another 5.30 am entry ;P

rather expectedly, with my moving home after a long 4 years comes some sibling tension...particularly when decision made when you were 10 yrs old to share your personal space continues to dictate the way you're going to live (pretty much) for the next few years, at least... ah. reminds me of my econ 115's path dependency... haha. not that it's a big problem at all, but somehow after having a room to yourself for 3 years makes sharing seem rather deprived :P plus sis is suddenly robbed of having 2 beds and the whole wardrobe to herself... i guess i would feel a little :( if i were her too. and certainly doesn't help that old cupboards/wardrobes and desks are an unfortunate legacy of stupid decisions to hav furniture 'fixated' permanently to the wall! which reduces space management flexibility to nought... but best is still to make do with whatever you have. :)

also rediscovered my 10-yr-old/15-yr-old etc selves when FINALLY clearing out some old stationery/used-to-be-treasures collectibles such as keychains, erasers, bookmarks and such. it was both sad and revealing that i retained little affinity for many things that i used to do! plus all the friendship bands and little funny crafty thingies that i used to make... while on one hand i certainly felt more 'grown-up' but on the other, i wondered if i had turned into this unfeeling creature with little appreciation for cute little pleasures like these... but i figured i perhaps show my appreciation for my friends in different ways now. another sad thing was how i discovered pieces of Chinese creative writing i used to do in RGS... and feeling that my Chinese could never ever return to that kinda level... hai. i guess you gain some and lose some...

it's a pretty unearthly 7am in Singapore now and i have been up for about 2 hours, having yet to adjust to proper sleeping hours here :) visited favorite family hangout place (Tampines Mall...) to activate cell phone and was greeted by ever-teeming-with-life (and FOOD!) basement... with a record number of food places! maximum utlization of space it seems. hmm.

anyway, before work life starts to lock me into some kinda monotonous/busy 8.30-6.30? work schedule, i have decided in the past 2 hours or so to embark on a number of new 'projects' to make sure that i don't lapse into a boring/un-enriching life here :P so... if i actually get down to doing them, i shall 1) attempt to learn how to drive a manual-right-seat-driver car (haha sorry my English is too pok to come up with the proper term) 2) exercise! found quite a few STEP classes online and shall call to ask about them in the next week or so, hopefully 3) explore more food places/learn more about my own country-- have 2 motivations for this! to make sure that i will be an adequate tour guide when my few but dear American friends do come to visit me... hehe and perhaps break out of a my-life-mainly-revolves-around-the-Eastern-part-of-island cycle that has pretty much characterized past 19-22 years of residence... i am also hoping that my job will bring me to diff HDB estates all over the island... :) so that's 3 relative big plans i have for time being in the year ahead... hope they get done!

Blue Riesling bottles and little baskets hung on the wall (occasionally used for delivering muffins and such) frame the kitchen window of the house i stayed at for 3 nights. i guess there really wasn't THAT much to do in Louisiana, but thanks for my very nice hosts, stay was nonetheless very enjoyable. i guess good company can make all the difference :) maybe it's just me, but the places i visited somehow all had a very country, homely feel to them. perhaps some ppl would call it backward, but there's just something about some of these places that's holding me back from blindly labeling them in this way. also, i guess my weird affinity for the cute antiquey-looking fans common to many of these homes/restaurants plays a small part? haha.

and in less than 14 hours i will probably leave Berkeley 'for good'... this afternoon while waiting to have lunch with Jacqui i strolled around downtown Berkeley trying to 'absorb' the atmosphere and feel for one last time what this quirky place feels like... as i type this blog entry from my bed on the last night in my cosy room in Berkeley, i already know that i will miss this place+school... a place that holds some of my fondest memories, a place that made me mature from innocent little girl to less-innocent-more-independent-more-comfortable-in-own-skin big girl, a place where i made some of my dearest friends, a place that made me much more aware of the importance and the power of good education, a place that made me appreciate diversity... oh well. dun hav that kinda flair to put jumbled thoughts into well-articulated prose, but yeah, today i look back at my uninformed decision to apply to Berkeley and fully appreciate the significance of that fortuitous acceptance into this school...

I have been in the company of some really kind Louisiana residents the past 5 days or so. am currently in a small town north of New Orleans, called Mandeville, at a friend's aunt's house. and the commute to downtown/French Quarter in New Orleans involves driving across a 24-mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, easily more than twice the size of Singapore! this causeway apparently held the world record for longest bridge in 1969, but has since been surpassed by others, i think. what's the longest bridge in the world? i have no clue... but ya, not that i am unaware of how small sg is, but when you put things in perspective, it kinda reinforces this point :P anyway, one thing that really struck me when i first arrived in Shreveport was how green/tropical foresty the place was.... i guess cos my only comparison is Berkeley, and to a smaller extent, DC... and the other cities up north, it never really occurred to me how much closer to the tropics certain parts of the US were, too. and it's hot down here, and definitely more humid. hehe preparation for heading home next week, i guess.

flying down to Louisiana tmr for a week.... my last holiday before heading home on the 15th :)

various flowers were blooming in my own backyard and couldn't help taking parting pics of some. these, i fell in love with one year ago and they are all over in the backyard.. as well as along our street... on MLK... on campus... these buds actually come enclosed in a huge green 'bud'/pod... and they burst open to become like that... then bloom into elegant pretty purple flowers...
i've also realized how much effort gardening takes! my landlords just spent the whole of yesterday and half of today tidying up their plants... pulling out the weeds... much as i like flowers, i seriously doubt i'll go to that extent to produce a pretty garden myself :P a lazy bum like me instead leeches off pretty flowers in other ppl's gardens :P
was also treated to a farewell dinner by my landlords and can't help but feel a little sentimental that i will be leaving real soon. it has been a great year, living with them... i couldn't have asked for better housemates, really! and the other day when i looked at Kai, he really wasn't as little as he used to be when i first moved in! after all, it's been a year and a little bit more... time flies...

craigslist has become my most frequented website this past week or so; with so much stuff (often in good condition) i need to get rid of, the best solution is to give them away to ppl who actually want it... and good old craigslist has been extremely handy in helping me do that. and somewhat uncannily, almost every item i post has just one or two interested parties... items for sale were sadly a lot less popular, expectedly though. unfortunately, after half a week or so of massive cleanup, room still isn't as bare as i would want it to be :P sigh, come monday, most of remaining items would have to go to the dump... it's actually pretty interesting to see what use ppl have for things that you dun want-- someone picked up my old twin mattress pad and sheets for a foreign exchange student coming in a week; a mother was surprisingly excited upon discovering my bag of random art materials cos apparently her daughter would be real happy to have them; another volunteer was delighted that the wall map he picked up would be real useful for the refugee family he was working with.... it made me happy too that instead of prematurely contributing to land pollution, these items manage to play small roles in bettering ppl's lives... :) hmmm so... perhaps if you want to superficially feel like a good individual... give something useful (but which you no longer need) away!

