i'm going home! =P

the view at the peak of Mount Tamalpais was simply breathtaking... and from high up above all the cities seemed so insignificant compared to the vast expanse of mountains, trees and rocks...and human beings are but little specks seen along the mountain trails... and so on day 2 of the "shimin-explores-the-bay-area" long weekend I continued to be mesmerized by the beauty of my natural surroundings. then in the evening, after accepting an invitation from my housemates to go watch the July 4th fireworks at Berkeley Marina, i found myself sitting on the rocks by the waters watching a slightly foggy sunset with cold wind blowing in my face... i am really really struck by how beautiful these places close by can be. and really quite horrified by how i have never bothered to really explore any of them. i now have in mind destinations i want to visit/ visit again in fall before term starts... =)

and i found myself above a sea of clouds... 

imagine watching the sunset here... 

at the top of the world...? 

thanks to ziyang and sumei today i explored places close by but never ever visited...it was somewhat amusing though that i spent bout 2 hours on a morning trail in a state park in Napa only to find a somewhat disappointing and obstructed view of the valley at the peak; whereas when cruising through Tilden Park in air-conditioned comfort in the late afternoon i was able to get an awesome view without even trying... this was my very first time going to Tilden Park in the 3 yrs i've been here and i'm pretty surprised that we actually have a gem of a park right in our backyard... perhaps just 5/10 min away from Lawrence Lab and we enter this world of difference... of course it isn't as spectacular as the popular national parks... but for something that's so close to us, i agree with Sumei that it really is something to 'crow over'...
and i am extremely pathetic at playing frisbee... despite trying yesterday and today to learn the correct method of throwing it i still cannot get it... what a letdown to my dear patient coach, Sumei... guess certain things u really need some talent.. =P oh well... i will take a break for now then return in fall and attempt to master the art of the frisbee throwing, the seh3 way...

summer sch is finally over, but strangely instead of feeling really relieved i feel like i'm gonna miss it. even though during that 6 weeks half the time i really just wanted more time curling up under my comforter every morning; fell asleep on countless nights over matters classical thinkers spent their lives mulling over and writing about, i still had a pretty productive and enjoyable time... and i'm really really happy with my lamp. even though it might not seem much, but for the first time almost i embarked on something i thought i couldn't do, yet with every step i took i could really see the whole thing materializing... it's just such a satisfying process that for a while it really convinced me that if i really set my mind on doing something, perhaps it isn't that impossible... now i am pressured to pursue all those lofty goals i once had... haha. oh well, but glad that i now have some free time to read all the novels i wanted to read, over summer... =) and i can't believe i just bought this book that i never would have taken a second look at had i not taken PEIS 100 this summer... hopefully i will go on to shock myself by finishing it =P

the revolving lamp i spent hours and hours making... yes, looks kinda out of this world, still imperfect, but that's also kinda what i like about it... in a nutshell it has my friends revolving round me... and if you think you see your own lun2 kuo4 don't worry, your eyes aren't failing you, since some of you who frequent this blog are probably in it... =P

i really do respect individuals who are really brilliant yet extremely humble and do not make ill-informed individuals like me the least bit uncomfortable even though i can ask silly questions =P it also turns out that some of the best instructors i had at Berkeley are mere GSIs... i would rank my PEIS instructor as one of the best instructors i've ever had, not only cos he's passionate about what he's teaching...he also REALLY knows his stuff and tries to make dry, more philosophical material at least more palatable... i'm really inspired though there is so much more i dunno or cannot understand properly... and just a little piece of trivia that i probably ought to have known long ago but don't: where did the left-right terminology in politics originate? was enlightened during office hours today. can't put it properly in words myself, so here's a mini explanation from Wikipedia-- The terminology of left-right politics was originally based on the seating arrangement of parliamentary partisans during the French Revolution. The more ardent proponents of radical revolutionary measures (including democracy and republicanism) were commonly referred to as leftists because they sat on the left side of successive legislative assemblies. And though it doesn't make much sense now, use of these terms have kinda stuck...

