can't believe that i stayed up till 245 am just to do my simple assignment for econ h195a which i am thinking of dropping... sigh. so unproductive the whole night... watched miss congeniality just now when i was supposed to do work but then i really enjoyed the show haha. trying to think of a regression equation to pen down, which isnt' even feasible but i had to turn something in by tomorrow... so... sigh. and 45 min ago my dear housemate just called me cos he was too lazy to walk to my room. surprises surprises.
am beginning to start eating a lot of junk. devoured half the packet of peanuts jacqui's mum gave us. almost half of my 1.75 quart dreyers ice cream disappeared gradually over the past week. i finished one whole packet of chips on friday evening while waiting for my housemate to go home... had better stop soon else wu yao ke jiu already.
on a brighter note, i think i am beginning to think that i can get over something that has been bugging me for very long...

me again with part of my wall.... =P 

trying to be naughty... 

instead of doing work i am doing frivolous stuff.... such as taking pictures of myself with my new DIY haircut! haha.... and since i am still not tired of my hello program i shall post them on my blog... i have so much work to do!! astro 10 midterm on monday but i know like nothing.. then homeworks to do and hav to try to find a thesis topic.. so hav to read some books such taht i can come up with something decent such that i can drop my thesis class... but i doubt that will happen. oh well...
i almost laughed my head off when chester and sumei tried to correct jacqui's way of pronouncing jap.... it was so hilarious. and am once again reminded of the joys of good company... =) actually i think ppl around me are very nice to me... but perhaps i dun show enough appreciation... was talking online some time ago when i realized why many ppl often have issues.... relationships with ppl are often so asymmetric..... how problematic that sometimes people you yearn to be close to arent keen to reciprocate... and sometimes ppl you dun really want to know better seem a lil too enthusiastic... of course i am not saying that there are undesirable ppl around me, but i'm just saying such situations lead to problems...

yay. am really excited.. cos i discovered this program which allows me to upload pictures onto my blog easily. perfect for computer/html idiots like me! =) have been wanting to post pictures for so long but i never ever succeeded.... this program "Hello" is also really cool cos it's basically like a messenger program, just that it allows ppl to share pictures almost instantly... i haven't tried to sharing with pics with frens option... but it sounds really cool... shiying, u can send pictures to mm!!
hmmm so decided to post two random pictures... one taken when i visited cambridge and one when shiying's fren came over to visit. =)
i am suddenly very inspired to revamp my blog.. but really no time lah. i dream of self-designed icons but i know that is never possible cos i really dunno all this cheem stuff. haha. but the journalism class i am taking right now, which involves blogging too (but academic blogging though) also reminds me how cool online publishing is...
there simply is no time to do all the stuff i want to do... even when i do work i can never finish my work and there never is enough time to do frivolous stuff like this... how i wish i were 100 times smarter then i wun need to study as much and yet do fine.. well not that i pia like mad now.. hmm which prob also explains why my grades aren't that great huh.... ok till next time.

at golden gate park.. 

shu cat ting and me at cambridge.... 

i got free hello panda yesterday, but cos it was "on offer".... haha. but still a nice gesture.
tried very hard to do get some work done yesterday... so went to the lib to study. well... managed to read one poli sci article and watch 3/4 of my astro lecture... the last 1/4 was spent between dozing off and waking up to jacqui's kicks to wake me up ha. that was near 1am.. so... it was quite funny that FSM had wireless and like 20 metres away there was no wireless... so for a while i sat near the tables at moffitt entrace feeling deprived.... then somehow after half an hour my laptop detected airbears and yay i had internet... didn't do anything much else lah. some admin stuff emailing ppl etc. oh well. better than if i had stayed at home i suppose.
want to drop my thesis class but cannot find a thesis adviser. bored listening to ppl talking about their finance-related thesis topics.. and craine isnt' really veyr helpful. =( and gives finance projects which i totally dun want to do... haha. like i am going to drop the class cos i dun want to do the hw. but seriously it is not helping me much at this moment.