was given a half-day tour of SF by former classmate who grew up in SF, whose knowledge of buildings and history of the city was pretty amazing. and i took the MUNI for the 2nd time in my entire 4-year stay here... the very first time i took it it was with tonnes of crazily-dressed folks (myself included haha, though i certainly wasn't as creative nor as outrageous as many strangers i encountered... ) to Castro on my first Halloween night and i totally thought it was like the BART and never really bothered to investigate its routes subsequently.... today we went to the more residential and less touristy places in SF... i was actually rather surprised how 'versatile' the MUNI was... how it emerges from underground tunnels, winds uphill and speeds on freeways alongside cars... well. at least i felt like a pseudo-SF resident for a few hours :P
in meantime, am still desperately trying to clear my room.... why do i have so much junk! also savoring my last 2 weeks or so and giving myself excuses to devour unfortunately highly fattening ice-creams, such as the heavenly Dublin mudslide....

this afternoon i resumed status as pedestrian cum bus-passenger... it was a little sad to see my Honda go, but also have to admit it was a heavy load off my chest! and though i got a cashier's check from the buyer, repeated warnings of fraud and reminder of how easily i get cheated by ppl from dad succeeded in making me somewhat nervous that check might not go through... but it did :) tmr my family leaves for Singapore... aside from the daily petty squabbles and some difficulty in adapting to the environment and food, have to say nothing really terrible happened. just have to mentally prepare myself for restricted freedom and some other compromises when i go home.... but will worry about those in 2 weeks' time. unfortunately, i've had SO SO much rich food the past two weeks (esp the past week!!) that waistline has suffered as a result. sigh. have to go on diet when i get home. though i dun forsee myself being too successful, considering how good food will be cheap and extremely accessible. oh well, perhaps when i find that i dun fit into the usual sizes when shopping for working clothes, vanity will motivate me hehe.

tomorrow afternoon i part with my dear Honda-- we've had the most unusual 'relationship'... i'm neither rich nor skilled, yet i drive a nice Honda Accord EX Coupe with a powerful V6 engine... of course it isn't super luxurious, but luxurious enough for a poor (ex) student like me who would prob never be able to afford something like that for a long long time after i go home :P it's alright; at least i ceng2 jing1 yong1 you3...
took it for a last long drive this afternoon in the brilliant weather... and though i meant to go to the lighthouse at the Marin Headlands, i stumbled across a mini gem of a beach at the Headlands... the water and waves were so beautiful... (the experience would have been more enjoyable without a certain voice nagging at me to put on my sweater haha) winds were kinda chilly, but weather was great. i'll really miss the combination of warm sun, cool winds and blue cloudless skies... and i've decided that i like the Bay Area the best (out of all the places i've been to in California) perhaps it's also cos i've done the most here; have had many happy moments and memories here...

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

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

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

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

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

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

PEIS (IAS) commencement

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

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

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

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

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

stress!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Berkeley's cherry blossoms?

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

A planner's concerns

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

Black bottom muffins

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

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

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

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

good guys and good friends

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

i think i really worry too excessively sometimes. to the extent that i appear totally unconvincing. to the extent that it undermines my abilities to perform...would like to think that i am no longer my old worrisome self, and it might appear like i'm not, esp since i complain less on my blog... but ultimately i think a leopard doesn't change its spots that easily... haha. oh well. yeah i want to stop doing it, cos it's clearly very detrimental for my ego. it's funny-- ppl like others to think well of them, yet whenever i feel like ppl falsely believe that i'm better than what i really am, i just feel extremely uncomfortable... sigh. why i have such a character trait really baffles me at times. can one be trained to not worry/worry less?

though Shi Min at 12.16 pm 26th April is starving, headachey and was scared out of her wits (having only completed the entire thing 45 min before it was due) I am extremely relieved and proud to announce that i'm done with my thesis!!! haha though i dun really think it's a product i will feel very proud of... at least i made it!!!

sadly i will still have to stay in comp lab for some time more (rushed back after running to IAS office to give prof my thesis) to print another copy for my other reader and yet another one for the dept.... technically i have time to make changes... but i think i'm really too relieved to bother ;P

i shall stop here. i dun think i can write properly now...

i realized to my horror 30 min ago that i traced the last bit of my Yangtze River wrongly.... sorry for being misleading. aargh i have to do it all over again!!! =( can't wait for everything to be over...

The Yangtze

please bear with me. this is a picture i just manually crayoned and scanned for inserting into my thesis and though it's not spectacular or anything it just made me very happy how i manipulated it to fit my own thesis... =P i've been staring at it for some time. yes, i admit it. i'm still some visual freak at heart. should be moving on to more important things like writing the actual stuff!!! but anyways, you dun have anything to lose from reading this educational entry ;P you learn that 1) The mighty Yangtze River flows across both Chongqing Municipality (in yellow) and Jiangsu Province (in green) and you learn 2) roughly where the Three Gorges Dam site is!! you must be wondering...... what kinda weird thesis is Shi Min writing...

about 5 more days to freedom (or doom)

i totally could not have predicted what i am actually doing with my thesis this last week, the way i am trying to thread everything together to make a cohesive argument... seriously, i should have done this a long time ago... i feel so panicky now since i dun even know if i have the time to tweak everything to fit into the argument i want to make, much less (lest?) tighten it or make revisions to the complete draft... and mind is processing info extremely slowly. i'm doing my last min get-everything-together act for thesis really, like i usually do for my smaller papers, just over a much longer timeframe and so last week= last day for normal papers....
and when you own a disorganized, cannot-link-everything together-till-the-eleventh-hour brain like mine, you unfortunately end up doing a lot more work than you really need to. and so i'm looking at these Excel-ed tables and data, which i put into my previous submission, which i spent whole afternoons looking up in the library, that totally add nothing to my argument if i insert them this time round. you can't help but feel like slapping yourself. you feel like just inserting them even into the appendix or something... but alas! though it was hard work doing that would really be hua4 she2 tian1 zu2-ing.

