wonder what my new neighbors will be like. i'm invited to visit HongKong! haha. tempting.
i got sent this email on some summer scholarship for Asian students thinking of working in the non-profit sector.. with some US non-profit org. hmm actually perfect for me! as in there is actually something i qualify for.. since most scholarships only sponsor US citizens. and i really want to do some non-profit sector job... but sadly u hav to secure an internship on ur own first... and then i've kinda promised my parents i'll go home and perhaps tour with them... so i dunno. but like so wasted. came a bit too late.

self reflection
i was told some time last week that i always seem to be in my own world.. so self-absorbed into it that i sometimes dun really realize that i'm not exactly really connecting with other ppl. hmm it's actually true to an extent. last sem, one visitor to our house actually named me 'cavewoman' cos i would talk to them but then after a short while feel the need to go back to my own room and just be alone.... i wonder why i'm like that. not that i'm excessively upset with myself or anything and it's true huh. i dun actively realize it. i prob talk so much more to myself than to other ppl, considering how i have been diligently blogging this past few months...actually i cannot really imagine myself saying all that i say on my blog to other ppl... maybe i feel that ppl aren't really that interested in what i have to say and i would rather be passive. when things are there for ppl to read, they can choose whether they want to know more about my life? but then again it's like expecting ppl to take the initiative to know you.. aiyah. dunno lah.
and i've also been thinking about my parents.. how every holiday i would think where should i travel to? what should i do to occupy my summer. the last thing on my mind these days would be to go home, cos like i think i would be confronted with boredom... and i never really think of it as going back to spend time with my family.. with my parents. i never really thought about how much they would like to have me back... not like we would really do anything, but my presence would just probably be enough. and i think i alwyas think, i only have 4 years abroad.. i should take the chance to travel and see as much as i want.. i can alwyas spend time with my parents after i graduate... cos i would be 'stuck' in sg... but then does it really justify me being less concerned about spending time with them during winter/summer holidays? would i do that to my friends? would i say... oh.. i know i will be able to see you in 2 years' time, so there's no point in us hanging out together now... perhaps i should treat everyone more equally.. should i just focus on the present and not the future that much? like appreciate whomever i have right now and give everyone the attention they deserve as my friend/family/ wherever they are, regardless of what's going to happen in future? i think that should be my philosophy in life from now on.... sounds too ambitious and too 'orderly' an attitude towards something so amorphous like human relationships huh.

am so glad to be indoors cos a snowstorm is raging outside right now. horrible horrible weather today! it was like in the 60s yesterday and i could go out with just 2 layers and this morning it prob dropped to low 30s... and esp horrible cos i had to brace the snow to get back to work and earlier this morning my roommates and i braced the cold rain to (once again! haha we are mad) make our way to the Senate Building. a different one this time, to catch Senator Hillary Clinton speak. cos my roommie heard that she's going to be on this Global Coalition on Women and AIDS panel today, cos it's International Women's Day or something.. and ya so we were kinda 'star-struck'... plus there was free breakfast again! a lil embarrassing though, to have to admit to other ppl at our table that we were kinda crashing the event... RSVPed.. but guess they could guess we weren't really there for the talk. oh well. she left after like a 4 min speech though. and so did we, 15 min after her... =P guess impt ppl are alwyas busy. she looks different in person.
i'm really bad... blogging at work! hav articles to read for class today and more sitting and reading all day....

i was unexpectedly overwhelmed with lotsa wang4 wang4s yesterday... along with many other asian titbits and thoughtful gifts from my dear friends at Berkeley... and yesterday i thought i wouldn't need to buy any more snacks for the rest of my stay here... but today i hav second thoughts, cos i think i devoured like at least 5 or 6 wang wangs and the packet of prawn crackers by this morning.... =P but nice to hav my familiar hello panda and instant noodles somewhere in the apartment.... =)
this afternoon, in an attempt to do some work, i went to Teaism to try to do some reading but ended up randomly chatting with this girl doing grad sch in Georgetown and not doing any work. but this place is my favorite hang out for now! intend to go there and try the diff teas and interesting food they hav... it's a really cool place i think... cos of the selection of food and general feel of the place. only wish it were a little closer to my center. I'm beginning to really like Dupont Circle...
and this evening i went to my Prof's house tog with some SAIS (Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, where my prof teaches) students for a documentary on the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, plus dinner... having been to a prof's house last sem i expected tasteful inner deco... wasn't disappointed as i was greeted with really cool drawings on walls, nice decor and various chinese paintings and paraphernalia... her house, in a way, was like a mini musuem too! she even had a Mao painting... but of course, though delighted with our compliments, my prof reminded us that they were collected over a long period of time and from various trips to diff places round the world... sat through two hours of (mostly) footage of events that happened in 1989 and interviews of key figures then and was rather overwhelmed by all the Chinese students then who really believed in what they did... like even though i wasn't there.. i could feel their passion... their agitation... and at some point in the documentary i suddenly felt so motivated to find out more about Chinese history... about what happened then and what events led up to it.... cos i really had little idea... more ideas for summer.. embark on self-imposed discover China course haha in Sg... cos parents dun allow me to do rural China thingy... sigh dunno. i'm so aimless.

my roommate signed me up for a 'congressional breakfast' with California's Senator, Dianne Feinstein, and so both of us made our way down early this morning to the Senate building for free breakfast... it was more interesting than i thought. On the way to the ballroom where the breakfast was going to be held, we walked past some senator offices and chanced upon 'john kerry'... and so being very suaku started posing for pictures in front of the sign... ppl who walked past us must have been amused with us getting so excited over a tiny sign. sadly to our disappointment when we walked past the same office after breakfast we realized it was prob just an intern office, for interns interning for Kerry... haha oh well. but ya, i was pretty impressed by our short breakfast session, cos Feinstein was really friendly and approachable, introducing the ppl who worked for her, briefly touching on amendments she was working on and patiently explained how things worked... thought it was pretty cool how citizens can attend such sessions... but not all senators do this lah. and then after that i thought about it again... maybe it's like a more high-class version of like our 'meet-the-grassroot-leaders' sessions in neighborhoods?? haha which i have never ever bothered to go for... so i cannot really compare but only speculate... guess the crowd is also different? sigh nmind i am talking nonsense.

Was surfing for things related to my paper and I found the US State Dept's country report on human rights for China... and was just curious and took a peek at the one on Singapore and found this interesting bit of info:

In September, the Economist magazine announced that it had agreed to pay damages to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in connection with an article published in its August 14 issue. The article was taken to imply that nepotism had played a part in the appointment of Ho Ching, the Prime Minister's wife, to head Temasek Holdings, the country's key state investment entity. Newspaper accounts reported that the amount paid was $229,000 (S$380,000) plus legal costs.

In 2002, the Bloomberg news service publicly apologized and agreed to pay $340,000 (S$595,000) in damages to then Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew for an Internet-distributed Bloomberg column that accused them of nepotism in regard to the Ho Ching appointment at Temasek.