sometimes things go fine under stress.... but sometimes they dun. good that i managed to cook 3 dishes within two hours yest, with the help of my brocolli-cutting, carrot-slicing, lemon grass-tearing, rice-cooking "yeye" (grandpa). it's really a pleasure to hang around with ppl u are comfortable with. just that u're sometimes afraid that ppl get sick of you. i am somewhat schizo these days... much as i want to hang out with ppl sometimes i also feel like being alone all day.
i think that i also think too much about what other ppl are doing. just random things that happen in ppl's lives. and then compare what is it that people have that i dun. perhaps i should think more what is it that i have that people dun and really start really treasuring them instead of being so silly.

i suddenly am feeling upset. and i dun want to do my astro 10 hw and i haven gone to lecture the whole week and didn't watch lecture so i dunno how to do also. and am not even trying. sigh. nmind shall wallow in self pity for a night. shall be good and try to go for lecture tmr.
my housemate just bought supper for us. feel so wen xin. but cannot really undo my 'upsetness'...

slept at nearly 3am yest and as a result i overslept and almost missed my class.. =) (that's when you are really thankful you dun hav to run all the way to UC village and wait for ur bus....) good thing i didnt, cos i had such a great lecture this morning!! =) think sadoulet is so good at explaining econometrics.... ok perhaps it's cos i ahve taken it before, such that whatever she said more sense to me than if i were totally new in the class... but still... i really appreciate how she really tries to get at the underlying intuition.. instead of throwing some jargon and expecting us to learn them... i have so so much work to complete this week though.. sigh. but hopefully good lectures can inspire me enough and allow me to pull through the week. i hope i can get a good night's sleep on friday..... =)

yesterday my housemate 'complimented' that i am perhaps as mature as he is. should i feel honored? haha. but somehow i do feel that i did change in a way... in that i think i am still bothered by all my insecurities and stuff... but I am somehow a little better at dealing with them now... i still get upset by stuff, but I think I am a little more rational than before... and i think it's a positive sign... since I dun get overly upset about things that i really hav no power to change. and for eg. that day i heard about someone commenting on my bad driving.. haha well i think if i were the shimin last sem or last year i would hav gotten pretty upset... but now i think i'm just like u want to think what u want to think then so be it.... haha well.... but i mean i do agree that my driving isn't that great haha. given complaints by my fellow carmate that i sometimes attempt to murder him... =) i discovered more music on rhapsody.. including instrumental pieces from the phantom of the opera... and like canon in d... it's so soothing and relaxing to just play piano pieces on ur laptop when doing stuff that doens't require 100% concentration...
cannot really believe that i lazed on sofa in shiying's house for like at least 6 hours.. after the special lunch prepared for us by ziyang....watching two brainless shows and the matrix all at one shot... complete wtih an unhealthy but yummy KFC dinner at 10pm... talk about being a couch potato =P

i just discovered this brilliant site... http://rts.berkeley.edu/rhapsody/ and i signed up since there is a free introductory offer now till Oct 31... and i have been browsing through the huge collection it has!! it's so cool... i found songs that i used to listen to.. songs that i want to listen to now... even found stuff like the sound of music sountrack. whole albums.... i can 'download' as many as i want to my 'online station' then if i want to burn a song i'll hav to pay $0.79 per song.... really quite cool. have spent the past few hours listening to the most random things too... haha ti's like 2.41 am now i had better get some sleep soon actually...
dunno why but i have been very on about music all of a sudden in the past few days... maybe to keep myself occupied whenever my mind starts to wander.... =)

all gadgets are failing me! my good old fluorescent light bulb fused two nights ago, and when i was trying to not procrastinate and fill up my whole Washington DC application this morning and the internet suddenly dc... and i realized that there was an power outage... sigh. feel slightly irritated... now i hav to type everything over again.... =(
i have many things to do, but i'm not exactly doing them... astro 10 hw, jap word quiz and honors thesis project are on my list for tomorrow.... aaargh. i could hav run some regressions on my own at home... but i chose to just like dunno do what and slack... and as a result i foresee a long long session just running various regressions in the library tmr.... =( and i decided to perhaps go see Craine and ask about my thesis topics... but then perhaps i coudn't really explain myself very well, he seemed pretty muddled about what i wanted to do as well and just said some general things... and i dunno i just felt so eeky.... should hav thought things out more properly before going for office hours.
there is this elections 2004 class that seems really really interesting! but it's a grad journalism class... wonder if i shoudl take it for fun....
sigh. ok i am due for 1.5 hrs of lecture. and another 1.5 hrs of intellectual discussion on state making.... and then perhaps will go for jap office hours or attempt to do a bit of my astro hw such that i dun die tmr...