It was a mistake...
(frivolous entry about great (?) leaders' regrets after reading about two in a row)

just discovered (online) and added this Deng Xiaoping quote into my thesis cos i was somehow awed by his admitting his mistake (though it probably wasn't that serious a mistake anyways) but so anyway in his famous South China tour in 1992, Deng apparently said,

"Shanghai has apparent economic advantages in terms of personnel, technology, and management. Looking back, one of my mistakes is that when I began the special economic zone program, I missed out Shanghai [emphasis mine]. If I had included the city, development in the Yangtze River Delta, the entire Yangtze River Valley, or even the entire country would be different."

dun ask me why i (instinctively) felt so strongly for this statement... haha. perhaps when i first read it i put myself in his shoes and tried to really imagine how he must have felt...

along the same lines, but perhaps not even 1/100 as significant, (i read on the Straits Times somewhere) that Lee Kuan Yew apparently said it was a mistake that he rejected Formula One's bid to hold the event in Singapore in the 1960s or something....

alright. haha i'm not trying to make any point here. just taking a break. better get back to typing.

i've been seeing a lot of weather-related news these couple of days; the recent (unwelcome) wet weather in Berkeley has also made me think more about the weather--it appears that while we humans have been able to pretty much tame (or should i say meddle with?) many 'forces of nature'... (i guess i'm thinking more along lines of medical advances, like cloning, organ reproduction and such) we still aren't that successful with the weather. i dun even mean natural disasters like earthquakes and volcano eruptions and such... just normal weather conditions... we still pretty much have to live with whatever happens every single day... it certainly isn't fun to wake up one day to find your house/car/whatever covered with sand! (like Beijing residents did yesterday?) or to have floods destroy your entire home... but then again, i guess i would still very much prefer to have no control over the weather, but instead live with it (at least we're lucky enough to have pretty reliable weather forecasts these days!) life would be increasingly unexciting if we manage to have everything at our beck and call? i would feel cheated if say every sunny day were due to human requests for sunny days (if that is ever possible...) or if we know for sure that there will be snow every Christmas....

The last stretch

came home yesterday evening after a tiring long day at sch to find a small parcel sitting at my door... it was filled with Easter goodies, including a candy cane with this bunny perched right on top of the colorful cane... feel like i have a fairy godmother somewhere in LA haha. ;P so that sweet gesture really made my day. came home feeling like there's still a lot of work to be done in the remaining 10 days or so, but somehow i failed to do any work yesterday. but i think i deserved a tiny break, after a crazy week... anyway, time for work soon!

for the first time ever..... i overslept and missed my jap class! aargh. this is the second time this week; on tues i intentionally skipped Jap to study for midterm; today i actually woke up at 430 am to try to read the thesis drafts i have to read by Friday, but unfortunately got so tired by around 6am that i decided to take a nap.... sigh. haven't been managing work very well this week. doesn't help that i will still have to finish reading all these thesis drafts and study for Jap quiz all by tmr. but when i put things in perspective, i have no reason at all to complain. i say this cos i watched this really depressing short documentary on undocumented Mexican workers for my Geog section this morning... millions risk their lives crossing borders and navigating through deserts just to get better jobs in the US so that they can support their families back home... (and so this documentary was on how one guy died in the process and they interviewed his family members etc) while i'm really touched how simple desires for their loved ones to have better lives can motivate these individuals to undertake such dangerous tasks; at the same time i feel extremely saddened that terrible economic circumstances forced many to have to express their love for their families in such a way.

That is a lego plane Kai gave me on Sunday morning for 'flying back to sg'. Though he didn't make it (his dad made it for him) it was pretty generous of him to give it to me! (maybe for the time being though. but still...) ya. i guess occasionally we re-establish ties. sometimes i wish i interacted more with my housemates... these days i've been out so much doing work that i dun see them that much anymore. =(
the past few days have been extremely distressing for me. not just cos bad things/deadlines/midterm all come at one go, but also cos good things come at the worst of times. and that makes me pretty upset. sometimes i get so pissed with myself for being unable to shut off emotions when the need arises =(

Fun with photoshop

i am still getting cheap thrills out of turning my picture from this.....

to this!!!
i seriously LOVE this effect. last week after i lamented how Spring is nowhere to be found in Berkeley, flowers like these started blooming at certain spots on campus. i believe they are some kind of cherry blossoms... so... armed with my digicam days later i set off to record their transient bloom... hehe. traces of the week-long rain can be seen on the petals.... :)

my 'cute cute meimei' (that's what she calls herself!) asked if i wanted to be her piano accompanist (if there's such a word) for her violin exam this September.... i felt so touched that i was asked! (considering how lan4 i prob am now) i am SO rusty now that i fear i might wreck her exam.... hehe. perhaps it will motivate me to pick up piano all over again when i get home. =)

decided to take walk home today since weather was unusually good. finally one sunny day after weeks of rain! and i was rewarded with an Epicurean discovery- this new gourmet take-out place along Shattuck. i had the most delicious eggplant socca from Socca Oven, even though i dun particularly fancy eggplants =P (i learnt this when deciding whether or not to try a socca- it's a Provencal chickpea flour flat bread cooked in a very hot oven and the place i got it from sells a variety of soccas with toppings like cod, chicken, lamb and even scallops!) will definitely be back to try other non-vegetarian flavors.... but i'll have to spend a couple more bucks. it feels like a very yuppie kinda place... there's also gelato, tea, sushi and gourmet choc! i'm adding it to the list of food places i can bring my parents to =)

Japanese classes are getting more and more interesting-- mainly because conversations we read deal a lot more with Japanese culture. this week's conversations talk about unequal gender treatment in Japan; how many women get stuck in OL-type (office lady) clerical jobs... how it's very common for husbands to not come home for dinner after work... how male students get more opportunities to voice their own opinions.... Senseis remind us that our textbook was written in 1994 and so things are probably different today but it appears that Japan is still pretty patriachal... the OL issue reminds me of all the Jap dramas... Aki in Pride was an OL; i remb the funny GA 2 show about gung-ho office ladies... i really want to see for myself what it's really like!

sent off my Japanese homestay application yesterday.... i really hope i get it! then i'll be able to judge for myself. but Shibahara sensei also says that homestay families are usually more progressive (having received many foreigners in their homes) and so they are prob diff from the more conservative ppl in the countryside... hmm. sigh. the horrible weather makes me want to stay under my comforter all day... but Japanese is enjoyable enough to make me get out of bed. i wished i could spend more time on it though =(

Where is Spring?

i guess ppl can interpret this in any way they want... i feel like i'm asking this question wrt a variety of contexts also... more literally, browsing through my DC pictures (i was just being random) made me feel somewhat nostalgic. i do miss those pretty cherry blossoms. (so picked one and ran funny photoshop effect on it, and ta-da... you get the pic on the left. i love how they aren't individual flowers anymore, but diff shades of pretty pink. you can click on it to enlarge it! =P) daylight savings has just deprived me an hour of sleep without giving me the clear blue skies that Spring is supposed to bring. horrible rainy weather at Berkeley seems to be perpetual...