An expensive price to pay for defamation huh? no wonder ppl are so careful with their words.... ;P

i think it's so silly that straits times interactive wants to charge subscription fees... and so i wrote my first 'complaint letter' ever haha. but not that it will do anything. hopefully enough ppl complain such that they will scrap this whole thing... apparently 'overwhelming response' by readers has led to a 50% slash in subscription fees. if i have to pay, i'll prob just not read it... i want to be updated on local news... but not enough to want to pay for it. esp when most of the local news is like trivial domestic stuff... it's so bu hua suan to have to pay the few articles worth reading. many respectable online newspaper dun even charge.... and the 'extras' only have a small target audience...i found out what a bipolar disorder is today when talking to my apartment mates... felt rather ill-informed for not knowing this, but at least now i know. it's basically a disorder that causes extreme mood swings, so someone with a bipolar disorder can be extremely happy and hyper at one moment then lapse into depression, think suicidal thoughts the next min or something... scary. it was so cold today that even walking in the cold for 5 min made me sniff quite a bit after i got indoors... and i hate it when the wind is like really strong and really really chilly.... =(

received a package in the mail today, including a pink rabbit thingy which would be rather handy for me! =) i'm afraid to use it though, for fear that i'll destroy it..... also, showing childish excitement over cute meiji chocs in the mail made me realize that the kiddish side of me hasn't really left me after all haha.
spent this morning trying hard to concentrate on reading my book, but kept getting distracted, thinking about what i should do for summer... cannot make up my mind. thought about doing a japanese homestay. or going to japan again to tour.... thought about going home and mugging my jap textbook such that i can take jap 100a next sem, but i think that seems overly ambitious. dreamed about embarking on grand research project in China with a SURF grant but unlikely that will happen cos i am not sure what i want to do research on. also thought about doing the rural china thingy.... or i can just go home and slack for 2.5 months. wanna go to Europe again too.... sigh. in the end i didn't decide on anything and wasted about an hour stoning in front of the computer
=P

my adorable birthday prez.... guess what this is for?  

despite being in a new foreign place, i feel really loved.... for many reasons. everyone's sweet gestures really made my day... woke up this morning to be greeted by a whole table of tiny chocolate cupcakes with candles on them, baked by roommate and suitemate... had dinner with a visiting friend and had the best food i've ever had in the past month; fresh and aesthetically pleasing sushi at this sushi place at Dupont Circle, and yummy italian dessert at Al Tiramisu
an unexpected birthday greeting from a p sch fren, a birthday 'voucher' from sg fren, cards, icq messages and phone calls... just want to say a big 'thank you' to my dear friends, cos i really really appreciate it. =) yes, and i realized that good things come in small packages!
yes, and so i turn 22 today. it actually feels like a transition into adulthood now, more so than last year. perhaps it's cos i matured a lot over the past year? ok i guess i am still dense, still blur, still insensitive and overly emotional at times, but i think i have at least grown up quite a bit and i'm not what i used to be... of course certain traits can never be 'erased' totally. but ya, i hope i'll continue to mature into a 'good person' and make the best of my semester in dc. =)

22 cupcakes, hugs and kisses for a 22-yr-old girl  

free birthday ice cream in the cutest pan ever! 

there was an erratum in my blog entry yesterday. haha i talk as if i published a news article. anyway, the erratum was in my peasant figures; while translating today i found out the tax burden wasn't 6 times but 4, but then i also found out that that's given that an urban dweller earns on average 4 times as much as a peasant. even worse now huh. ok not that i thought anyone frequenting this blog would really care about that figure, but just wanted to correct it. i learnt today that one 'yi4' is actually 100 million. so silly; i've always heard it on tv, radio etc but i never really thought about its actual quantity. ashamed of myself. it's interesting though how the Chinese and the English have different 'conceptions' of quantity. ok i dunno how to put it. but ya.
it snowed all day today and it's still snowing. so am cooped up at home, as usual =P and at home, tensions run high... and the dense me, as usual, didn't really sense what was going on exactly and then ended up upsetting ppl a little... but nothing serious, I'll just keep these things in mind and hopefully i'll recognize and do the right things at the right times. i'm baffled though that even when ppl are assertive usually, they choose not to address issues upfront and complain to other ppl instead. seems like such things happen everywhere pretty often.....

today i was very drawn into the book i'm supposed to translate because I started reading a chapter examining why despite the central govt's 'decrees' to reduce peasants' tax burdens, numerous peasants are still overburdened... I was horrified by how corrupt the local governments can be, how heartless officials can get, the kinds of ridiculous taxes they invent to extort money from the peasants... and according to the book, the tax burden of peasants in some villages in Anhui can be as bad as six times that of an urban dweller.... as an 'outside audience', we witness numerous instances of how developed Beijing is getting, how more and more Chinese can afford luxury goods, but perhaps that's like 30% of the population... many many ppl in the rural areas are still extremely poor and i don't think there has been sufficient attention given to these problems. i feel more inspired to do research on this now. it would be cool to play a tiny role in raising awareness. or finding out how what ppl are actually doing to help. =)
trooped down to the food court today to get Chinese food and while sitting there having lunch, to my horror, i saw three persons consecutively emptying whole packets of soy sauce into their fried rice. just seems like a really weird thing to do to your fried rice. hmm i know i should not generalize, but is this the way many Americans eat their Chinese food? I've never really bothered to observe...

i think i've grown AS and have stopped trying to hav lunch in the lunchroom and instead will alwyas sit by the sofas and eat my sandwich and try to read soemthing to look occupied when in fact it's just to prevent awkwardness with ppl u kinda know but dunno what to say to. pathetic me huh. there are rare occasions when i get to talk comfortably with ppl, but I just find it a little discouraging how most ppl aren't that keen to really befriend you. guess circumstances are such that we're all just interns happening to be working on various projects in the intern room.
also tried very hard to come up wiht a research statement today, thinking hard about what i really want to write about but i have a disappointing research statement that done'st look very interesting and i wonder if it's feasible. but nmind, will try to refine it in the days to come =)
and strangely i was offered a second chance to buy my Naruto dvds and i did... =) i hope the quality is decent...

Site makeover!
i tried... but of course, the new look didnt turn out the way i wanted... the tag board has two funny black lines that i can't rid of. i dun like the font of my title but i dunno how to change it... and my lovely quote says 'About'... aargh. shall figure out slowly. one day.
went to the Pentagon City mall today; it's only about 4 metro stations away and has all the big chain stores (again!) somehow US malls are rather predictable... even on the East Coast, you see the same retail stores... well u see some new stores, but it then turns out that they are East Coast chains... why are there so few independent stores?
i finally experienced for myself the addictive power of Naruto. watched 4 episodes today and then left with one for an entire lifetime (for now) since the bidder who was supposed to sell me 117 episodes got his account suspended. =( and the jingle at the end of episode has started to ring in my head... cannot believe that i actually getting hooked to anime and crazy ninja stunts haha. instead of doing work.