last night i was on the verge on getting emotional and depressed all over again but then it was good that there were nice distractions.. =) got an email from a 'guo ke' and was really pleasantly surprised! then this morning i checked my long-abandoned hotmail account and found an email from a p sch teacher sitting in my inbox.... albeit with only two sentences of like how are you doing? hope you are doing fine... i felt really warm inside. =) so.... this morning i xin xue lai chao and decided to send a mass email to a few of my good frens back in sg, US and UK... i had better keep this up and pull myself out whenever i lapse into a hmm ok i am going to brood kinda mood... =)
it's getting rather cold now, too cold for comfort. and it acutally rained early this morning... and haha believe it or not, the first thing that came to mind when i was half asleep was... aargh!!! i just washed my car yesterday!! =( but then i fell asleep seconds after..
had a mini mooncake festival celebration at shiying's place yest... and to our amusement discovered that the real thing is actually next week. which explains why there was no full moon... well, according to jacqui or jacqui's mum, it was the Chilean national day... haha. most of day wasted yesterday... (but for (a) good cause(s)) better work hard today!

my efforts to gai guo zi xin have been heartening so far, but can be better.... 1) still in a pretty healthy state of mind, not getting upset over wu liao things... 2) still haven really lagged in my readings... well i almost did today actually... but woke up early to finish my 30/90 pages of Samuel Huntington... though somewhat superficially. i realized that if i were to religiously do all my assignments and hw I would really be much better off and knowledgeable. regretfully i haven't reached that jing4 jie4.
i really enjoyed jap today; we were taught the informal jap conversation... and though it's tough! like so many forms to remember, it was quite fun... like to speak with all these contractions etc. then during poli sci section today, i managed to squeeze in like one sentence of my thoughts.... what with like 20 ppl rattling off about how samuel huntington emphasizes the importance of institutions etc.... but actually it's still rather stressful... everyone in my section is like super vocal and eloquent... and i mean like even though i did my reading, i didn't hav like half as many things to say... goodness knows how lost i would be had i been lazy..
also discovered a possible way of destressing yesterday when i went down to the Berkeley Animal Shelter at 2nd street...volunteering by playing with cats or walking dogs.. i'll just need to do a min. of one hour per week... and on top of that, I can go at any time that fits into my schedule. this weekend they will hold cat handling and dog walking classes and i think i'll go for them =) if i dun grow xian and lazy that is. the shelter has many many pit bulls though that look rather unfriendly and fierce, but I think some of them do hav really loveable personalities and I hope that perhaps one day if i get to deal with dogs well enough, i can like 'transcend' this psychological barrier (that they look fierce or ugly and therefore they are not nice) and try to get to know them better!! haha but that seems really far-fetched and idealisitic at this moment cos i get a little intimidated just by standing close to some large barking dogs... hmm i was just telling jacqui how cats and dogs are like humans too... like cats are like the loner types.. then dogs need more attention and love... and perhaps pit bulls are like uglier ppl... then like cute kittens are like the really popular and chio ppl... even in the animal world life is unfair huh. but i am comforted by how there are many ppl who love all of them regardless of appearances..

finally wrote my statement of purpose for UCDC this morning. one more EAP one to go... sigh. why do we hav to always write statements of purpose?? and explain every single reason why i want to go for EAP... sometimes u just feel like doing something.. =( now i actually feel that I am more keen to do UCDC cos I was browsing through the courses available at Meiji Gakuin and the variety is actually somewhat limited. but i guess EAP would be more of a fun thing, a cultural exchange.... rather than something really academic?
i really feel more at ease with myself recently. like I have grown to accept myself for who i am. instead of getting upset over my faults... i still do, but noticeably less so. i wonder why...
though sch has just started... I have 80 pages of Samuel Huntington to plough through for my poli sci class next week... new IAS hw due on thursday... the usual Jap hw.... Astro HW on friday... but still manageable. and i'm pretty excited about my first yoga PE class tmr =) let's hope i dun sprain my waist or ankle..