Green tea obsession

this probably marks the 'height' of my "love affair" with green tea and so i decided to document my green tea posessions at the moment. hehe i believe it shall wear off soon and i shall get tired of eating all things green tea. but who knows? =P anyway, from the right foreground (in anticlockwise direction) i have green tea powder for baking from shu; the green tea pocky box; Maeda-En Green Tea Ice Cream from Yaoya San Jap Supermart; green tea milk candies i got from Ranch; and sticks of pocky biscuits coated with green tea mousse... hehe.

shi min has been a pretty good girl all week. i REALLY tried my best to do work. amidst haircuts, jap dramas, jap homestay application essays, dinner meetings and falling asleep. and i mean i accomplished quite a bit, but there's still SO MUCH more to be done for thesis. that makes me somewhat sad. =(

hair woes

yes-- still cannot get over recent haircut and so will blog about all my bad haircut experiences... hehe. i mean this one isn't that bad... but it really could have been better... =P

sad to say, my thick black hair seems to be some kinda nemesis for most hairdressers.... usually, as soon as i sit down, hairdresser will go.... "you're hair's very thick" (sigh, i also know, but what can i really do about it? unfortunately no one really realizes how detrimental such comments can be for my tiny, easily-bruised ego) plus, as soon as they get their hands on my hair, they'll usually shred.... and shred..... and shred.... till i become concerned and say, "erm... i dun think i want it too short here.. it will stick out..." but my concerns usually dun hav much weight and at the end of it all i'll usually feel like i have no hair.. =( second most common thing they will say is... your hair's kinda wavy.... do you want to straighten it? (actually sometimes i do, but then... i really prefer my natural curls to those potentially hideous straight long locks and so sadly for the hairdressers, they dun get to earn my money)... that day and one other time, hairdresser said to me.... "i think your hair is too black, do you want some highlights?" erm but how can hair be "too black"... black is just black what. hmph. =(

what's going on!

just came across this pic on Straits Times Interactive, which showed Genting International's artist impression of the Marina Integrated Resort... with "two towers shaped to look like double helixes"... i remb reading not too long ago about how they are gonna try to build this world-class bridge at the Marina, also with some double-helix exterior or something.... so weird. what's with having all these life-size double helix structures... is there a recent architectural obsession with it or something? or has it always been popular and i've just not been aware of it? or am i being too impressionistic and hav just 'extrapolated' a single urban devt project in sg to the entire world? =P

i wish spring break wun ever end... not having to wake up at 7am every single weekday morning is such a luxury =P
it seems like from time to time i'll end up with one of those haircuts that makes me look somewhat like i'm still in sec two. oh well.
discovered green tea Pocky at Ranch today!!!

last Spring Break

and so my last Spring Break officially started on Friday. and though i resolved to work hard on thesis, i guess i've been kinda chilling out and doing a lil work here and there... prob hav to get serious starting tomorrow. at this point, i think i've somewhat convinced that i can prob never be an academic kinda person =P i think about issues, i like to learn about the world, but my brain just doesn't seem to be too good at organizing everything that i encounter/ read... i'm really not good at digging out all those details needed to really flesh out a thesis. that said, i never regretted writing up that pok prospectus that got me into the class!
that aside, i'm also beginning to think a little more seriously about what comes next. mum nags at me everytime she calls to remb to put my car up for sale-- i would so miss my dear Honda. i shall be once again relegated to a MRT passenger in about 2 to 3 months' time. hehe but not like i want to drive anyway-- public transport in sg is efficient enough.. plus save the earth... plus... i'll prob get lost everywhere and end up being late for everything =P and... no more running around in comfy skechers sneakers... it's a little funny it's prob things you do that sometimes define your "mental age"... i'm still gonna be 23 but like i will have to start acting like a proper adult kinda =P how stressful. =(

down but not out

after a pretty gruelling session this evening, i half felt like my world was falling apart and that my next 4 weeks would be pure hell. but at the same time, i also felt like i probably can't find a better bunch of classmates (and prof) anywhere else. i feel like there's so much i can learn from other ppl... at this point in time, i feel sorry for having made all these inaccurate preliminary judgements about my classmates. on the contrary, they are probably some of the smartest and worldly ppl i've come across. and i dunno why this is the case, but i feel so slow-witted in comparison. like SERIOUSLY. i wonder if it's just me, or if it's cos i still can't break away from the way of learning that i was brought up on, or if my character has something to do with it.... and i should be totally ashamed to confess this, but it was probably only about 4 hours ago that it finally dawned on me what it really takes to write a good, proper thesis. and if tragedy really befalls mine, i can at least console myself that there were all these other things that i took away from the class...but of course i hope i can avert that tragedy. and it's really up to me how i want it to turn out eventually. but right now, i'm so exhausted and brain dead that i need to conk out soon.
(this was written last night but server was down and so i couldn't publish it then)

Fraud alert

discovered an hour ago that i fell victim to an online credit card fraud some time last week without even realizing it!! relieved that i wun be liable for the fraudulent charges but it suddenly made me VERY aware that i should always be EXTREMELY cautious with divulging personal info over the internet... so how did i get tricked? remb i mentioned those pok emails that try to make ppl enter into business partnerships that were obviously fake? so this trap came in the form of an email too, (ironically and i guess cleverly) warning me that there has been fraudulent activity on my account and telling me that i should log into my acct to verify my info etc... can't remb exact wording. and fraudsters did an excellent job imitating the Chase interface that i didn't even suspect that it was fake... and stupidly clicked on link and entered info. now that i think about it, that link prob led to the fraudsters' victim database (which also looked totally authentic)... i'm actually also reminded of this similar Citibank email that was circulating prob a year ago.. this is the prob the very first fake Chase email i've gotten... oh well. i was really careless too. certainly a nasty shock, but definitely alerted me to the lurking possibilities of online credit card fraud!

just watched a Three Gorges documentary at Wheeler. i'm probably repeating myself, but just really appreciate how documentaries often bring the lives of ppl in obscure places to the outside world... i went for this 2.5 hr-long screening mainly cos i'm doing a case study on Chongqing now and recently found out that one of the government's big challenge was to relocate the residents living around the dam area... and i came across provincial publications that said things like... this year we successfully relocated this many folks.... but in reality, as the documentary shows, there's so much more to it. when HUGE national construction projects like this get implemented, yeah, it's good for the economy, it provides hydroelectric power... but at the same time so many ppl are literally FORCED out of their homes... so many lives get disrupted... notices with seemingly arbitrary deadlines for evacuation are just put up on doors, walls etc and residents are expected to be able to relocate themselves (there's also like compensations etc but like everything seems rather confusing and poorly managed and many ppl get left out etc). to force ppl to evacuate by a certain date, electricity and water supplies eventually get cut off and the film shows these probably dangerous and unprofessional ways of doing it- ppl literally sawing off pipes and sticking pieces of wood into them to stop the flow; after demolition of buildings workers try to get some cash for scrap metal/ bricks or something and the ways they went about doing it just made me really fear for their safety...

