the baking buddies have returned with a whole new gingerbread collection today! i actually really enjoyed bumming at home with jacqui today (though i must have been a really bad influence causing her to not do anything constructive) it was somewhat fun.. her eating all her flatbread and me munching on my blue corn tortilla chips for lunch... deciding to bake gingerbreadmen for ppl and muscular men for sumei... being so lazy and walking to Safeway in our PJs...
also had an interesting glimpse into the work life of a Google employee this evening... thanks to someone who didn't want to pay for gas alone... haha but seriously they had such high quality free food! no wonder some ppl are willing to drive all the way down... =P

of gingerbreadmen, ghosties, cats and out-of-shape AIM guys... 

and so i signed my lease today... actually i have no idea why... the closet is kinda small, i dun get my own bathroom (which is what i've always wanted..) and once again will end up in a room with 3 doors and just one corner to put my stuff...but i somehow feel like i'll like staying there... =)
strangely i didn't feel especially sad nor reminiscent at seniors' dinner yesterday evening... it was cool remembering the crazy things we all did together as freshies and it was def fun getting to know a whole bunch of people but honestly speaking it's too impersonal a setting. call me callous but ultimately, it's perhaps really just a few people who are really important to me, who really matter... i'll probably be curious about everyone else but not care enough to constantly keep in touch. and for those who really mean a lot, i can only hope very hard that at this point in time next year, and for many years to come, i'll still occupy some lil spot in their hearts and continue to share both the excitement and heartaches in their lives...

some of us girls at seniors' dinner... 

and so i cooked a proper meal yesterday evening for the first time since I came back, and it really did feel like a family, sitting down with Jacqui and Evelyn to enjoy the same dishes, with rice bowls and all... =P Josephine Street lady replied and decided to offer me the room!! now that i think about it, it's actually really a bit EX just for a room.. and the 4-yr-old boy may be noisy... but it's a really nice neighborhood to stay in... and somehow i just have this gut feeling that i should try living with an American household just to see... after all it's a month-to-month lease and if i really don't like it.. i can always move out.. just that it will be slightly troublesome.. but i think... if i don't try this i'll be left wondering all the time what it would have been like... and so ya.. i'm going to take up the offer, well knowing that i shall be fully responsible for whatever befalls me... haha. after all it's going to be summer sch so even if it proves disruptive it wouldn't be too detrimental.. sigh... i feel like sometimes i'm just veyr stubborn... i'm so picky and it's quite diff for me to really like something yet once i like something, i can really like it and then grow irrational....
Brad Delong is going to teach PEIS h195a this coming fall! emailed him to ask if i could expand on my UCDC paper and he thinks it's fine and so i have something constructive to think about in the meantime...
my dad spent at least 15 min trying to persuade me to sell my bike... and though i really don't see why it shoudl be THAT dangerous to bike around.. i guess i'll give in... not that i bike around that much anyway... hmm and i have nothing cept maybe jeans or my black dress to wear this evening for senior's dinner... everything else is prob in garage and i'm too lazy to plough through my crap.. maybe i'll go shopping at Emeryville later... =P

house hunting
in the past 3 days i've looked at 7 places, mostly studios and two rooms in proper houses... from studios tucked away up in the hills to cute rooms with loft spaces in existing households... somehow i think the more i look at studios the more i think that i shoudn't live alone... cos 1) I prob won't have many friends over since i don't have many to begin with and i can totally foresee myself all cooped up in my own studio stuck online all the time or something... and yet i think i don't want to be all cosy and live with people I am very close to. i am not sure why too... I felt really tempted to take up the cute $600 room with the loft space I saw yesterday but driving up and down the hills really isn't that appealing i guess. plus mum is ok, but not very comfortable with the random 40 yr old guy housemate. today someone whom i emailed perhaps two weeks ago emailed me back and asked if i would like to see their room... and now i think I am going to take up their room... in a house with this couple and their cute 4-yr-old son (i'm not taking it up just cos the kid is cute, nor cos the room is super nice or anything) but i dunno... i feel like they will be a good influence for me, and I feel like it might be a good 'cultural experience', living with an American family... it's a nice neighborhood, room is decent and though the rent is a little ex and it's not that close to school, there's something that draws me to that place... and the move-in day is flexible and just right... now i shall await her reply and i guess i'll know in a day if my housing search will thus end... =)

today was a good day. perhaps it's just the simple catching up with a few old friends and finding that they are still the same, finding out about what had gone on in their lives while i was away... and discovering that they had fun, they got what they wanted... somehow nothing beats just knowing that they are fine. and seeing how some people are really enjoying what they are doing, i cannot help but feel overjoyed for them. and then looking at myself and the odds and ends in my life, i really feel kinda lost, displaced, but it's not time for self-depracating thoughts... somehow i also became acutely aware that i really don't have many friends, but then i guess i'm not that kinda person and so it's silly to make comparisons like that... i dunno. i'm so touched by the good things happening to my dear friends that i feel like crying. silly shimin. it's a pity this non password-protected blog is now too easily accessible to random ppl for excessively private thoughts. and so they can only well up inside me.

roommate was really sweet and made me a goodbye cake and breakfast...
and so i have transplanted myself across the continent and i'm once again back in Berkeley... it actually feels a little strange cos i've never been away from Berkeley for nearly one sem, or return near the end of the sem, when my dear friends are all stressing about their work/ really busy... but i'm glad that the sense of familiarity is still there... nothing seems to have changed. people might be preoccupied with new things in their lives i might not be the most acquainted with, but i guess the nature of these friendships are essentially 'intact' and i'm really glad for that. and i guess i became more aware even within a single day that perhaps i havent really changed... felt really bummy today, but from tmr onwards i shall be good, finish up my poli sci paper by friday, seriously look for housing and occupy myself with all the things i've wanted to do, that i can do on my own...and do some self-reflection and decide what i want my senior year to be like.