the sad tale of my dou sha baos

failed miserably while trying to microwave a dou sha bao for breakfast in midst of studying for my jap quiz... being too lazy to steam my red bean buns (which i used to, last sem..) i decided to follow the instructions at the back of the package which merely said put the bun into the microwave for 2 min... and so i did.... but to my horror after 5 min when i re-entered the kitchen i was greeted by this burning smell and a light brown red bean bun in the microwave oven... ok. so had to throw away the poor thing. 2nd attempt. this time i re-read the instructions... then realized hmm ok must put in microwavable container.. then i rembed my mum always puts a cup of water when she tries to microwave buns.. and so i did. sadly this time round even though the bun didn't turn brown... it was rock hard and upon breaking it open instead of the nice steaming dou sha that i usually get i got some funny powdery looking red bean 'paste'.. hmm oh well. so then decided to give up. no dou sha baos for me =(

anyway i'm somewhat happy today! things that have been bothering me for the past few weeks or so seemed to have worked out fine... and i think if i keep such an optimistic outlook i should be fine... no more depression like last sem! =) my procrastinating and chatting online still hasn't changed though. but not that that's harmful to me haha... just perhaps detrimental to my grades... which... i am still not that worried about at this moment since it's only the 2nd week of sch ;) but it's irritating i still hav my registration block... that i hav to write all my statements of purpose and get recommendation letters for my applications in the next few weeks.....

am somewhat amused that one housemate is trying to get the other to pronounce 'shrimp'... ever since dinner. i am gettin a sore throat... i think i ate too much ice cream. finished half of the 1.34 quart dreyers french silk ice cream already... it's bad when u just go eating ice cream directly from the tub...
went for the comp lab today to learn SHAZAM and was somewhat intimidated to find at least 3 grad students in my IAS 118 class... it seems cool if i were to really become comfortable with SHAZAM but right now i am still really blur.. sore throat.. sore throat =(
i haven't been driving for a week and it feels so good somehow to be sitting in my own car once again... driving to wherever i want... at anytime i like.... not that i am unhappy car pooling or anything, it's just that it's nice to hav such freedom. =)

feel an urge to complain! am currently trying to piece together my applications for UCDC program and EAP respectively but the admin is daunting and irritating! for each application i have to write a statement of purpose... get recommendation letters... for DC hav to write resume for UC and individual ones for each organization that i want to intern for... for EAP hav to settle stuff like passport, visa requirements, take passport photos that are a weird 2*2 size.... and there are 17 application steps and tons of forms to print out and send out...!! feel like not applying for anything... sigh. but obviously if i dun even hav the determination to get all these things sorted out, then i suppose I will end up doing nothing and just hang around and slack here... oh well. shall try my best to put everything together over the next month or so.... but so xian =(
thinking of volunteering at the berkeley animal shelter; u can be dog walkers or play with cats or help with admin stuff in the office. i'm thinking of playing with the animals cos i really dun hav much experience with them even though i have always wanted to have pets.... but i guess i'll see how first. wondering if i will overload myself with too much stuff? but i think as long as i dun whole day hu si luan xiang and get upset for no reason over trivial things, be less sensitive and petty, dun get glued to my computer screen and icq all night i should be fine. but it sounds easier said than done.. as always.
had a day out yesterday in SF with 2 good friends and a visiting singaporean... lots of funny moments... which guy on earth poses in front of the fence in front of the lake at the palace of fine arts and asks ppl to take his bei4 ying3? which guy is sporty enough to plant a stalk of white flower behind his ear, then consents to taking a picture among a tiny bed of flowers? or tries to 'push' the golden gate bridge with an extreme look of exertion on his face... in front of so many onlookers..