i finally succumbed to my cravings and bought a pint of mango-flavored haagen daaz ice cream yesterday cos it was on sale, after abstaining from supermart ice-cream for a month... cos i knew once i had it in my fridge i would finish it... and i guess i was right. i finished 1/3 of it after dinner at one go... =( ravioli with portabello mushrooms and cheese filling was on sale at safeway yesterday too and so i bought a packet... hav been having home-made pasta at least once a week nowadays... strange how pasta is part of my staple diet these days...
am feeling a little upset now cos my roommate before going to sleep decided to ask me what the names of her sis, mum and dad were and what was her address and i coudlnt' remb what her sis's name was and neither could i remb her neighborhood even though she had told me some point in time in the past month.... and then upon hearing that i couldn't answer just went silent and went to sleep. leaving me with a feeling of unease on whether she was offended or just wanted to make me feel bad or just asked me for fun? sigh. i wonder if it reflects that i dun really care? i get the sense that she tries to impress upon me how i treat her more as a companion than as a friend and i don't think i do, but i wonder if i subconciously do. and if i do, i don't know why. and if i do, i really don't mean to...i wonder if she doesn't really like how i offer less information about myself... but it's just the way i am i suppose and i find it really difficult to be significantly more enthu towards just one person just because i feel that he/she isn't comfortable with me being the way i am... yet not doing anything about it is a sign of indifference/bo-chapness towards our friendship? sigh... this is not a very nice feeling.

it was freeeezing yesterday =( did a touristy thingy today, went to Richmond and Fredericksburg in Virginia with a tour bus... our center organizes these tours for us on Saturdays sometimes, but of course have to pay... and it was one of the worst things i have done here so far haha. cos firstly had to wake up at 7am... then had a whole morning of 'history lessons' on the Civil War, which wasn't exactly very appealing when u are sleepy and starving.. haha we only had lunch at like 3pm... i guess it was partly my fault cos was rushing a tiny paper yest night so slept at 2am, then i was dozing off when the tour guide was going on and on about diff statues along this Monument Ave and my roommate and i were just like when are we going to get lunch?! haha. though i knew it was going to be a 'historic tour' it was less interesting than i thought it would be...
felt slightly accomplished that i tried speaking up in class yesterday when we had a mini debate in class.... but then i was very nervous and was rattling off like a train i doubt anyone really heard what i said. haha a bit wasted. but then felt like it's a small step forward and i hope to try to continue, since if i cannot even contribute in a tiny class of 25, when will i get a chance to? am also excited to work with our program director, cos its about the only chance i'll get to work more closely with a professor at Berkeley, (though technically in DC).... hope i can write a decent research paper in the next 2.5 months or so!

my eyes kinda hurt sometimes from reading stuff or staring at the comp all day. on some days i feel like my life is really monotonous cos all i have to do is read stuff and try to translate them and summarize them. well, i guess my language skills are benefiting... but sometimes i do wish i had an internship with more interaction. where i can follow ppl around to see what they do. but this is good too lah, cos my flexible schedule allows me to do pretty much what i want whenever i want. as long as i get my job done. and so i have been surfing a lot on the internet too.... =P
have been looking at ppl's blogs... cos was reading this chinese political blog. and then came across this interesting one - plum blossoms i like the pic of the plum blossoms... and he had interesting comments on valentine's day haha. there are actually many many individuals out there who blog regularly, who read so much, who know so much. i'm impressed.
finished watching my first 5 episodes of naruto and i have another 5 to go. but am just debating over whether i should get the dvd for 117 episodes going on Ebay for C$12, excluding shipping, cos downloading takes so long. it's a pretty good price really. esp if the quality is good. but then am trying to save money so maybe i wun. i will be the 'brokest' this sem. am angry how it's so cold today and will likely be cold the next few days; i hav to take metro cos the cold wind just makes walking in the streets really unbearable...

just finished my response paper which was on circumstances which can serve as catalyst to electoral reform... aaargh. dunno what to write so had a whole hypothetical argument... oh well. dun care. i finally finished it and i just sent it. =P
tou lan today and went off work early and went to the Georgetown library to look for books that can potentially be useful for my own research. have to come up with some statement by next week and i have no idea what i want to work on. i have these really vague ideas and that's about it. so i borrowed this good reference book on international aid and another book on NGOs and rural poverty alleviation. well. hope they wun be just sitting on the floor collecting dust the next few weeks.... quite happy i figured out how to get to Georgetown... there's a free shuttle so quite happy. went to a dentist here for the first time on Monday cos my wisdom tooth was a little achey and it got me all paranoid. and the slow me realized that Metlife subsidizes 100% of ur normal visits (max 2) and technically we can go for 2 free check-ups per year! quite funny, after my checkup i got a 'goodie' bag with a free toothbush, tiny tube of toothpaste and like some dental floss. and i dun need to extract my teeth for the time being, unless it really bothers me... phew. was having horrifying thoughts of having to go for surgery and then starving for days after, with swollen mouth etc....
anyone wants to do com service in rural village in China with me? but then again, according to the contact person, u only get 'towel baths' and i am actually rather grossed up imagining how bad i would smell if i dun bathe for 2 weeks.... maybe i will chicken out and decide not to do it in the end....

baked cookies for Valentine's day just now to eat =P Happy Valentine's to all my dear friends, but sorry u can only imagine eating my virtual cookies. but no regrets whatsoever i'm sure, since i cheated and used instant mix =P 

My first drinking experience
it all started with one of the ppl in our program having a party for her birthday in her suite yest night. my apartment mates decided not to be rude so we went down to wish her happy birthday and ppl were drinking and all and i decided to try some funny vodka coke thingy. but left like 10 min after cos was feeling uncomfortable. my roommate happened to have ingested 2 shots and decided to go for more and since i have never drunk anything before i thought just try... but have to clarify, neither of us are into drinking. but so we headed for the bar across the street and ordered drinks. i ordered some lemon drop margarita which tasted pretty nice actually, and had a pretty sugar rim on the glass, which i thought was very cool. but after finishing it i felt somewhat normal still and so asked what effect it was supposed to have on me. i was just very curious cos i didn't feel anything significantly different other than that my heart was beating faster.... then ended up sharing a second one, some orange flavored grey goose vodka which didn't taste very nice but i think cos it was more alcoholic... and i think i was sipping very fast, experimenting on myself.. then i think i felt a little nauseous and that senses weren't very 'sharp' and ended up puking in the bathroom... and so i got an inkling of what it might be like to get drunk... at a somewhat unpleasant price. and so this concludes my first episode of drinking.... somewhat silly huh , but at least i can say i've 'been there, done that' to myself and at least i know that it's definitely not something i'll like to do... and at least now i understand why it might be dangerous to be drunk... ok. finding excuses to exonerate myself.

Arlington Cemetery... 

having gotten sick of museum-hopping and for lack of better places close enough to go to, my roommate and i went to the dc zoo today haha. which wasn't very impressive; there are very few animals and half the place looks like it's under construction.. but it's free so i guess i cannot complain. but learnt interesting facts about certain creatures. watched otters swim and do back flips in the water and that was cool. i like how gracefully they swim in the water... but somehow it also made me wonder what it's like to live like an animal, when u are mainly occupied by eating, sleeping, moving around and perhaps mating?
then went to the Arlington Cemetery, where many of the nation's war heroes are buried... John F Kennedy's grave is there too... i've never been to a cemetery with so many tombstones before... strange as it sounds, the rows and rows of tombstones are actually very pretty... and neatly arranged, following the terrain of the ground...

i find it scary how everyone seems fine with one another on the surface but can be totally pissed with certain ppl deep down... the scary part is that you can't tell. it's scary how certain people can get so good at it... and i'm not good at telling... but it's also interesting how ppl u thought were best friends totally cannot stand each other... just listening to some ppl bitch about some ppl in the program just reminded me once again how fake we all can be...
today i felt an urge to volunteer in some village in rural China for a month or so, to understand how these ppl live... do com service and learn. but i wonder if the need-to-blog everyday, will-die-without-hot-shower-water me is up to it... i think sometimes i really need to remind myself how fortunate i actually am. i feel like I am always complaining about trivial things that bother me... tsk tsk.