just to convince you that i really am not obsessed with child rearing, there shall be no part III nor any other instalments in the near future. the weather these few days has been horrible. it's cold and foggy, totally unlike summer. dunno why i am blogging at 3am in the morning instead of sleeping; just spent a good 4 hours finishing up my frame and selecting pics for my lamp and i am hoping that everything will turn out the way i want... actually i'm mad, spending so much time over this when i have my PEIS prob set and finals due on friday!! but i dunno, i just cannot forsake it just cos i really really want my idea to materialize... we had a pinhole camera workshop on monday and i got some really cool 'negative images' on photo paper.. if i have time to take pics of them in the next day or two, shall post them on this blog ... but prob not cos i foresee an almost sleepless 2 days ahead=P didn't know that there's a darkroom in Wurster till 2 days ago...=)

Child Rearing Part II

and so i continued my mini investigation this evening and asked my landlords if they ever beat Kai, cos it's somewhat unimaginable if kids never ever get spanked even when they are really bratty... and i guess it's somewhat misleading for me to make a sweeping statement-- that angmohs don't spank their kids while Asians do.. cos i'm sure different people, even within the same culture, educate their kids differently... and while generally Americans don't use canes, many of them (according to my landlady+ speaking for her friends...) do spank their kids, when they really need to... so the main reason why my landlords never beat Kai is cos he is usually never that 'bad'... and also because it doesn't work on him... and apparently once his dad got so mad at him he slapped him; yet Kai just started laughing...(seems like we have quite a cool crazy kid here) and so just as his dad said, "you lose all leverage... what can you do? slap him harder??" it seems like child rearing really does have to involve some creativity too...

Child rearing 101

having lived with my 'family' for about a month or so, there were quite a few occasions whereby Kai started crying for no apparent reason and i never once saw my landlady/landlord hit their kid to 'teach him a lesson'... and today was esp funny. Kai didn't want to wake up to go for dinner and started crying.. after initial stern attempts to make the kid stop, the parents decided to cry along with their kid.. and so from the living room (where i was sitting trying desperately to twist my wire), for a few min, i heard this communal howling emanating from Kai's room... and i really felt like laughing... i dunno, i just felt that their way of bringing up their kid is so different and 'fun'.... such stark contrast to the caning or threats of policemen arrest or 'babu-singh-kidnappings' that i'm so used to... or for that matter, many of us are used to... the group confession of having once been caned by our parents before, and comparisons of the diameters of the canes our parents used to own (at In and Out some weeks ago) still remain fresh in my mind... =P and the scary thing was (which i didn't really dare to voice out then) that out of the 4 girls and 2 mums present then, 3 of us agreed that the best way to discipline the kid is to cane the kid.. else the kid wun learn.. i didn't say anything, cos i really dunno what i would do... does caning really work? is it a very Asian thing to do? i should ask my landlords one day what they think about caning...

don't you ever feel like some ppl though you have known them for so long, kinda well but you never really talked to them? in a way i feel like i'm making friends with my old friends all over again and it's nice in a way cos though i might have known them from last time, yet in a way both parties have grown and changed and so in a way it's like a new experience for both parties again... and i dunno i kinda like this feeling... and it's nice too cos like there's already this basic 'foundation' in place, yet it's possible to go a step further...
i hope to make my own revolving lamp for my very last art project, but i wonder if it will end up being a total flop cos i have never tried doing anything like that before and am just going to experiment... it will be so cool if i can replicate the image i have in my head. but if not, then i will be screwed! sigh, but i def wun be able to spend the bulk of my weekend fretting over this, cos i have lotsa PEIS readings to do... prepare for finals... only 5 more days of summer sch... so fast..

i guess the issues raised in this article will sound very familiar to many of us at Berkeley?