i dunno, actually seeing what it might be like for myself kinda puts everything into perspective. 'extrapolating' this to my own research topic--i can read all the academic papers in the world, look at all my primary sources; but not having witnessed things actually going on at the ground level just impairs my overall understanding... it made me rethink what i've been doing. i wonder what all the statistics i have for urban-rural income inequality translates into in reality... what does it mean to have an annual income of 2500 yuan? sadly i wun hav the time nor opportunity to find out before i turn in my thesis. but it made me realize what REAL research really entails.

i probably just wrecked my eyesight-- watching the remaining 6 episodes of PRIDE late last night and this morning, after half a night of thesis typing and almost a week of staring at thesis on computer screens.... but it was seriously addictive. even though plot isn't that unpredictable; i fell for all the soppy stuff all the same and prob cried away 1/4 of my tissue box... haha! not only that, there's just the friendship, the 'brotherhood' stuff and good sideplots that made me really love this show... =P and now the instrumental pieces are just ringing in my head.... haha. aiyah, i think sometiems you just cannot be too cynical if you want to enjoy these dramas... not that i really believe that such things happen in real life, but all the same i really admire ppl who can produce things that really touch ppl's hearts.

the "backstage crew"

just like how the backstage crew is often overlooked, librarians in my opinion face the same 'occupation hazard'... i think ppl always think about researchers themselves who write brilliant papers without thinking so much about ppl who help in the process of locating sources... the 2 librarians at the Center for Chinese Studies Library have been so kind and helpful and i've been wanting to blog about how professional and nice they are. but to date i haven't written about them, so it shall be the topic for today=P I was especially touched today, cos when i stepped in this afternoon, the head librarian came up to me with a bunch of books containing possible documents related to this 1982 document i was hunting for yesterday... and i was just really touched cos i just asked them a question and they went all out to look for the materials for me... and this is not the first time! plus ever since i became a regular at the library, the other librarian reserved this mini table in an obscure corner of the library just for me to put all the books i need but never finish looking through whenever i visit... well sometimes they are a little overenthu and 'shower' me with irrelevant info, but they are really well-intentioned and i just feel so thankful to have them around in the library.... i definitely have to remb to send some baked goods their way when everything is finally completed! =)

this week will be spent mostly on piecing together my submission 2 (due on Friday) and though i have quite a lot of time this week to work on it, i'm still deeply worried-- mainly cos am working with case studies that i knew NOTHING about till like 1.5 weeks ago... and hav to try to come up with convincing and coherent argument by sieving out all the info i found... i dunno. just feel so risky and insecure. perhaps i'm starting to suffer the consequences of turning in some chapalang prospectus at the end of last semester....

i started watching my new Jap drama last night and watched two episodes over dinner just now.... but i find myself starting to get hooked! =P help. thought it's good for 'unwinding' after working on thesis.... now it seems like it's substituting work time hehe =P though the Japanese still speak too fast for me and i still dun get a lot of what they say, it's somehow "music to my ears" =P
and i had the tastiest instant jap yakisoba for dinner just now! it even comes with a tiny packet of mayo! shall hunt for other flavors at Ranch tmr =P

SIGH. parking enforcement officer must be thinking... this girl must be too rich- fined her twice for street sweeping her big fat car still parked there this time round... yes- I FORGOT to shift my car again! aargh. i have nothing to say... 100% my fault. i feel like strangling myself. just woke up from a good nap; it's raining outside and laptop weatherbug reports temp of around 4C... Kai and friend are occasionally popping up at my door telling me about the monsters they have been shooting in the living room...

the past three days have been packed- i worked hard and played hard so had absolutely no time to blog =P finally have a teeny bit of time now though. just ended thesis seminar- i have so much catching up to do but at least i feel kinda motivated! random things i learnt in past 3 days-
1) forget about driving to downtown SF in the day. we couldn't find any parking meter that allowed us to park for more than 30 min-- found a faulty meter but apparently you can use this SF card to pay so didn't know whether the meter was really faulty or not so after like 15 min of indecision and scrutiny of adjacent parking meters we finally drove off to a private parking garage and ended up forking out $10 for parking.... =(
2) that i am a highly forgetful girl--for the very first time, i forgot to screw on fuel cap tightly after refueling gas tank, which resulted in malfunction indicator lamp coming on-- which freaked me out and made me think i had to send in car for diagnosis-- got upset that evil mechanics charge exorbitant prices just to see what's wrong..... in the end lamp went off itself, confirming that it was untight fuel cap problem.... so no worries now =) then this afternoon, cos of rush to finish reading classmates' thesis drafts... totally forgot i signed up for Prof's office hours and so had to send email to apologize... sigh hope prof doesn't think too badly of me now...
3) went shopping but realized that there are so many things i want to buy. but too poor to afford them. plus had to take into consideration practical issues like bringing these things HOME...

A hiragana stamp set!

a REALLY cute present from shu... (due to space constraints i only managed to take the top half of the entire stamp set)

muddled thoughts before bed

shu's visiting tmr! wanted to get a lot of work done today, but was sadly too ambitious. and had to battle the cold in living room (landlords are away and told me how to operate heater, but i was unsure how much i could use it and so ended up using it somewhat sparingly) so not very conducive for doing work. plus got somewhat bored reading about women's movements in Mexico plus terrified how some ppl can write like 30 pages of thesis in a breeze. haha not really making sense. but was convinced that it's really time for me to rescue my nonexistent thesis. though circumstances aren't really permitting me to really do so next week... but i WILL! late next week.... (i sound somewhat slack huh but really am not. quite stressed how i hav no idea what direction thesis is heading plus WISH i had someone to translate those confusing Chinese technical terms for me...)

i just shamelessly tried to persuade Courtney to visit me one last time within the next couple of months, cos it recently struck me how i'm gonna be leaving here for good in about 3 months' time... =( in a way it's certainly not as bad for me as for some ppl, since i only have like 3 good American friends here i'll really miss... and i dun even get to see them all that often... and not that i don't want to go home, but i really can't imagine what it will be like. in past 4 years, i've never been home for more than 2.5 months continuously and i dunno, the uncertainty and fear that i'll never be allowed out of the country for an extended period of time again also deeply worries me...and i'm gonna start WORK! i can't be AS and whole day do my own thing anymore haha... oh well. shouldn't be doing all this premature worrying =P i've got more 'immediate' things to worry bout...

Spit not.....

