attempted to make tiramisu for the freshman bbq tmr... for the first time. spent so much on ingredients i really feel poor now =( haha but i have no one to blame since i wanted to try it..... but screwed up a bit... hope it is still edible though. i bought coffee roast instead of coffee, and as a result i had to resort to using my instant nescafe coffee to 'wet' the cake.... aargh. quite silly of me... haha but had to improvise. then had no sieve and couldn't sprinkle the cocoa powder and so i think i put too much cocoa powder on the surface of the tiramisu.... and tried to make chocolate shavings off the chocolate bar and while i was doing that the chocolate was half melting in my hand and i had to give up... haha i sound so un-pro. but oh well.... this is the first time =P
my mum sent me a box today!! complete with a new pot, jay chou's new cd, stationery, bedsheets, bird's nest, instant mixes etc etc..... and she even sent me paper lanterns and candles.. was pretty surprised but yet touched by her thoughtfulness =) it's always nice to receive parcels and boxes from home... or rather, it's just nice to receive parcels and the 'excitement' of opening up and finding out what someone has sent always thrills me somehow.. =) miss the days when people still wrote letters to one another; the thoughtfulness and effort put in by the sender never fails to make my day...
i lost my cal photo id and class pass today!! =( quite sad... now i hav to pay 15 bucks for replacement of the card and 60 dollars for replacement of my class pass!! =( why on earth was i so careless..... sigh. hopefully some kind soul finds my card and returns it...

have been seriously neglecting my blog. guess it's cos i find that i am gradually starting to keep repeating myself... and i guess no one would really like to read my grievances day after day..... and somehow i feel that my life is strangely monotonous sometimes?? hmm dunno. invited our buddies to dinner at our place that day and it was a pretty successful dinner, consisdering that all the food turned out well... and the freshmen seemed to hav really enjoyed dinner. also played frisbee with the freshmen girls the day before... though i guess the freshies are all pretty nice people, i dun really foresee myself getting to know them really well. guess it's like lack of chances to interact too.... i mean all of them in dorms and will go dc to eat etc. well of course if i really want to i can, but i have to admit i guess i cannot really be that 'on' sometimes. unlike ziyang who seems to hang out with them perpetually these days. haha. wonder if anything interesting will happen. shall wait and see. in the meantime, still can't help but feel pathetic. cos as usual, i cannot really concentrate on doing my readings. dunno why too. and wasted so much time just now surfing and browsing for random stuff. aargh.

i have somewhat mixed feelings about the classes i am taking! and i think i very mei you yong, cos i was in my econ 131 lect.. and they started talking about some mathsy utility maximization stuff and how the class will be quite mathematical.... then i felt like dropping it! =P well but i shall persevere and not act on impulsle, else i'll really be left with no units. classes are ok so far, i think i enjoy jap the best to date; esp when i get hyper teachers who just make the class more lively and fun...
ok i finally uploaded some pics of my boston/toronto/montreal/quebec trip! click here
we went out with ying xim yest for dinner and i think they guys talked so much about how cheapo they were i thought it was really funny. and i got suaned really badly for being fat. in front of the waiter some more... sigh. i mean even if i did put on weight no need to be so bu liu qing rite. sigh. but then i think i did put on weight... haha wish i looked like what i did last year =P okok now i sound like i put on ten pounds or something....
'tis a long weekend... shall try to get some readings done, clean up my room..... oh and we are inviting our buddies for dinner tmr evening... hope the food turns out fine =)

dropped two classes yest, so am only left with 20 units. if i get into my econ 182..... sadly it's an eight am class and it has the last exam group... but i think i had better take more units this sem if i want to double major....it's pretty scary; there are singaporeans in all my econs classes! esp econ 119, econ and psychology... think there are like 5 other singaporeans... =P classes are pretty ok so far, just that i havn'et encountered any REALLY interesting lecturer yet sadly. and i have a terrible timetable.... a 5 hour break on wed and fris and i can't go home cos i will then spend like at least 1.5 hours travelling to and fro. sometimes it's times like these that i wish i had a car. or that i lived in the dorms =P i quite look forward to learning new stuff in some of my classes, like PEIS 101.... but i havne't gotten into the mood of studying yet. been slacking a lot though i already have readings to do... and yay there's a long weekend this weekend!! =)
it so happened that there was a electricity cutoff yesterday evening.... cos of a terrible accident in the area.... was quite shocked when shiyun called me to tell me the bad news... i was still in sch and was kinda devastated that i prob wun be able to do anything at night... and all the food in the fridge would turn bad... and i wouldn't be able to bathe... but thank goodness everything was restored by late evening... =)