i'm exhausted from the endless assignments and readings i have to do.. i really want to just sleep all day but i'm so torn cos i really do like both my classes... my PEIS instructor is really so good i feel that i'm doing him an injustice by being lazy, by being unable to gain a deeper understanding of my material.. by falling back on my readings... and Art yesterday was so cool; i was really impressed by everyone's projects.. to see so many different manifestations of the same fundamental idea... shall post some pics here.
Even though i'm so busy, i am somewhat reluctant to take too long a break from blogging. it has really become something i'm almost addicted to. why? i'm not sure either. perhaps i just like to hear myself rambling on and on about things that excite me, things that bother me, but fear that no one wants to listen. so if i just blog, ppl have the freedom to choose if they want to read whatever i write (assuming some bored/kpo/amused/concerned individuals out there frequent my blog regularly... =P) while i have the freedom to express myself without being imposing on any particular person...and of course it's nice when your friends leave little msgs from time to time... anyway, here are the pictures, complete with one-liner introduction/commentaries... enjoy.

this, in my opinion, was one of the coolest projects. this girl, a musician, tried to attach strings tied to tubes of paint, to her violin, such that paint would drip onto the canvas as she played...her set-up didn't work very well, but the whole idea was really cool and the resulting piece of art, though totally spontaneous, turned out to be really unique.  

if i dun say anything, u wouldn't be able to tell that the table is really made of cardboard, and the box, wood. so subtle yet so clever! 

these images were really made by poking needles into the banana skins and leaving them to rot... and u can see the 'aging process' from right to left 

larger-than-life furry veges... some kinda commentary on GM food,, 

after repeated failures, lotsa precious time wasted, i finally came up with my tiny collection of 'fleece tank tops' for my art project... started off destroying my nice towel and making a small towely tank top that i ended up really liking but cannot fit into no matter what; then progressed to making this huge light blue furry one that ended up looking like some sort of animal skin on some ppl... figured those didn't give me the really summery feel i was trying to create.. then i found some cheap fleece and finally created these bright summery ones that aren't very well sewn (cos i was getting backaches sewing and sewing) but good enough to serve my purpose... haha and they look better from afar... i really like the yellow one and the pink toga-looking one in the picture =P hope that the string that i bought from Ace Hardware will allow me to replicate this backyard set-up at the balcony in my Art Room tmr afternoon =) wonder if ppl will get the point though.

my fleece summer collection... 

considering how difficult it usually is for the neutral me to really like something, it must be somewhat telling if i start and continue raving about Howl's Moving Castle in the next 2 min or so? =P the movie reminded me why i love Studio Ghibli so much more than Disney or Pixar; what a brilliant art/animation genius Miyazaki is, how you definitely don't have to understand certain things to really love them, how a lovely music score really makes the movie so enjoyable... i definitely liked it better than Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, The Cat Returns and possibly even Laputa Castle in the Sky, which i quite liked... dunno if it's my favorite, but definitely one of my favorites! the creativity and talent of these animation folks just puts me to shame. aiyah of course it would be hypocritical to not admit that i was from time to time blown away by the male protagonist, Howl... no harm indulging in fantasies when watching something as magical as this right? =)

Of John Stuart Mill and nude women in Renaissance paintings

Mill's one of the favorite thinkers i have read thus far, just cos some of his arguments in "On Liberty' are just so well put... shall share some snippets i like.. =)
On following customs..
"He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used"
then, "he who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation"
On individuality...
"even despotism does not produce its worse effects, so long as Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism...."
And lastly, one of my favorite parts in this piece,
"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates.... a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.....he who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect- must expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their favorable sentiments, but of this he has no right to complain...."
so dead right, but not something i can claim to dare to live by...

hmm ok this has been a really long post, but i really want to add something on a video i saw in my Art class today... the art expert was saying how in Renaissance paintings, nude women were painted in such a way to appeal to their male spectators... and so according to him, these women were often looking out of the pictures, even if they were engaged in some scandalous poses with the men in the paintings ; that they were in languid poses, lying around...i guess in a way to boost the male ego subconsciously... and of the thousands of painters who painted nude women, perhaps only a handful depicted women and their bodies as they were... others manipulated their images in some way... i never really thought of these paintings in this manner and i wonder how true it is? but then i guess cos i am not particularly enthusiastic about Renaissance paintings... it's something to ponder over... if i go Italy and visit musuems again... =P