I am such a fool...[yest i was pissed with myself and wrote 'retard' without thinking about how derogatory and offensive it can be to some ppl... i dunno why the word came to mind either but rereading this entry, i deeply regret using the term and it's so awful and mean now that i think about it... =( ] first i brought too much stuff here. second i couldn't resist myself and had to buy stuff here. and i have so many papers i printed out for my research paper that i cannot bear to throw away and will prob end up shipping back to Berkeley. haven't found a box for shipping, super shuttle is coming super early at 530am on Wed morning, haven't written my thank you cards nor touched my final memo for my Poli sci class due on Wed... there's the farewell dinner tmr evening... couple of things i want to buy to bring back but prob will end up with no time nor space...and i'm so terrible to my really enthu roommate who wants to do a million things before i leave tmr...who woke up specially this morning to make me a sumptuous breakfast... sigh shall go sleep and try to finish the million things i have to do tmr...

For once we have a special guest blogger on my blog.... enjoy =P

Greetings from Washington, DC from ShiMinTan's flatmate, Courtney!

After much pestering, Shi Min has relented, and now almost seems
pleased to offer me a bit of space on her blog. And just to allay any
suspicions, Shi Min has assured me she will not go all Singaporean on
me and censor what I write! (j/k, of course!)

Shi Min and I have lived in close proximity, scratch that, the same
bedroom for quite some time now—just 11 days shy of four months. And
during our lengthy cohabitation, I have born witness to quite a few
quirks in her personality… First off, the girl emits sounds—a cross
between a "hmmmm" and a "mmmph" whenever she's perturbed, perplexed,
what have you…and she's not cognizant of it! Also, she's quite concerned
with aesthetics, so much so in fact, that new fonts and powerpoint
templates tickle her! Ah, my goodness, and her love affair with
tortilla chips… Shi Min's quirks are indeed endearing..

Although I know I have given Shi Min a lot of grief and I have been,
at times, "troublesome" (poking her toes, tidying her side, gawking at
her food), I hope she, scratch that, you, Shi Min, know it was all
done in good fun. You've been a great sport…dealing with my repeated
attempts to indoctrinate you with the best of American expressions
(ehem, ehem), my desire to talk at length after the lights are out and
we've already said "wan an," and my need to test the limits of your
kindness (think back to the commitments you've made (jk), my funeral,
pushing me in a wheel chair, being a godmother to my adopted Chinese
daughter….

Now with the semester coming to a close, I'd like to put to use some
of the phrases you've taught me---

Woe ai knee, Emu….Knee ai woe ma?

And in closing, I would like to let you know that I think you have a
really good heart, and you need not worry, I will store it safely in
my back pack…. <3

Oh, and just one last thing, I like big butts…. =)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i made cranberry almond biscotti! =P 

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

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

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

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

no... we are not in Japan... 

flower mania! 

to this!! 

from this.... 

and so i woke up at 740 am and doodled around and went out around 830am, suspecting that i wun be able to beat the crowds... and i was right. the Metro was so crowded even at 845am... =( but the breathtaking view at the tidal basin made up for everything! i have never ever seen so many cherry blossom trees in bloom... i just wished i werent' alone and that there weren't so many ppl... and also watched bits of the National Cherry Blossom Parade, and went for the Jap street festival, where i bought authentic jap green tea ice cream, tako balls and my childhood favorite- red bean fish! (they used to have that years ago in Yaohan at Parkway Parade...) i also saw some really huge flower posters from Hokkaido and i really really wanted to get those, but i know i'll never be able to transport them back to California safely.. and so i could only admire... and i discovered that i really do like jap stuff, jap culture, jap food quite a bit... and the weather was perfect! sunny but cool enough... alright, i dont think i can describe how beautiful the flowers were.... so... let the pictures speak for themselves =)

i went for the IMF/OAS/World Bank tour this morning but it was rather disappointing cos we pretty much sat in the auditoriums of these places and listened to talks. I really admire and respect the many individuals who work to free the world of poverty. It's such an admirable task really. sometimes i dream of myself doing that eventually but right now i cannot imagine how that will come true for me. and while walking on the streets between the buildings, i just could not help getting fascinated by the pretty flowers along the streets. white florets on trees, cherry blossoms, bright tulips and daffodils (intentionally planted though) along the streets... it was just so pretty. not forgetting the magnolia trees in peak bloom last week and earlier this week... their petals are now all strewn on the ground but i can just imagine myself standing beneath these frees with petals falling all over me with the wind blowing..... haha ok. that will never happen cos i am not in some movie. and the cherry blossoms along the tidal basin have finally started to bloom... i will go there early Saturday morning hopefully to take pictures, just cos i know that the place would be totally overcrowded in the day wtih ppl flocking to DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival. there's a jap street festival this coming Saturday too! i will try very hard to work hard tomorrow so i can get to go for that on Saturday... i feel sad though for the trees, cos i read an article today on how the numerous visitors are causing soil compaction which in turn are causing some trees to die...

had a somewhat boring day at work today and am starting to get stressed cos the busiest period of my prog has finally set in... came home to discover a cute test sent to me by my friend. A slight distraction from what is ahead of me for the rest of the week/month. Click here for The Little Prince test! Are you a fox, a baobab etc etc or The Little Prince himself?
Bought my return air tics to Berkeley yest night and somehow i quite look forward to going back now... just that there are still a lot of things to do here before i'm done. We had a 'celebrity politician' Karl Rove come to the UC Washington Center today and so we all went down to listen to him... not that impressive though... =P

where lizards, octopuses and sharks get to roam in the sky.... 

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...