first day of class today... quite sad cos i think my schedule this sem will be pretty screwed up, with huge breaks in between and i also suspect i will end up with too few classes cos everything that i want to take simply clash.. =( or i discovered them too late and thus am like really way behind on the waitlists. oh well. and my comp lit class that i was waitlisted for was really rather boring... maybe it was cos the instructor was so soft i was straining my ears to listen to him and i guess i couldn't identify with his love for poetry, esp when he told every single person enrolled in the class to recite this poem he distributed and the whole class had to sit through 17 recitals of the same poem.... sigh. though i should take R and C i think i shall just drop it and take it next sem. sat in an ART 8 lecture too and that was pretty interesting. lecturer showed slides of art pieces done by previous students and explained how each tried to bring out what they wanted to say. too bad the class is so full i cant possibly add it either. sigh. bad thing about berkeley.... there are so many ppl and everyone'ns just scrambling to get into classes.... was also somewhat disappointed that my jap 1a tutor wasn't as hyper as i thought she would be... and it seems like there will be a lots of hw.. =P but i think it shoudl be fun.....

am supposed to post pictures of my boston/canada trip but then hav been lazing around and doing too many other things... watched more mei li jia ting yest night till 630 am! two more episodes to go..... sch starts tmr! sigh. it will be another 16weeks of sch... before a real break comes... hope my classes this sem would be interesting enough.. =)
just spent so long cooking the first dinner since i came back..... but gladly it turned out fine. it was kinda a strange idnner... requested by ppl esp at my place. turns out that there was a plot behind everything... and we found out a newly attached couple... it took some time though and the main intended audience somehow didnt display the predicted reaction, to the disappointment of the director and actors and actresses... haha. quite an interesting start to a new semester.
and i met 3 of the freshmen yesterday... drove them to ikea and target and some other places to get stuff... and last night i actually drove to the SF airport!! quite a scary incident because right before i started on my trip i think i backed out somewhat badly and somehow the car stalled! and i was really freaked out but fortunately my neighbors came back from groceryshopping or something and managed to get the car started again. but thank goodness i did not cause any major injuries to ziyang's car yesterday...

though travelling was fun, it's so great to be home again!! =) took quite a few pictures, went to niagara, toronto, montreal and quebec.... got addicted to jay chou's dong feng po and qing tian cos we kept playing certain cds again and again on the car... spent so much money i am SO SO broke.. =( good thing sch reopens next mondya so i doubt i will have any opportunity to spend money in the near future... but then again sch is starting so soon.. and my class schedule is kinda messy still.. many many things to settle this weekend.. shall post photos up and write more next time =)

am in mit now.. prob leaving for niagara and perhaps toronto and quebec tmr morning.... had a pretty packed day today, met some really nice ppl... toured MIT and harvard, went to boston downtown and little italy and chinatown... and watched uptown girls... =)

oh no. why does something have to happen whenever i fly to the east coast. during spring break, bush declared war days before my departure to duke. and a day before i fly to boston, the east coast meets with an unprecedented emergency situation of power cutoff... REALLY hope i dun get stuck in the middle of nowhere in some airport all alone... though i might be just paranoid, my even more paranoid dad just called me to tell me that it is wise to cancel the trip. but guess i will go ahead and pray hard that nothing happens =) just that i do feel a little guilty making my parents worry... oh well.
ok shall leave for the airport now....