My chio, silver, look-in-Sim-Lim-for-one-whole-afternoon optical mouse has malfunctioned and i'm very upset cos i dun think i can find anything like it again... =( but i guess it's my fault cos i dropped it once recently...
sigh but i've also come to realize that things may be irreplaceable but we can often work our way round things...i guess for the time being i'll just end up using my touchpad all the time instead of anyhow getting some ugly mouse... haha i'm so picky =P and i guess when a lot of things fail or disappear we get upset for some time but we wun die without them...moaning all day over your loss perhaps isn't the most constructive thing to do...

and so plans for my parents to visit have been shelved and i guess i'll go back to sg after summer sch... wonder if i'll have the time to visit my DC roommate in LA and go to (a) Disneyland for the FIRST time?? haha. Japan travel plans have been put away too and now i'm planning to just go to China... i really do look forward to going there, to experience it for myself, and after reading so much and hearing so much about it... i really want to see it again for myself... my most vivid childhood memories of China were of the stinky no-door toilets, esp the one on the way to the Great Wall, when my mum had to put 'feng1you2' on a piece of tissue to cover up my nose in order to make me go in... hmm not something i want to remb China by... and of course, it would be cool to visit Jing in Beijing and DC friend in Shanghai... and my Prof once told me to tell her when i go visit, such that she can give me contacts and let me see some of the migrant schs/ schs for the poor..... though i doubt that's going to happen lah. i wonder what i'll get out of a short touristy visit? anyway, i'm excited! but in the meantime, it's sch and more sch... and figuring out how to make tank tops for new Art project =P

Rod of Asclepius
baffled by the snake and pole (it's actually a staff) on the WHO logo while researching for my art that day, i finally looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently it's an ancient Greek symbol associated with medicine. Without knowing the story behind this, i guess most ppl, like me, would associate the serpent with something bad...the shedding of its skin as a symbol of rebirth and fertility didn't even come to mind...
i got my first parking citation today!! aargh. cos i forgot all about street sweeping and forgot to move my car to the opposite side of the road... =( my PEIS instructor is really quite brilliant.... but the GSI for this class, in contrast, is really quite disappointing.... can compete with my pretty boy PEIS 101 GSI already.

After! i decided symbols of international organizations, NGOs etc made it too explicit... so i left them all out... 

Before (gesso transfer image in raw form) 

hmm... kinda finished my art assignment in class today and am somewhat pleased with it so am being egoistic and posting it on my blog... mixed comments though. i wonder if ppl get my message? =P

today i learnt a gesso transfer technique in class which allows u to transfer mag images onto canvas or other suitable surfaces.... and i was really excited to see my Economist pages on canvas! cool =P cos i decided to have a political edge to my piece... but it struck me how little i knew about poverty... i shall resolve to read up more after summer sch ends. but in meantime, quite excited about my project, though it's just a small in-class assignment... it's just cool u can 'combine your passions'... i mean i don't think i'm good at doing such stuff... but i realized i just love doing it... even though class is 4 hours everyday, i dun even fall asleep like i do in some haha. and i rediscovered the power of images...

was trying very hard to do my readings today again cos wasn't very successful yest.. and it was such a clear sunny day i decided for the first time to make use of the little table in my backyard.. and it felt really cool using wireless in the garden haha. and my landlord was really nice and brought out a hammock for me.. and so for the first time in my life (i think) i climbed onto a hammock and lay suspended in the middle of two sturdy hooks on walls reading my Rousseau... u know... nice ppl sometimes really make your day, no matter how small the gesture.