i feel schizo again. suddenly feel very depressed and xian for no reason today. actually i suspect i know the reason but just feels eeky. i think when u are in ur little world with no one to compare to or no one to upset your 'equilibrium' you can get on forever feeling fine. and so in class today i felt really upset with nothing to contribute to the class discussion and the fact that the class only had like 12 ppl or so exacerbated it. and wrote a not so good paper for class today. and have another response paper due tmr morning. dunno what to write. feel like i can't write well enough. cannot analyse things properly. am getting paranoid that i have no topic for my research paper... thinking about old problems... imagining new probs...

i think i have gotten into a habit of blogging so frequently that it just feels weird if i dun pen down my thoughts when i have things i want to say. i wanted to wish everyone who frequents this blog a Happy Chinese New Year. and to a particulr individual who has been taunting me with insensitive questions of whether i was having steamboat for dinner, no i didn't have steamboat but had an enjoyable dinner... albeit at a totally non-Chinese restaurant... Cheesescake factory! haha. but it was one of the most pleasant dinners i have ever had since i came here, as well as one of the most 'international' ones, in that there was one Scottish girl, one German guy, two Americans, two HongKongers and one Singaporean girl...me! two Hong Kong girls staying across the hall just happened to ask if i wanted to have Chinese New Year dinner with them and their roommates and a few others and so i readily agreed, for i didn't really want to eat yucky food for new year's eve... and it turned out to be pretty fun and informative, for all these ppl were really nice and open.... quite unlike people in my own program, rather unfortunately, who aren't as friendly and are generally more cliquish. maybe for the first time in my life here, i truly felt how great it is to be able to meet ppl from everywhere when u study in the US.. doubt i would really get to know them that well and they would be leaving prob end March, but still glad to have hung out with them briefly for the evening... sadly at the expense of completing my mini paper due tmr. which i haven't done yet and ti's 118 am and i am veyr tired and i am going to sleep.... and i shall tou lan at work tmr to try to complete it.....

the weather has grown considerably warmer and so i walked to work today! and back too. and saved $2.70 on metro. takes about 25 min each way and allows me to exercise.. so why not? just that i think i will prob be too lazy on some days to walk home after a whole day of work. but i shall attempt to start a 'walking regime' if the weather permits. it's like the coldest berk weather now, but it feels warm... after freezing these past few weeks.. can save like $10 a week... $40 a month... $120 for the next 3 months! haha but knowing me i think i wun be so consistent...
am getting a sore throat cos have been stuffing myself with tortilla chips and have been attempting to finish my devil's food choc cake and hav been suffering from the twix syndrome. all of which culminated in a very bad throat. i will distance myself from these items hopefully in the next few days. record of the month: i only spent $3.50 for the whole of today, on lunch... =P

i started watching naruto.. downloaded like 5 episodes to entertain myself since on weekends i dun hav anywhere to go or anyone to really go out with. feel veyr happy to be re-associated with jap and glad that i still undrstand certain words but i have problem understanding without the eng subtitles though. sad. but will prob stop watching. takes ages to download one episode and i'm lazy. =P baked a cake for the first time this morning, but used a cake mix, so that's cheating... cos it's such convenient finger food, more than half the cake has disappeared.... went grocery shopping this morning and coincidentally bumped into a singaporean mum... i just heard someone saying a certain kind of asparagus is fresher in a Singaporean accent and upon slight probing found out that she was the mum of some guy studying in Georgetown. random. and made linguine with pasta sauce, button mushrooms, spinach and cherry tomatoes, after trying a similar dish in the Woodrow Wilson cafeteria. didn't turn out exactly the same, but somewhat like the original. i will be having that at least once again this week, since i couldn't hav cooked everything at one go. maybe that will be my sad new year's eve dinner on tues. =P

i had an oreo milkshake today! at Potbelly Sandwich Works, a reasonably-priced sandwich place near home. think it's the first time in a few weeks that i'm eating ice cream... a remarkable feat for me considering how i've always had ice cream in my fridge in Albany. but it's good. can save money and not get fat. unfortunately..... i bought a packet of Twix minis from Safeway cos it was on offer and i have eaten ten of them today...
haven't touched any work since Friday. have been eating tons of sandwiches over the past few days... wished i had D&A here. and an asian food fan, then can share and go to Penang. oh well. visited two more musuems today but they weren't as good. but was still amazed by the mineral collection at the natural history museum.... i can't help but marvel at the variety of minerals and the diff shapes, forms, colors..... and the beauty of it all is that it's natural beauty. my roommate and i are somewhat isolated from the rest of the ppl in the program... but we tried. just that the ppl dun really seem very receptive. oh well. at least i hav someone to do things with still... i just hope we wun get sick of each other from hanging out rather frequently =P

after tidying up my room a little (still lil messy) i decided to take a picture of it =P nothing fancy, but furniture and facilities are pretty new, so satisfactory lah.
writing a book seems like a very long and tedious process i wonder how all these authors do it. my prof has to go to her office everyday to work on whatever she has....and she has so much info, everywhere... it just seems impossible to even organize everything. she admits that sometimes when she reads what she has written last time, she is amazed that she actually managed to put such a book together. i think i'll never be able to do that, considering how i have problems writing even a 20 page paper haha. and i guess i'm not that brainy either. and to think that there are like so many scholars in the woodrow wilson center working on their respective books. lotsa brilliant brains out there.

my side of the room... erm... it's usually not this neat haha.  

visited the Library of Congress today to check out if there's any stuff relevant to my internship and research....it claims to be the largest library in the world... took 10 min to make a reader registration card which allows u to enter the reading rooms...it's free! once again very pleased by how this city is so research-friendly...books can't be borrowed out by the public though. the librarian at the Asian Reading room was nice and i discovered they hav two online databases on China, with up-to-date periodicals and stuff. wonder if i will end up using the resources there, but it's good to know what's out there =) then walked down Pennsylvania Ave to hunt for lunch and found this eatery with the new york style pay according to how heavy ur food is thingy. finally some place with cheap sushi. can eat there next time when i go to the library. though not that cheap also lah. DC has so many nice sandwich shops and coffee joints for working folks... if only i were richer =P
everyone is out at instructor's apartment watching state-of-the-union address but dunno why everyone is not home yet. feel blissful to have the whole apartment to myself haha... and fickle me decided not to drop my politics and ethics class after all.

feel a little left out that i can't celebrate the two birthdays in berkeley and am stuck here with a paper to write. on why there was such a high voter turnout in the 2004 elections and reason it out according to how the two authors we have read will assess this. sigh. i guess i can do something decent if i had the motivation but then i just dun really hav the motivation and am like being =( about it. bad attitude. after this, i shall go and write..... aiyah but i am fine lah. dun feel depressed or anything, just that it would hav been nice to hav been able to join in the birthday celebrations!
decided to drop my politics and ethics class today and i wanted to go under units but then realized it's a huge hassle. have to call up L and S and financial aid and tell scholarship ppl etc etc... sigh. so i'll probably switch to the otehr class, which is not that heavy-going. and hopefully that will be interesting... not that i am super busy, but like stuck with things i am not like highly interested in. i iwould rather devote all my time to doing work for my professor...