exams are finally over!!!!!!!!!! though i think i screwed up my 100b.... but nmind, shall not think about it for the time being. am flying off tmr afternoon... and hopefully it will be a week well spent in boston. and quite excited to go to niagara too! =) time passes by SO quickly and now that i look back, i cannot believe that i actually survived 8 weeks of waking up at 7am or earlier everyday to take 52L to sch.. and i didn't miss a single 8 am class =P think have been overloaded with econ this summer.....
going to see shu in less than 24 hours! yay. =) but feel a little strange too... cos everything's just so rushed i'm just flying blur blur to go meet her... and gonna 'leech' on her... and just follow her around.. =P it's really nice to hav a break.. after like so many weeks of studying... i jsut feel like bumming actually
feel excited about my new classes in fall.... but yet i dun feel like going to sch so soon =P and the incoming batch of freshmen have started streaming in... so when fall starts we would get to see them.... hope they are nice =)
ok i think i am just so drained i am not typing much stuff too..... and doubt i will be able to blog the entire next week... so till next fri!! =)

am extremely sleepy today. even though i went to bed relatively early yesterday night after unsuccessfully trying to study econ. and handed in a lousy hw today too for 100b... cos i didnt know how to do one question... and when i emailed my gsi he didn't reply, probably because he thought i did my hw last min and didn't deserve any help. oh well... sigh. there's a review session tom so it will be a long day again tmr... feel my life is so monotonous and routine. study. sleep. wake up. go sch. eat.
just read a touching article on zaobao.com... made me think of my own dad...suddenly feel like going home! haha for those who want some 'refresher' in chinese, u all can go read it too =P
here's the article

i dunno why but i feel that recently i've run out of things to write about.... maybe it's just a general 'xian' mood that i am in recently such that things that happen to me don't really seem that interesting anymore. i hope finals week won't be too bad though i dread all the studying that is required of me. attempted to study at library yesterday and thus camped at moffitt for a few hours yest =P and when i came down for a break i saw arthur chunyan and germaine at the comp area... haven't really seen arthur for a while actually. which makes me think how all of us, after moving out, have had less chances of hanging out together... in a way i do miss the days when all of us could just go to the dc and all eat together... and bum around till we get chased out =P now we are more 'confined' to our own houses...
so when i came down to have a break and after meeting the sgreans, i went to free speech to binch on a muffin and i was just sitting on the chair staring at the CNN screen when one old man, who happened to be seated in front of the computer in front of me, asked me if i could read out something that he had written to him, because his 'magnifying glass' or something was trashy and he could not read what he wrote. i tried my best to help but his handwriting was rather illegible and after a while he just said forget it.... but thanked me for helping. and gave me advice- to take care of my eyes. quite a random incident, but made me feel a little sad. i really fear the day when i grow old and everything starts failing... one thing i really wouldln't want to lose is my memory... cos living without memories is so sad. my world wouldn't mean anything to me then... oh well. haha strangely i have rambled on for a while without really realizing it. better go and study now....

went for karaoke for the first time yesterday night; thought it was pretty fun, esp since i think i've never been to a proper karaoke lounge before! =P then came back and to my own disbelief watched 3 episodes of mei li jia ting after going off online at 230 am which means that i slept at 5am.... sigh. should stop doing such things, esp since this is the week just before finals!! i'd better also stop thinking about random things and concentrate on my two finals next thurs. i hope i can. i had better. apparently according to my mum haagen daaz ice cream has the highest fat content or something. according to some reports in sg. and she once told my sis to call me to caution me about this.. haha. i never fail to have at least one pint of haagen daaz sitting in my freezer. sounds like i am not on the way to a slimmer me anytime soon. esp since yest i had a rubbishy lunch consisting of strawberry haagen daaz and starbucks mudpie ice cream. and my carrot cake. and one sausage. and welch's grape juice. have degraded from cooking to eating ready made stuff... =P i suspect next week too. but hopefully i'll be 'back'... in fall semester ;)

i'm somewhat mentally unprepared for the end of summer... cannot really believe that i hav 2 finals next week, and that in just one week's' time i will be flying off to boston to meet up with shu and yy... though i definitely look forward to seein dear shu again i just feel that everything's happening so quickly i cannot really catch my breath. slightly rueful that i wun get to meet the incoming freshmen at all, including those coming to stay at my place, since their expected arrival times happen to be just after my flight has departed. nor will i get to meet any during the orientation week.... but guess it's alright, since i have 3 more years to meet them =P did a series of rather random stuff today; wrote a letter in chinese to my mum; wrote a reply letter to ming lee about one month after receiving it... went for dinner at d&a with some seniors, then went albertsons to get groceries..... and was offered a 'point of information' by my dear housemate who claimed that i did not utter a single word at dinner... hmm... i guess many ppl are getting used to to me being seen and not heard?! then watched 3 episodes of mei li jia ting and here i am, rambling aimlessly away on my blog before i replenish my sleep for the week....
'