i finally sat down to do my overdue readings today and while reading through the first few chapters of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, i was just very pleasantly surprised... things that you learn in JC, that came in a very 'processed' form- in the form of JC notes or textbooks was suddenly presented to me in its raw form... i mean when i first started taking Econ, i knew who Adam Smith was... but i guess it wasn't till this week that i finally sat down to read about his ideas... and it's just so amazing how some thinker centuries ago sets down all these fundamental ideas for modern economics...
in the spirit of cheapo-ness, i scouted around for parking meters with remaining minutes... and while hopping around from meter to meter, i guess this lady driver slotting coins into her meter knew what i was looking for and informed me that the lot that she pulled out from earlier had a failed meter.... highly embarrassed but secretly delighted i immediately pulled out and drove to my new lot... and from today onwards i formally begin my whole semester or even year of perfecting my unhoned 'look-for-failed-meters' skills...

nothing can be worse than feeling pent-up and =( yet hav lotsa hw to do and 5 hours of class ahead of you...
while doing my art proj i was reminded of the quote i put on my blog.. "grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference"... sigh. i guess i have been able to discern...but where is my 'serenity to accept' and 'courage to change'.....?

i'm such a silly girl.

art materials are so expensive i'm going broke buying stuff for my art project, though mine's a really simple one...eg. a piece of letter-size reflective PVC costs nearly $6...must learn how to make use of scrap material next time round... and once again i'm spending a lot of time fretting over how the thing will end up looking...

was browsing the Straits Times and stumbled upon this story on some popular blogs in sg.. apparently some girl appealed to her fans/readers on her blog to buy her a camera and she got her wish... being nosey and feeling slightly accomplished after finishing perhaps 3/4 of my prob set, i decided to check out her blog but was pretty horrified after reading through some of her more recent entries that i can almost predict who those donors to her camera fund were... on the other hand, i also recently discovered a very cool food blog, thanks to redpolkadot; the splash of well-taken pics of jap food on her blog are just amazing and very mouth-watering... and it's plain how eating can really be a luxury =)

while making my way to the bathroom this morning i was greeted by the aroma of fried bacon and my earlybird 'housemates' who were having a wholesome Sat breakfast... i wonder when i last had a properly prepared breakfast... despite not being able to have bacon (good lah, else make me fat too) i was offered some leftover coffee... which was a mini blessing given the horribly cold weather these few days. and while sorting out her books, my landlord dug out an old copy of Machiavelli's 'The Prince' and lent it to me.. cos i casually mentioned some days before that i was reading that for my class... small little gesture, but so awfully nice. i did feel a little =( that i seem to have fallen out of the little fellow's favor... guess cos the novelty of having someone new in the house is gone! but good lah, since i have so much work piling up anyways.. took a long time putting up some photoframes last night.. dug out the cute Monet magnets i got from the National Art Gallery in DC. keep getting distracted from work by frivolous little things i want to do to my surroundings.. have to do some serious research for my first art project and rack my brains over my tough PEIS prob set this weekend. =(

i am suddenly confronted by deadlines every single day... am suddenly so tired that i wished i had a day off! fortunately classes are still worth looking forward to. i think my PEIS instructor is pretty cool, cos not everyone can make Machiavelli or Hobbes actually interesting to study... and he tries to analyze how these thinkers think, to show us how we should think and analyze... then today i somehow had slight disrespect for my art instructor.... cos i think it's the most zuobo job around! (maybe just for today) cos she just left us to our own projects half the time while walking around talking to us about our ideas... haha i guess i'm so used to GSIs teaching some really hard-core material that merely giving 'creative' suggestions suddenly seem odd to me....haha and i'm biased now cos she wanted me to redraw this whole thing i did in class (an assignment due tmr) and i have absolutely no time and i'm debating what i should do.... sigh. foresee a night of more readings, finishing up assignment and thinking up art proposal due tmr as well...