read about the slashing of the Chinese syllabus from P1 to Sec4.... that's sad. what would kids learn in future if this goes on. maybe they wun even be able to converse properly in Chinese anymore. well ok not that i can, but things seem to be going down the drain. and am somewhat disappointed by those parents they interviewed.... "so will the chapters that aren't going to be taught going to come out in exams"... sigh. quite sad. i guess i feel a little strongly cos i quite enjoy what i am reading. though it's dense and like kinda tiring to plough through, if i am in a good mood and eyes not tired, i really enjoy reading what i read. =) but am turning into a couch potato, sitting either at the computer or table all day doing translation or reading. and get quite tired when i get home. yet hav to do readings for my class. =( wish i didn't hav to take the elective class on wed nights.

was sorely disappointed with my dinner. went to daobao from malaysia kopitiam, expecting yummy authentic yellow and white hokkien mee... =( unfortunately it turned out to be some highly soya-saucy udon like noodles which tasted fine but not at all like the hokkien mee i wanted to eat. and paid $10 for it. =(
continued visiting some museums at the mall today. still like the holocaust one best. visited the air and space musuem, which was not that interesting. had a preview of the national gallery of art and the national archives. bought a really cool Monet magnet set from the museum shop. it has so much cool arty stuff but of course not very affordable. wanted to visit the natural history museum but there wasn't time. guess i'll go back next time. lost a glove. =( i wish it would stop snowing. and that the temperatures would go up. i'm rather sick of having to dress warmly every time i go out. i wish it were just above 0 degrees. then it would be at least more comfortably cold... and then my skin wouldn't get so dry and itch. a new york times article i read today had some tips from experts. apparently to prevent your skin from itching u can put oatmeal in your bath (which sounds gross) or baking soda (which sounds gross too) and alas! i don't have a bath, only a lousy shower that 'leaks' cos it only has a shower curtain...

nice reflections but not spectacular =P it's a little hard to imagine how the work that goes on inside this building impacts millions in the developing world huh....  

went out after class to explore my surroundings and discovered many sandwich places all around.. seems like washingtonians really like hanging out in these cool cafes.... unfortunately they aren't cheap though. also discovered the World Bank Infoshop yesterday online while at work... so i walked down to the store and it's amazing... the collection they hav there.. there are so many publications on development.... i was really excited looking at their selection, nerdy as it sounds. attempted to enter the world bank and IMF too but non-employees aren't allowed inside and security is really tight. so i'll hav to wait till april to do their monthly tour, to get a glimpse of what's inside....

i'm so schizo. today was much better than yesterday. or rather, i was just feeling more cheerful, so that's good. but it was an interesting day too. well had to ruch a response paper last night for my politics and ethics class yesterday night, which partially explains my bad mood i suppose. sat in a video screening "God Sleeps in Rwanda" during lunch hour and got to learn about the key roles women played in Rwanda in rebuilding a country ravaged by genocide. These women went through so much, but everyone's still emotionally strong and living with so much hope. puts me to shame really. i like how my center always has events, such as talks, book launches and stuff that i can go to. =) then i got to talk to my prof today and got to know a little more about her research.... i quite enjoy working for her and i hope i can really help her with her book. my translation thus far has been satisfactory and though i am not the fastest nor most accurate translator around, i guess i roughly fulfill her expectations, so that's good. and i am enjoying myself, learning about the ideas of this Chinese intellectual, Kang Xiaoguang. haha. that is quite random. and on the way back to my dorm room i met the black janitor who came to our room to clean up last week, whom my roommate very politely thanked. and so i said hi to him and to my surprise he was very pleased maybe and passed me this hiphop cd with 3 songs. haha. that was really random; i only regret how i dun really know how to appreciate hiphop...
and my roommate somehow pointed out that i was a little discriminatory, that i only liked to talk to my Singaporean frens online. hmm i was quite upset for a while, but i guess it was good that she was frank enough to tell me that... i guess i do things so subconsciously and i dun really know how ppl feel about me doing what i do, or what i don't do. but i'll try to talk more to her i guess and be more open and try to be more receptive towards new ppl i meet. in fact, it was actually a good reminder for me. why did i come here? did i come here to be sticky and AS just like i was in my own room or did i come here to accomplish something else and learn? i guess these are some things for me to think about. haha but i do miss my nice cosy full bed and comforter in my Albany room. and my nice toilet, and the good shower.

guess the initial excitement of being in a new place is wearing out and i'm beginning to think about what my next 15 or so weeks here will be like... nothing is bad at this moment but i'm just thinking i might get tired of having to read in the library everyday... or having to be around people you have to be cordial to consciously everytime.... i guess it will be kinda tiring. but oh well... i guess my worryey self has returned to haunt me today... and worried i will end up not writing a good research paper, that i will feel very lonely when everyone else is happening and i'm just hanging around at home... that i might get too clingey messaging ppl who come online to ask them how they are when they are going about their own lives... but i guess one good thing is that i have so much work that i cannot possibly spend a lot of time worrying. so that's good. if i can actually focus and concentrate on what i have to do that is....
well perhaps i can be consoled that i discovered two malaysian restaurants two blocks away from home on my way back from work today... i suppose i can treat myself to some yummy dishes when i'm feeling homesick =P

read about one chapter of my chinese book today in the Woodrow Wilson Library. bumped into my internship officer at the lunchroom and some other scholar from UK joined us and i was feeling all weird trying to fit into the conversation.... but it was fine i suppose. just a little intimidating how during lunch all the scholars working there go for lunch there and i'm like hmm... i'll just hide in one corner haha. but no lah didn't intentionally do that...set in a talk in the auditorium but got bored listening to them debating about republicans taking over congress... then went back to lib and finished up my chapter then went home. met two interns from Georgetown Uni in the intern room and they were pretty nice. hope i get to see them again =) and came home and did laundry.... and so ends my proper work day... lots of reading to do for my research seminar on friday... and the politics and ethics elective i chose to take... which is due on wed evening. but i havne't even collected the thick stack of notes yet. and hav to do a memo due on wed night... aargh. hope my eyesight doesnt worsen significantly by the end of the semester cos i foresee myself doing a lot of reading... in the library...
also tried to iron my shirts but i am quite bad at it. =( and bought starch to spray on the shirts, cos according to my roommate they make shirts 'crisper'... erm but they dun seem to work. and i feel grossed out how blotches of starch fall on my nice shirts and leave faint stains when i iron over them.... wun my shirts get starchier and starchier by the end of the semester?!

just came up after freezing for 10 min or so in pajamas under extreme cold after a false fire alarm... aaargh... after receiving news that it would snow today, my roommate and i went out so that we could experience the snow and take some nice pics. unfortunately the forgetful me forgot to charge my cam battery so didn't end up with many pics...
visited the D.C. Holocaust Memorial Museum this afternoon and it was a very educational but depressing experience. all the smithsonian museums in d.c. have free admission, so i might as well visit most of them during my stay here =) unfortunately the american art one will only be reopening in July 2006.
it is just so apalling how fellow members of the human race can be so cruel and cold-hearted. to use jews for medical expts... hitler carried out a clandestine operation to wipe out many disabled ppl, to 'purify' the Aryan race... it is so horrible to make ppl believe that they are going for a shower when in reality everyone is just going to be gassed. and it is chilling to imagine the extent of devastation and desperation the few ppl in power can create...
on the other hand, i'm heartened and thankful for those compassionate souls out there who went all out to help Jews escaping their fate. total strangers yet bound by a moral duty to rescue these innocent souls. i wonder, had i been faced with a similar situation, would i have had the courage to do such a thing?