In view of the 2008 Olympic games, the Beijing government has apparently declared war on spitting... so how's the government's gonna ensure that this campaign meets its goals? according to this article, Police have been ordered out on to the streets to track down offenders. Closed circuit television cameras will be used to catch them in the act. erm... that seems pretty scary to me, esp given that spitting might have 'developed' into some kinda involuntary/reflex action for some folks. In addition, Hundreds of uniformed "mucus monitors" will patrol the streets handing out free spitting bags. Now, this seems funny... I do wonder how successful this campaign will be, having witnessed this 'rampant' spitting myself =P Oh well, i shouldn't read too much into this report; maybe reporter has intentionally/unintentionally sensationalized this piece of news...

feeling poor

it's been such a long time since i last splurged on an expensive meal and so when i spent $27 for dinner on Sunday i actually felt rather xintong... was also just a teeny bit surprised that my dinner mates appear to treat $30 or so for dinner as no big deal... but oh well if i actually remember to move my car to the opposite side of the road during street sweepings, nasty fines paid to the City of Berkeley can buy me at least one or two good meals =(

and so i sleepily turned 23...

i clearly would have slept through 12am if not for the knocks on my window, from two dear girls who brought me a matcha green tea cheesecake! though according to chief baker cake isn't supposed to be as flattened nor as lemony as it turned out to be (baker too critical of product though), nothing at all mars the sweet gesture itself. =)

Treasure what we have...

thanks to Jacqui, i was sent an attachment full of thought-provoking pictures taken in China. Some touched me more than others, but nothing speaks to me more than this:

this was titled "Ku1 qi4 de4 lao3 ren2" and cos i can't type Chinese on this i'm just gonna paste the accompanying caption-
The old man sells roast yam for a living. Because he doesn’t have a license, his tools were confiscated and his tricycle was smashed, its chain cut. All the old man can do is to sit there and cry. Tomorrow…

it really hit me how poverty can make one totally helpless and hopeless... if he were a beggar, I would feel a lot less for him, but this man was trying so hard to make a living...

There were two other powerful images in the attachment, but cos one was merely titled "Mu3 Ai4" it was impossible to google for it; the other merely had a caption. The one on mother love depicts two pairs of mother and child; the poor woman had her child bundled up on her back while she polished her client's (a child) shoe. This kid (i presume) is from a relatively well-off family (as suggested by the woman in fur coat standing behind him). The photographer's clever juxtaposition of these two pairs immediately sent a clear and powerful message....

The other picture showed this couple trying to push a bicycle cart together (i think)... The lady in the picture only had one leg and she hobbled along with one hand on the cart and the other on her crutch... the guy's face can't be seen, but from his movements one can tell he is exerting a lot of strength to get the cart to move. think they are transporting something but i can't tell what. the lady, despite a 'disability' many would deem devastating, had this radiant smile on her face... i guess it's really difficult to guess what the real story is from ONE snapshot, but it appears that she's happy.... and the caption that went along with this picture was "No rose, no diamond ring, but if this is not love, what is love?"

Well it might be true that sometimes pictures are 'exploited' to draw sympathy from people, but i'm sure that there are so many sad stories out there that we haven't seen or heard. hmm what's my point of this entry. i dunno... i guess it really does remind me how fortunate i am. yet whole day complain about little things.

Mardi Gras: Made in China was one of the films featured in the Humans Rights Watch International Film Fest at the Pacific Film Archive. it was certainly a very interesting and good documentary that raises several difficult/controversial questions... not that i'm sadistic or something, but in my opinion, the main question should be about globalization... rather than human rights issues; technically speaking, viewing it from US standards, yes, the living conditions aren't great.... but from what i've seen in China so far, the living conditions really aren't that bad. yes, they work really long hours, but as the documentary shows, these girls really do get more money working at the factories.... so i think sometimes it really boils down to whether those individuals themselves think it's really that intolerable.... sometimes i just feel... who are we to say what's good or what's bad for them?

a really cool thing the director did was this mini cultural exchange thingy. so he went to streets of New Orleans to interview partying ppl if they knew where the beads came from- many of them didn't know and didn't care; in China, many of the girls didn't even know what the beads/ Mardi Gras paraphernalia were used for, how much they could be sold for etc...and when shown pictures of American girls stripping for beads these Chinese girls felt totally embarrassed for them... i just thought it was interesting that alongside themes on globalization, stark differences in cultures were also highlighted...

was researching Hayao Miyazaki for my Jap essay and i came across this interview excerpt from Jan 2006:

YS - You have received a number of prizes, including the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002 and an Oscar for best animated feature film in 2003 for Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), which first came out in 2001. Hauru no Ugoku Shiro also was awarded the Osella prize for outstanding technical contribution at the Venice International Film Festival.

MIYAZAKI - Prizes do not mean anything to me. I think it is more important to make a child aware of the existence of a weird creature like a water spider that breathes through its backside.

In Yadosagashi, the leading character, a girl, encounters a lot of bugs when she spends a night at an empty house. The insects stop approaching her after she draws a line between herself and them.

That kind of thing would never happen in real life. But children like to play with these kinds of rules that stop you from crossing some kind of boundary. I think it is important to hold on to that kind of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life. That is why the girl observes civilities [toward bugs, trees and shrines].

His first statement, that prizes dun mean anything, and the example of what is more impt to him... just made me really impressed. well, perhaps one can say that he can afford to say such things since he's so accomplished, widely-acclaimed and all, but still, i would give him a benefit of the doubt and believe that he really thinks these little things are important... such an attitude is just very admirable in my opinion.

also, in the last paragraph where he says "it is important to hold on to that kinda of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life..." i just feel like the world would be so much better if more ppl think this way. you know, just have some basic respect for all the living things around you... ok not to be extreme lah, not like let all the mosquitoes suck your blood as much as they want kinda thing u know.... but like if some bug is just crawling along a window ledge, just let it be... like dun try to kill it or something?? (the difficult thing though for me is i sometimes dunno where to draw the line...eg. sometimes i get really scared and just want it to go away and in the process might unintentionally murder it)

along these lines, i once was very impressed with my landlord. i think Kai once wanted to kill a bug. then he got a scolding from his dad (and started crying...) but my landlord didn't really care that much about his wailing and made it a point to drill it into his little mind that it is NOT ok to try to harm any living thing.... haha this 'poor' little kid also got another scolding once when he tried to scare a pet bird our neighbor (who went away for a few days) brought over... i was just really impressed how he tried to teach the kid about the world, and how he really tries to instill this sense of respect for living things into Kai...