day one of summer sch was really long but despite a seemingly ultra-busy and intensive 6 weeks ahead of me, i feel pretty upbeat. my PEIS instructor is this puny boyish-looking Indian guy who seems really passionate about what he's going to teach and seems bent on convincing us that this will be one of the best though toughest classes we will take at Berkeley. i'm a little doubtful, but am pretty inspired to work hard for it. Art 8 didn't disappoint me either... it really seems intensive.. 3 major art projects in a short span of 6 weeks and 4-hour classes 4 days in a row every week... but 2 hours just flew past this afternoon without me feeling any drag or boredom... so... hopefully it will be fun =) it seems pretty promising and definitely refreshing... i'm pretty excited. =)

while uploading my commencement pics i somehow stumbled upon the numerous pics i took over the past 3 years... pictures that have gradually accumulated but have always been overlooked whenever new ones are uploaded. somehow today i paused and looked through quite a few of them again and i was really struck how different we all looked 3 years ago... how happy, enthusiastic and innocent we all seemed to be... amused by how in the first few months i took so many pics with the most random ppl around.. though i know that some things never did really change, a lot of things DID change and i can truly say that i think i've grown up quite a bit... attitudes towards certain things have definitely changed... feel a bit old and jaded now that i'm going to be a senior at Berkeley... even though i don't think i've accomplished much in the past 3 years, it really feels like i've been through so much (but of course i didn't...) Witnessing zai fellow singaporeans getting dept citations, ppl going on to grad sch etc... i cannot but feel how some of us have really come so far...

my dear girl friends at Berkeley 

i'm happy, yet really upset at the same time. some things will never ever be the same again and i don't think i want to accept that. and when everyone's moving on, i choose to cling on. i know it's stupid cos it only makes me sad. i think my carebear really suits me. the sit quietly at one corner and cry by myself type.

no more encounters with kid for now... and actually i perhaps interact with him like for a few min everyday... but then why does it seem that when i blog about it it seems like i'm always playing with him or something...
horrible horrible rainy weather today. and all my efforts to scrub my car clean have utterly gone to waste =( it had better turn sunny tmr else commencement would be horrible too... with the mass arrival of parents today, you also hear about last min bathtub-scrubbing tales, the-night-before apt cleaning... same morning kitchen-mopping, fighting over vacuum cleaners... haha if parents were here all the time our rooms/apts must be spanking clean all the time... well but petty complaints about their kids aside, i guess it wasn't difficult to tell how proud of their kids they all seemed to be.

day 2 in Josephine St and as of now i seriously love this place... my little friend, Kai, is really endearing... not that he is a very guai1 kid or what.. very inquisitive, bit noisy just like many little brats... but unassuming and lovable... cooked instant noodles for dinner today and Kai was having pizza with his dad.. then he saw my noodles and was like.. i want to try your soup... and very bu ke qi-ly said that he wanted the carrots in the soup.. and when feeding him one i just could not help but wonder what the rest of my stay would be like... i think i love this kid already... then chatted a little with Peder (his dad) and found out a bit more about the couple.. that they met each other in the UN, travelled all over... they've actually been to East Timor on a UN mission... sigh. so cool and lang man... haha. i'm really impressed how they can pursue their own ideals and yet settle down with their own (seemingly very happy and fulfilling) family life.

and so from today onwards i'm a Josephine Street resident... =) move-in was pretty smooth... set up my bed and totally fell in love with my room! i realized how pampered i had been... how i miss big comfy beds.... i'm so glad this room came with a double bed... am thinking if i should get a nice new ikea table and make my room really homely... cos there's already a long no frills table in the room and me being very vain would like a nicer table... but oh well, might not be feasible... what if they end my lease... i really do look forward to my stay here... it's a nice neighborhood and my cute 4-yr-old friend made me a lego plane this afternoon... after peeking in and proclaiming my room "a mess!" i really hope i made the right decision... rent's a bit ex... but it might be well worth it. =)

i finally looked up the title of the nice song that keeps playing on the radio.... =P and of course 'googled' for it on Real Rhapsody...

Collide by Howie Day

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

I'm open, you're closed
Where I'll follow you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find you and I collide

I'm quiet you know
You make a first impression
I've found I'm scared to know
I'm always on your mind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
Somehow find you and I collide

Don't stop here
I lost my place
I'm close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find you and I collide

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