a short excerpt from a postcard at the gift store, intended for a display showing a mountain of shoes left over by millions of Jews who perished during the Holocaust:

"We are the shoes, We are the last witnesses. We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers, from Prague, Paris and Amsterdam, And because we are only made of fabric and leather, And not of blood and flesh, Each one of us avoided the hellfire"
Moses Schulstein, Yiddish Poet

out in the snow in the vicinity of the National Mall... 

thought i wouldn't be able to get in today cos we were stuck in a human jam for at least an hour and a half before ppl started moving forward. there were loads of ppl today.... quite revealing how many of the ppl who attended were whites? having been here for a week... i dun think the racial makeup here in dc is that homogeneously white....
i still haven't gotten over the snow! today on the way home my roommate and i passed by a little park covered with fresh snow... and she xin xue lai chao and made a tiny snowman... and so we tried to take pictures. but i was careless and so the head dropped off. and when i picked it up it had a distorted head and somehow i coudn't shape it back... but it was fun... i want to make more snowmen =P but dun hav appropriate gear for it... i dunno why i am so drawn to snow even though i have seen snow before like at Tahoe.. maybe in the middle of a city with all the buildings and other structures, the natural beauty of snow just stands out more? and i love how snow kinda 'records' traces of everything... like i saw squirrel footprints. human footprints... fresh snow is just so pristine and beautiful.... =)

on my way to my designated standing area for inauguration.... 

SNOW!
and so it snowed today... on my way to work, when i got out of the Metro Station i saw tiny flakes and when the wind blew the snow was just like white sand.. very fine and light. and then when i came down for lunch i was pleasantly surprised cos the whole ground was covered with snow. snow on the roof. on the statues... on the benches. on the top parts of branches.... it was so beautiful. so i couldn't resist it. had to take a picture though when i went out snow was blowing in my face... i guess cos it's my first time experiencing snow.. like real snow... that time in japan was like almost no snow kindof... but when it was time to go home, the snow had stopped and the roads were covered with gross sludgy snow on the streets... good thing i wore boots else i would have gotten gross dirty snow on my pants =P then on my way home i saw snow on the trees and it was just so pretty and i couldn't resist again and took more pictures. though i must have been laughed at by passers-by for being so suaku and mad taking pictures of random things in the cold.... but i just felt for a moment that washington dc was like a giant 3d coloring book and then snow just filled up all the gaps....tiny crevices in buildings... everywhere imaginable... =)

the pretty 'aftermath' of the snow...

had an eventful but extremely cold day today. lips are cracking, ears are freezing off and vain me didn't want to put on ear muffs... but guess i will try to get a pair or something soon. else i will definitely freeze on thursday cos might have to stand for hours at the inauguration ceremony... tmr roads are goign to start getting closed off in preparation for the inauguration. i feel a little uneasy that every single day i never fail to hear police sirens when walking on the street...
went to the Woodrow Wilson Center today and it seems like a nice place to work at. but i dun get a designated workplace.. so prob will camp at lib most of time... met my prof too and she seems pretty nice and i got a few books on NGOs in Chinese! feel excited to start on them, yet totally inadequate to absorb its contents i believe. but will start slow. also visited Brookings Institution for a talk today... and felt veyr thrilled to be amongst so many intellectuals and like just soaking in the intellectual atmosphere was kinda exciting for me.. haha. i hope i will get to attend more lectures in future, cos my schedule is pretty flexible i think, so i can alwyas take time off to listen to talks at my own place as well as other places like Brookings... =)
also went to Georgetown Uni area to look... and they have so much shopping!!! they have H&M, Zara, Banana Republic, A&F, GAP, blah blah... but of course didn't stay long lah cos have to work tmr... but yay. preview. next time can go Zara and H&M... =P
also getting to know my roommate a little better and i find it amusing she has familiar traits... i guess we all know who goes to talks for free food?? well she has that kinda mentality too haha.

i finally understand how it can be totally torturous to be cold!!! it was SO cold today i think my nose practically froze... scarves are totally necessary and now i am really thankful i brought like at least 3 of them. i bet the wind was like around 0C today and it is really horrible. horrible horrible. so when we were walking from the Metro to the Capitol Building this morning and the wind just kept blewing and i felt like my lips were going to crack.. .i'm so lousy. then got laughed at by ppl who are used to East Coast weather. i thought Berkeley was cold... now i know... attending my orientation at the Woodrow Wilson center tmr morning... hope i get some really interesting stuff to do. =)

i walked past the World Bank, The White House and the Ronald Reagan Building yesterday before getting a free ride to Chinatown for dinner... all alone yet felt somewhat carefree. maybe it's cos nothing has started and i have nothing really to worry about yet. I think i will be working at the Ronald Reagan building and though it was closed yesterday, it seems like a pretty cool place. high security though.. there are security checkpoints at like every entrance... i was thinking of walking to work, to save money since every trip costs $1.35 and it isn't exactly that far... maybe 2 miles or so from my center?? but judging from how cold it is (for me!) i think i will prob freeze if i attempt to walk to work every morning. but i'll see how.
went grocery shopping with my roommate this morning and i was somehow re-acquainted with frozen foods, pasta and stuff again... ended up not buying much groceries and can't figure if i am going to cook or eat out. cos i really dun want to eat frozen food everyday. but which means i have to go and find a rice cooker. and like sauces. and all the cooking stuff... dilemma.
sat in, with shu, some mini RI re-union this afternoon, again at Chinatown. i guess it's quite impossible to not meet any Singaporean here... even though i didn't even mean to. After everyone left i managed to find a chinese supermart! haha i was secretly amazed how relieved i was to find a chinese supermarket. but unfortunately its standards are far from Ranch... they have hardly any fresh vegs or poultry and seafood and stuff... but at least they have most of the other stuff. dry stuff or whatever u call it. and when walking out of the supermart this old man suddenly came to talk to me cos i asked about an ATM machine and it so happened that he was from Malaysia.. what a small world. but somewhat interesting to have strangers wishing you well... haven't really met anyone esle on the program except my suitemates, who are pretty fine... guess i will at my residential and academic orientation later...