I borrowed the documentary War Photographer from Elephant Pharmacy yesterday...this film follows renowned photojournalist James Nachtwey through some of his assignments in Kosovo, Indonesia and the West Bank (among others) and answered one question that frequently came to mind-- how are these photographers able to take close-ups of grieving people, corpses, riots, conflicts and what not? you just really have to be there. and not only do you take shots; you also experience the smells, the sounds, the dirt, the horror yourself... while some choose to take pictures from a distance, some really go close up and go all out... and it can be a really dangerous profession at times...

i have also always wondered why people would allow photographers to capture them in their very worst moments... but as James Nachtwey put it in the film, because they also realize that it's a way of letting the world know about the injustice that's happening to them, that these pictures are perhaps the only way (and a very powerful one too) they can reach out for help....(i'm not quoting him, just rephrasing what i think he said) i just think it's so cool, to have individuals like him willing to take on that responsibility...

to see some of James Nachtwey's work, you can go to his gallery

i had the luxury of chatting online with 'old friends' this morning and ended up chatting for almost 4 hours! with ppl coming on and going off one after another. and so i got to talk to huining, ting, sumei, crys, jeannice, jun all in one morning! certainly made me very happy =) and post-first draft submission, i decided to finally download the newest version of MSN... cos ppl hav been telling me (for a year or so!!) how 'behind the times' i am haha. realized that the add-ons and animated stuff can be rather cute. cept for someone's animated 'OK' hehe... (sorry, crys)

it's been especially cold this week...

i figured i do have 2 min to blog about this. Gmail chat automatically turns your horizontal smilies the right side up!!! just a tiny feature, but extremely cute.

the above is a total rip-off from a Carlton card i saw at Target. but I was too cheap to actually buy it... sorry i'm 'cheating' but i absolutely have no time to do anything for anyone really so drew it to wish everyone who visits this blog a Happy Valentine's! (hehe not wasting it too and giving original to Courtney for being really sweet to me when i visited) i thought it was kinda cute. i'm stuck on every one of you in a friendly kinda way you know =) thanks for bothering to find out what's going on with me... i might not be in frequent contact with each and every one of you but all of you occupy some spot in my heart! =)
prob wun hear from me for rest of week though cos i am unfortunately in quite a dire state for research... so ya.

(V-day) commercialism

i couldn't resist blogging about this. hmmm i really dun get how looking alike makes couples bond... apparently some Shanghai couples don't think so... Imagine this... hey why dun we get matching eyes or noses for V-day?
i like how the report ends with this subtle line: The China Consumers Association has warned that there are an average of 20,000 complaints of disfigurement from plastic surgery each year.

sometimes heart attacks can come at the most unexpected and inappropriate of times... but fortunately my heart isn't as faint as it used to be and i'm happy that i can at least deal with issues with sufficient maturity to emerge a better and also happier person... unfortunately this week heart shall be subject to other attacks such as panicking over deadlines. the most worrying thing in mind right now is first draft for thesis due on Friday. (nothing has been written so far!) doesn't help that i hav major problem set due on Thursday... technically can burn midnite oil on Thursday night, but i don't want to end up all lethargic for Fri afternoon session at CHAI and ruin another opportunity to build up a good relationship with my new kid... so lotsa time juggling to do here...

the little guy

ppl who read my blog last sem would probably hav read about Kai and one or two CHAI kids... so today a new little guy entered my life... and totally swept me away =P it was the first time working alone (for the most part) with little N (for client confidentiality we aren't really allowed to disclose names) and he's so affectionate it makes me want to melt... little N was shy initially but after a slightly painful game (for me!!!) of pulling and releasing the rubber band on my wrist he kinda decided... ok this person doesn't seem that scary after all... and should be reliable and can cosy up to her... and so from time to time after playing for a lil bit he will just come up to me and just like totally fall into my arms... CONTRARY to what many ppl have been telling me (those who joke accuse me of being a paedophile; others say i have maternal instincts) I think it's just a very natural human instinct to want to reciprocate such a pure/innocent desire to want to feel loved (on the part of the kid) with affection.
well sad to say this, but i think him being so cute intensifies this instinct.... (i dunno who told me this, unfortunate as it may sound, apparently studies have shown that babies do have higher tendency to cry or something when they see an uglier face) but even though we are somewhat predisposed to liking ppl who look better, it is so so impt to always bear in mind that it's getting to know a person's character that really counts... that behind each and every ugly or pretty face it's a person with feelings.... makes me think about pets too; and an old SPCA poster that used to to hang on my side of the bedroom wall- it pictured an extremely cute terrier, with a caption which went something like... To you he's just a pet, but to him you're the world.... i just hope for the sake of all these living creatures that their owners are aware of the fact that they are dealing with precious lives here, not just thingies they can just discard and cast aside when they are bored with them.... alright sorry for sounding so preachy but i mean these are really important things in life what. hmm. and i have digressed quite a bit from original topic. =P

tickled by other ppl's V-day blues

now that it's drawing closer to Valentine's Day, are individuals panicking about what to give that special someone?? (i do acknowledge that V-Day is not just about romance but it still is dominantly portrayed and perceived that way right) and it also appears that this fretting seems to be a lot more severe among the male population? well perhaps i'm wrong but just an hour ago i was consulted by a panicky guy friend who didn't know what to do for his gf on V-day... wanted to be original and sincere but then so lazy some more.... tsk tsk. my deepest sympathies goes out to all those guys wishing to please their girlfriends.... if V-day is for lovers, why is it so heavily biased against the poor guys...(however in Japan guys get chocs from women on V-day! though they have to like return the favor a month later on White Day) like to a large extent, guys are still somewhat expected to take the initiative... foot dinner bills etc? no? perhaps i'm guilty of thinking this way too but suddenly i'm just like... why should this be the case? sometimes i find myself holding some expectations of things, yet I never really thought critically about where these expectations came from and whether they are still relevant... sometimes certain (dated) social norms are so hard-wired into our brains that we dun even think about whether they actually make sense or not.

oh well... anwyay, in some ways, i'm somewhat happy to be out of the game... and to be able to laugh and poke fun at ppl like *ahem* =P

it's very interesting to take small classes such as thesis classes where you get to read other ppl's work and talk about them.... and some pretty amusing (but perhaps not that surprising) things i observed today-- that ppl seem pretty good at pointing out ways forward/ things to look up for their peers, but can sometimes be more directionless when it comes to their own... sometimes it's really a case of pang2 guan1 zhe3 qing1. and even when other ppl point out flaws/weaknesses; some individuals can unabashedly declare 'i dunno'... without displaying slightest sign of embarrassment... i mean I'm totally capable of breaking down or something! oh well. i'm talking about Americans here. but not bad lah; i mean at least i dun feel that inferior... though i can never match up to their eloquence... but at least i feel like ppl dun seem to be able to write as well as they can argue.... =P on the other hand, i have to say though ppl have pretty good ideas and suggestions, so it's definitely a very good way to learn =) still stressed though about my own research...
on a VERY random and boliao note, the new batch of Meiji Yan Yan snacks have messages on them... but they are prob the most inconsistent messages i've ever seen! eg. i mean the Meiji Animal crackers have animals that come with respective labels; so do the vehicle crackers (ok i think you get the point) but these Yan Yan ones are just so random. so for Frog.... it says amphibian; Seal? Loves to sun tan.... Fox: Beware of Lies; Chick? lucky color is yellow...... i'm like ???!! (if i'm a kid who loves Yan Yan my world would be pretty warped if i'm constantly fed (no pun intended) these messages...)

i was sorely mistaken when i assumed that my parents were 'immune' to my travelling whims... but perhaps volunteering alone in a foreign country was different. (so they argue...) but to minimize shock, i proposed a nearby country-- Thailand. (but apparently it's prone to bird flu and recently two girls just went missing there or something; goodness knows what other even more valid reasons would have come up had i expressed even a slight intent to go to Africa....) so the initial joy from having gotten permission from HDB to not return immediately for work has turned into disappointment... well i know parents mean well but i just feel so held back that i can't help saying nasty things about incident... =( maybe i should be a 'good' girl for once huh.