watched a movie on the poor and landless in bangladesh for my econ devt class.... and somehow just so struck by how so many people hav to survive on like a few pennies everyday.... and one lady was so proud that she earned a few pennies from making bamboo chairs everyday... just made me feel so unworthy.. that i get upset over little things. when ppl in so many parts of the world are barely surviving, yet delighting in the few happy things that come their way sometimes. like i think it takes so much for me to be satisfied.... and i worry excessively... such that it gets on ppl's nerves even i think. i'ts not intentional, but sometimes i just can't help it though. i really wonder, why am i like that?? is there anyone in the world so sillly like me... and i guess also when i feel like doing things, i'm sometimes afraid of rejections and i end up not asking ppl =P oh well.

my yosemite trip
reached home yesterday evening with bag full of dirty clothes, oily face and aching muscles, but i had a fun 2 days at yosemite! =) it was kinda refreshing, 'cos i did so many new things.... had a vastly different weekend from all my other weekends... dun really know how to describe my whole trip though. =P maybe i'll just write in point form....
ten memorable things about the trip:
1) it rained when we got there, causing me to feel extremely uneasy about my bad luck week... but luckily clouds eventually cleared but sadly the view wasn't as good as it would hav been had there been good weather
2) embarked on a 4-mile, 3200 ft, 3.5- 4 hr long hike up to glacier point; it was kinda random... we stopped at the starting point and decided to give it a try and we ended up climbing higher and higher... in wind, sand and stars, antoine de saint-exupery said 'self discovery comes when man measures himself against an obstacle' and i guess for me i realized that i REALLY needed more regular exercise cos towards the end i was really dying while the others were still going strong. amazed. haha... but i hope i did burn some calories... and we managed to take some nice pics from different heights from the mountain
3) yingping mentioned at least 5 times that his car was the chioest around
4) saw chipmunks for the first time! little creatures scurrying around.. really cute
5) barbequed my own bread. cos edward and yingping were both scouts so edward had this idea to make our own bread so we brought dough along and twisted the dough around aluminium-foiled branches and had bread twists.. quite cool and fun =)
6) hitchhiked for the first time. to our horror (or more so my horror) we discovered that the shuttle bus that brings ppl down the mountain stopped at 3 something pm and we only reached the top at around 530pm.... and the idea of hiking all the way back down wasn't exactly that palatable. so the most logical thing to do was to flag down a car to hitch a ride down. and luckily we met this really nice couple who agreed to take us in their rental car... =)
7) feeling really dirty for 1.5 days. cos the toilet was REALLY stinky and we didnt get to brush teeth at the campsite which was quite ulu, deep in the 'forest'... and though i showered, we showered at this public shower which was pretty dirty... of course i can't complain.. this is camping =)
8) the starry sky at night. it was so beautiful... if only i wasn't so tired and if only our tent had a 'moonroof' then i could hav gazed at the stars all night.
9) brought along my econ tb to read but ended up only reading one pg
10) of course not forgetting all the nice ppl that made this trip possible and enjoyable.... and my sleeping bag "loaner" =)
here are some pics i took... hope this link works!

this week has just been terrible. yesterday saw my unlucky streak 'resurface'?! hmm dunno what i am talking about. but anyway, something really gross happened... i packed lunch into my bag... from channing chinese express.. i couldln't finish so i htought i would bring it home and maybe i can hav some for dinner.. so i put the whole paper bag in to my backpack and to my horror when i reached home i realized that the sauce and oil from the chicken dish i bought had spilled out and my whole bag was oily.. and stinky. my poor pencilcase, my wallet.. and even my textbook! now my textbooks smells faintly of chicken though i tried my best to salvage it. i washed my pencilcase and wallet and backpack and they are clean now; thank goodness.
i'm really in quite an awful mood now; not only because i have been so unlucky all week. but i'm upset about some things... though i'm going yosemite tomorrow i really wonder if i will enjoy myself. and because of this, all the more i feel bad because i hope i wun cause it to be less enjoyable for the people going with me. plus i can't help but feel ominous.... i pray hard that my bad luck wouldnt cause anything bad to happen on this trip. seriously. and a huge pile of homework await me too. why do bad things all happen at the same time?