am sitting in the 3rd flr comp lab of the UC Washington Center, really sleepy after only 1 hr of sleep on the plane and another hour on my new bed and waiting to go out to explore a bit and look for lunch. can't use my own laptop till maybe monday till i get some network key. have no idea where everything is but i'm just going to go walk around, but i hesitate to even step out of this building cos it's just so so cold outside. when attempting to unload my luggage from the super shuttle van just now this cold gust of wind just blew straight in my face and i was like half shivering when i walked in.... but all seems to be good thus far! my apartment is really nice and clean and the kitchen, though small, is nice. i also got this tiny cool grey gadget called a sonitrol or something that gives me access into the building and the ability to use the elevators.... i had better STOP leaving my wallet, phone and keys behind everywhere cos there wun be anyone to 'pick up' after me or look out for me anymore...
am very happy though that shu and guoming decided last min to suddenly come visit me today!!! so i'll have some company for a few days... after which i'll be all on my own. but everything seems pretty exciting so far and i hope i will grow to really enjoy my stay here. =)

i find it amusing how i always end up having big 'farewell' parties. not that i don't appreciate what people are doing for me, but i just feel somewhat odd and paiseh. am finally 99% packed now; managed to squeeze everything into 2 bags but both are on the verge of exploding... in the end, i did not do any reading for my classes, nor much preparation for dc... dunno what i have been doing...sigh. the sense of directionless and leaving broken ends is coming back to me. maybe that's why i feel like i am not as keen as i should be? but it should be fun lah =)

i am finally almost done and have moved most of my stuff over to the kearney garage. i just wonder how i am going to move everything when i come back in summer... my walls are all bare now and even though i still hav a lot of luggage in the room the whole room just feels empty...
somehow over the past few days a few people have coincidentally shared with me how they have had very good memories with certain people under certain circumstances and even though they haven't exactly kept in touch with these friends, those moments of fun and joy were pure bliss... i suppose i should try to have such a mindset and then i'll be happier wherever i am and let things take their natural course?

these few days this song keeps ringing in my head....
" Cause it’s all in my head
I think about it over and over again......" well haha perhaps it sounds so me.

sometimes happy things make you sadder because they give you ephemeral moments of joy that you yearn for when u look back at some point in time in the future, when often circumstances have changed and things wun happen again.
was clearing up and i discovered my old burned cd and a nice song by Lighthouse Family titled "Run" =) esp like the intro part with the guitars and a jazzy saxophone feeling even though i dun think i know how to appreciate jazz.

have been going out so much that hardly any packing has been done! but i feel happy going out doing things here and enjoying the last few days in a place i have grown quite attached to over the past 2.5 years. and met jing and minglee at Stanford yesterday and it was nice just chatting the whole afternoon away and hanging out with 'old' frens... =) and good thing it didn't rain, which made driving a lot easier for me. i think craigs list is cool.... now my economist mags wun go to waste cos i think some ppl want them. and ppl have emailed me about my rugs! =) but then my books are unlikely to find new homes in the next few days. went to SF and got more stuff cos there were pretty good sales. I've decided that this shall be the last of my shopping here and i shall attempt to devote the next few days to really packing.... help. none of readings for next sem done at all.... i rediscovered the joy of understanding and reading Chinese today... in a way i am glad that I will be working for a prof specializing in China! i hope to immerse myself in chinese texts next sem and re-aquaint myself with his lovely language... i miss the days when i used to be able to write somewhat well in Chinese, with all those flowery cheng yus and phrases.... received a cute jigsaw puzzle note from my housemate =) it is really comforting sometimes, to know that you actually mean something to ppl around you, whether or not you are really deserving of that attention.

i have been trying to pack but not much progress thus far. i just somehow cannot organize which task to do first. what to pack into boxes. whether to throw away some things or not. whether to sell certain books or not. have to make all these many trivial decisions and it's getting me somewhat bothered. coupled with other things on my mind.... feelings that i have to sort out. pre-arrival readings to do. worrying about what to bring and what not. sometimes i really wish i weren't moving anywhere. but such inertia would get me nowhere and i think this program should do me good. sigh. why can't i be more shuang3 kuai4. forget easily and adapt easily. dun think so much about every single thing. but i just can't... in a way my room is like my life... there seems to be random things everywhere distracting me. and broken ends here and there. not much order. i dun seem to be able to really 'tie' everything together... i have goals in life, but i dun even know if i am really working towards them... like this lost girl in the middle of an ocean... trying to swim in all directions not knowing where the shore really is. and giving up quickly after each time and trying another direction. actually i will probably eventually drown cos i can't even swim half a lap in a normal swimming pool.

the cute green bear is watching silly shimin telling her not to cry cos shimin also doesn't know what she is upset over 

I received a really special gift from two dear friends- a ‘debut’ album with “ ba shou qiang li zhu da”, including solos and duets from the self-proclaimed ‘rarely sing for ppl’ laogong and the musically-inclined baking buddy. Haha. Now I have made them seem so surreal and out of this world. But ya, I am really touched. and thankful that I have such sweet friends. And I know that when I am feeling cold and lonely and upset in Washington D.C…. I can always pull out this special album and listen to the familiar voices, relive the happy moments we have shared together =) I guess I will actually miss a certain individual who intentionally keks me sometimes by making insensitive comments about my figure. And someone who almost always sides with me or pseudo-scolds me for shopping too much. Was also really touched by my aunt, who took the trouble to take bus all the way to the airport to send me off, who in her own way showed me much affection, who over the past week or two made yummy fruit cakes and Chinese new year cookies specially for me to savor… and just before I made my way towards the departure gates stuffed me two packets of preserved peach pulp for me to snack on on the airplane… though I dun exactly like preserved stuff, I’ll definitely finish both of them.. =)

i finally got down to developing some pictures taken last summer on my boston/canada trip a few days ago and realized that the lomo pics are actually pretty cool! perhaps i should go experiment with it again... =)
am going back tomorrow.... am quite pleased that i managed to meet up with almost every single person i wanted to meet up with. hope the new semester will be a good opportunity to move on, to enrich myself and grow more confident. haha but knowing me, i will probably be bothered and get stressed by new ppl, new tasks...

pic from my lomo camera!  

it was quite coincidental how while watching phantom of the opera, right after spooky things started happening in the opera house (in the show) there was suddenly a blackout in the movie theatre, leading ppl to shout "phantom" etc... and it turns out that there was a power failure. how unlucky... but the power returned after 10 min or so =) really love the songs even though i dind't enjoy the movie as much as i thought i would. i dunno. oh but i quite liked the masquerade scene where all the actors and actresses, despite being only clad in black and white, looked really spectacular together because of the qian bian wan hua designs of the costumes...the show made me really miss the phantom musical i watched in new york, though it is just but a faint memory now... but perhaps cos it was the first proper musical i caught and cos it was at Broadway... =P i hope i can go back to new york and catch more musicals during my stay at d.c. =)

was greeted by an unexpected visitor when i entered my grandma's place this afternoon.... a peach-faced lovebird named "Baby". it so turns out that someone gave my cousins this cute pet bird and they brought it to my grandma's place.... after some initial squeamishness i managed to get it to mount my jeans pocket.... after which it got kinda comfortable and started making its way up my t-shirt by clinging on to the folds of my t-shirt... and when Baby started moving up to my neck i started screaming and jumping cos it was really ticklish... (after the picture was taken) haha but felt like a kid for one whole afternoon, making cooing sounds to attract its attention. =) it was pretty tame though.

new year resolutions? dun really have anything in mind since i dun usually keep to them... but i suppose i will resolve to be less pessimistic and hu si luan xiang less, constantly remind myself to treat every single person i meet with respect, restrain myself from snacking too much, treasure every moment with my loved ones and make the best of my stay at Washington D.C..... and i hope for the many less fortunate souls in this world that no more disasters will hit them and worsen their already dismal living conditions..