How many sunsets ( here) left?

the evening skies here have been pretty amazing the past few days. this picture was randomly taken while walking down Hearst Ave... yet none of my pictures does justice to these beautiful sunsets... it's just somewhat soothing to be walking alone, while 'in the company' of skies beautifully suffused with deep yellows, pink and blue.

with submissions from other thesis class students coming in, semester is starting to get busy... attempted to read a classmate's draft this afternoon... and it certainly isn't easy trying to get into the inner workings of a "fellow muddled brain" =P but makes me feel like i'm not alone... sigh. perhaps when my draft is due two fridays from now, i'll have fellow classmates thinking the same thing about me. wonder if the other drafts are a lot more organized than the very first one i read though. i guess i'll find out over the next couple of days...
and i feel like i'm kinda settling in nicely into my semester... even though it sucks to have to get up at 8am every single day, sometimes enjoyable Jap classes really make the one/two hours loss of sleep daily worthwhile... and i'm also starting to believe strongly that no matter how busy i get, certain activities remain essential... filling in the small pockets of free time with meaningful activities like trying to prevent fat accummulation and volunteering really do 'soak up' time previously spent thinking negative or random thoughts... just hope i can keep up with this for rest of sem... =)

I walked into a beautiful sunset on my way home...

sometimes i really wonder if my ability to make judgments about issues/encounters becomes severely impaired by my emotional side. today i found myself getting really upset after some comments from a professor regarding my research approach... i'm wondering if i'm now feeling more discouraged than i really ought to because I took things personally too? probably because of the fact that i resolved last week to work hard on thesis and care less about trivial emotional stuff... only to find that even so, 'purely academic' things can make me upset too. And I dunno how i should really assess situation; did professor say what he did because of personal biases? i mean to certain extent what he said was his opinion and i am entitled to my own.... yet you have to concede that professors are probably more well-informed and familiar with their own fields of interest and probably have good reasons for being disapproving of certain things...

i guess one thing that really bothered me though was that I could tell he seemed pretty reluctant to discuss stuff with me (though at least was still pretty professional, but gave rather curt replies; i mean i am not totally insensitive so i kinda got the point...) and i dunno if it was because i was being very bothersome or was it just cos he disliked my research approach? The horrible thing is though is that I do enjoy his lectures (i've just been sitting in cos i'm interested) and for a moment i thought of just not going anymore. but then again, that's rather immature cos seriously I do learn things from his lectures lah; and i would be penalizing myself from learning new and useful things... so i have to be less childish and still go. ok. so long-winded. in short, I just thought he seemed negative about what I had to ask and me being overly sensitive to negative attitudes in other ppl got (unnecessarily?) upset...

what did i learn? 1) perhaps self-regulate and get less upset when other ppl dun seem to hold very positive views of me/what I want to do 2) try not to be discouraged, cos maybe i can prove that my way isn't that bad after all? 3) be more accepting of different POVs.... you know, I acknowledge at the back of my mind that diversity of opinions can be good. yet i can get unwittingly upset when ppl disagree... i think i tend to take disagreement too personally sometimes. how to change that... i dunno. slowly i guess.

I finally watched Ang Lee's widely acclaimed Brokeback Mountain last Friday and found it extremely saddening... and one line just lingered on in my head (and perhaps in many other ppl's heads too)... "I wish i knew how to quit you"--such a simple statement but says so much... it was a good movie. unfortunately i watched it when i was extremely tired... and sometimes i couldn't catch their accents. but.... even then you can get a lot out of it... and so i was just randomly surfing and realized that Heath Ledger (one of lead actors) starred as the romantic guy in 10 things I Hate About You too! and i remember really liking that movie (and his character in a very 'infatuated' kind of way)... but it's those kind of romantic teen movies...but a decent sort in this genre...haha. i shall hunt it down and watch it again when i have time... =P

Newly inspired

maybe Starbucks had this going for some time already, but it was only this morning while reading at Starbucks did i notice a quote printed on one side of my paper cup... and it said The Way I See it #61. It was a quote from Bill Brummel (a documentary film maker interested in human rights issues)

Imagine we are all the same. Imagine we agree about politics, religion and
morality. Imagine we like the same types of music, art, food and coffee. Imagine
we all look alike. Sound boring? Differences need not divide us. Embrace
diversity. Dignity is everyone's human right.

i thought it was such a cool idea... and i happened to get a very cool quote too. and so i've decided to rename my blog after this thingy.... =P so the next time you go to Starbucks, take a min or two to see what quote you get!

i also decided to check out the website to look for more quotes, and i chanced upon this other quote (under my new title) which means a lot to me ... given that i've actually been pondering over some of my own actions directly related to what the author was saying. Here are some bits from an interview... "it struck me that most of life is a series of reciprocal trade agreements: I give you this. You give me that. Teaching and parenting are the only exception. A teacher or parent gives, and what they get is the unparalleled experience of giving without expectation – the soul-gratifying experience of planting a tree from which you will never pluck the fruit." Later he continues, "Whether in the schoolroom, the living room, the bedroom, or the boardroom, loving forward is life’s most noble adventure. Love is a ladder; it allows us to climb out of ourselves." I think much as i try not to, i am still guilty of wanting some form of reciprocation from ppl i like... and sometimes it unwittingly gets into your head so much that, you know, you become upset when ppl dun seem to care... perhaps the way forward (to becoming a better person) is to just be more da4 liang4... and be less 'petty'.... (it's different from being bochap and indifferent, btw) easy to say but hard to do i guess. but it's really a worthwhile goal to work towards. =)

Happy New Year!

though it's still officially New Year's Eve on my side... it's New Year for the Sg/UK ppl and so... xin nian kuai le to all my dear friends. =) not doing anything special for New Year... perhaps just going for some Singaporean dinner at one of junior's houses. went with Jacqui to Chinatown this morning to look at some CNY fair... but it disappeared.. so ended up buying food from Oakland Chinatown. there were snaking lines of ppl queueing up for shao1 la4 and stuff... just for fun, i bought some char siew for my housemates to try... the funniest comments (but it's perfectly understandable for him to ask the questions he did) were from Kai-- why is it red? I think it's blood... which part of the pig is this from? but despite the doubtful comments he just popped pieces into his mouth anyways and actually found it pretty yummy... =)