Did i suddenly turn birdwoman?  

hmmm i can't help but think about the breadtalk bun.... i dun think you can help much by buying that bread leh....maybe ppl are getting cheated by breadtalk... i think save your money and use it for organizations that really give all the money to the victims.. well, unless of course, you actually want to eat that bun, then i guess it's a different story...

hmmm actually i better go and check out the little sign on the breadpan again.. later i got everything wrong and get sued by some random breadtalk person who visits my blog.... sadly, it's dangerous to talk rubbish on one's blog these days....

the death toll for the earthquake cum tsunami disaster has exceeded 120000... i feel touched and heartened that ppl everywhere are doing their little bit to help. eg. breadtalk has this 9.0 bun or something (though badly named i feel) which costs $2.30 and for every 9.0 bun bought, 90 cents is donated to the red cross or something. though they are still making money out of it!!! at least they are helping i suppose. hmm.. actually i wonder though (if ppl are all so re1 xin1 to help) whether the additional revenue from that bun actually exceeds the donations they hav to make such that overall they make profits?!! ok i shall not be so cynical. anyway, bbc has this article on international aid efforts and lists a host of organizations that ppl can make donations to! so i shall do my small bit and perhaps ppl who frequent my blog (though not many i suppose) feeling generous can do their small bit! Click here! (the internet links are on the RHS)

shopaholic me bought two pairs of shoes yest... but they were really good deals. $50 Sing for a pair of Skechers... feel bad shopping wiht my parents actually cos they just keep asking me to buy things if i like... actually borrowed a microsoft frontpage guide from the lib yest! haha wonder if i will hav the time to read it actually. cos i really feel tempted to do something to my blog.

a little incident two days ago made me feel that i am still a little insensitive sometimes.. but yest i felt that perhaps i am getting a little more rational... and less likely to jump to conclusions. and i suppose i should stop wishing for things that wun ever happen.

the most unglam thing just happened to me this evening.... was at the raffles city restroom and after i flushed, (luckily) my nice nokia hp conveniently slipped out of the side pocket of my gap hobo bag and fell right into the toilet bowl....despite the instinctive (though disgusting) retrieval of the phone right after its undeserving fate and despite immediate efforts to dry to whole phone with toilet tissue, it eventually still died on me after initial deceiving signs of 'revival'..... oh well. clumsy me... kinda upset cos i really liked that phone and it was really user and sms-friendly.... and upon returning home and reporting the unfortunate accident, it gave my mum more reason to reproach me since on this very same morning she just reminded me how my cell phone can drop out of my side pocket if i left it unbuttoned.....
oh well. i shall comfort myself that i managed to find a slip case for my widescreen laptop at funan today... that i met up wtih two groups of ppl and spent an evening with really good company... and that i have a spare phone to doodle around with and thus am not totally uncontactable... sigh. but upset with myself and feel sorry for my poor phone... =P

the unfortunate natural disaster that killed thousands of people in Asia on Sunday reminded me how vulnerable we are to 'random' acts of nature... a commentator on the straits times remarked that for a few moments, everyone, regardless of race, class and wealth, was equally vulnerable.. from rich tourists busking in the sun to the poor living in coastal villages of India and Sri Lanka...and that it was heartening that aid relief too came from many diff places around the world... i personally also felt the need to treasure every moment we have with our loved ones.. cos who can ever predict what can happen the next moment...

my mum has morphed into this chinese painting cum calligraphy expert and i just felt very happy for her that she can spend her free time doing all the drawing she wants.... and made me wonder, when i retire and grow old one day what would i do.... what if i am this old spinster with no kids, what do i devote my energy to...

exercised for the first time in dunno how long this morning! partly because i had slight jet lag and got up at like 530am and was doodling around house with no agenda... but feels good to exercise! i need to get rid of those layers of fats that have been building up around my waist and other spots during finals period. though i have been only back for a day, i can't help but feel really aware of people around me. somehow i am starting to see ppl in a different light. i can't really define what kinda change i am feeling.... but i just got the sense, from like a day out (yest and this morning) that there are actually many poor ppl around.... ok maybe not poor, but like lower middle class maybe? maybe i have been around HDB estates and hawker centers where the less well-to-do folks live.... i dunno why i suddenly feel so conscious of the different classes of people in society... in a way i feel bad that there seems to be a sizeable proportion of the population who aren't exactly very well off.... and will be likely to remain like this over generations... but i guess what matters is that these families are happy? sometimes i guess it's' not very good to know of greener pastures elsewhere cos then when we are down we feel extremely abject and shi bai... sigh dunno. i'm talking rubbish.

while jogging with my dad i was painfully alerted to teh fact that my parents are really ageing ... my dad complained of a constant ache in his shoulder and he seemed thinner than last time... if i had stayed in the US going about my own affairs i wouldn't be really aware of all these things about my family.... i'm glad i came home in a way. i guess if i had just stayed there i would just be so bogged down by my OWN affairs and my own problems and get so self-centred or worried about other trivial things constantly on my mind and not even think about my family that much... and am glad to receive smses from familiar faces like shu, jing, joyce, jeannice and ting!

despite having been home for less than 12 hours, i have already bought 3 pieces of clothing haha. what a shopaholic i am.... but well the sale is really good! g2000 has like 30% off blouses and skirts and 50% off blazers...mango was having a sale too. sigh. foresee myself spending quite a lot of money over the next week or so... the LA flight was really long! 18 continuous hours on a plane really isn't that fun. even though the seats were fairly comfy...

i am obsessed with zhi shao hai you ni by sandy lam recently. looped it on my laptop for like the whole morning and afternoon. hee. now i'm the only one left in my house but soon i'll be gone too. was clearing up stuff and re-read things i did in the past, random journal entries i penned down.... i feel like so many things have changed; that i have experienced so much in the past 2 years. i've def changed, for better or for worse i am not sure but i tend to believe it's for the former...
and am pretty excited about my internship next sem! got sent a booklet on the Woodrow Wilson Center and it had a short write-up of the scholar i would be assisting. she seems really cool and i really hope i can get to something useful and substantial.... flying home tmr afternoon! =)

enjoyed my first day of bumming around. after fetching jacqui to the airport i went to fourth street to 'gai gai'... then went to north face outlet to look see... then went to sch for a while to get my new SEVIS...then came home and FINALLY did some cleaning up of my room and toilet and sorting of old notes. still lots undone, but at least i did something... =) feel so totally 'at peace' with nothing to do just sitting at my table haha. =P

finals are over! but sadly i feel like i don't really know what i should do all of a sudden. feel very lost. hmmm withdrawal symptoms from having studied too much? not that i studied that much also. i guess i just look forward to going home, meeting my family and frens again, eating cheap good food. shopping. jianfei-ing. though i doubt that will happen considering how much i am going to be eating. =P

am getting a little tired of studying even though there is still a lot to do... sigh. wonder if stress has caused me to embark on a shopping spree online. from knitting kits to books.... i think i have been spending too much money online... it's too easy to buy on impulse... just a few clicks and u can buy a whole lot of stuff...
also confronted with a mess in my room but no motivation to clean up. after finals i suppose. and suddenly i was struck by how much stuff i have accumulated over the past year and now i think i REALLY have to start thinking properly about how to pack them into boxes. and i dun look forward as much to my LA-SING flight anymore... cos it's supposedly 18 long continuous hours on a plane. i hate long flights....