am currently suffering from a series of petty injuries!! aargh. shang hen lei lei. hav blue blacks on both knees cos i tripped over my cables last week... then yest before i played frisbee i stepped into this hole in the grass and ended up with a nasty wound on my elbow that has refused to heal.. just applied the vicious but effective 'qing cao you' and hopefully it will heal soon =( and poked myself just now when i was peeling prawns to cook for dinner.... i am unbelievably clumsy recently. i feel sorry for myself...
going to yosemite national park this weekend! hope it will be fun... but then i hav mixed feelings because the latest hws have streamed in once again and i hope i wun hav to end up staying up too much next week. i hav gotten addicted to the apple cloud at the free speech cafe; i think i've eaten it twice.. or is it thrice this week?! this is quite bad, waste money eating fattening food. talkign about food, relieved that my sweet and sour tofu turned out pretty ok yesterday! and shiying passed her test =) shu just suggested that i go boston to look for her and then we can all drive up to niagara falls or something.... sounds really exciting. feel tempted =P told my mum about it but she's really worried. worried that something will happen to me when i fly alone to boston. just like when i flew alone to new york during spring break... i guess i can understand her worries... dunno if i should fly alone again. but i doubt anyone would want to go with me anyway so if i dun fly alone i wun be able to go on a holiday... feel really anxious though. that finals are in 2 weeks' time! time passes SO fast.. i do look forward to the day when i get to fly home... =)

was so unlucky today that i think i must hav done something wrong. offended someone.... haha. cannot really believe myself.. for being SO absent-minded all of a sudden... left the house in a hurry and realized i forgot my cellphone and lunchbox so had to come back to get it and i missed the early bus. then when i settled down in class, relieved that i arrived exactly at 810am, to my horror i found that i had left my pencilcase at home. so throughout the day i had to ask favors from ppl sitting beside me....then after class i went to the bank and to hav lunch and when i was walking to the bus stop i realized that my file was nowhere in sight... and i ended up walking all the way back to telegraph to hunt for my precious file... with all my notes and hw... to find that i left it at the counter in bank of america... well, though nothing exactly bad happened, i couldn't help but feel totally drained by all the little things that happened today =(
haha sometimes i think i think of the most ridiculous things.. like sometimes i'm just ultra sensitive and think of things to fault myself even when i hav done nothing wrong... why why... hav degraded to eating instant noodles today =P but tmr i shall attempt to replicate my sweet and sour tofu for shiying! =) hope she passes her driving tmr... =)

had a totally unproductive day today!! =( searched in vain for more tickets to chicago but found none... so prob wun be able to realize holiday plans... cleaned up my room a little.... baked scones for lunch.... it's pretty cool to hav an oven in the house, cos due to well stocked supermarts in the US u can easily buy all kinds of mixes and then produce pastries without much hassle =P next time when i hav more time then i shall experiment using real recipes.... then tried bread crumb coated chicken for dinner and it turned out pretty fine =) sigh. but just feel a general sense of 'xian-ness' yet not motivated to do any work. sigh. depressed.
just went for a ride in yingping's new car! his car is really big and spacious.. and the exterior looks really new and pretty sleek. now so many ppl hav cars.... at times i really do feel like getting a car too.... but then again sometimes i wonder if i should let peer pressure get me... as in i think that i am so 'domesticated' or like inactive sometimes that getting a car wouldn't be maximizing my utility.... and i might underutilise the car... my car might just be sitting there in the parking lot collecting dust =P really dunno. i think i'm getting more and more isolated somehow... dunno why i have that feeling though. quite strange. i think i'm quite strange i'm getting quite AS somehow?? dunno. and sometimes i seriously feel a lack of intelligence... aargh. self-deprecating thoughts again.
called my sis today... i realize that i seldom talk to her.. quite sad. and somehow though she tells me very non-serious and sometimes kiddish stuff i just feel fun playing along with her... =) feel that i have somewhat neglected many relationships with ppl back home... i seriously hope that when i go back in dec i wouldn't feel that there is a serious lack of conversation topics... cos i will be very sad if that happens. somehow i jsut have a feeling that i'm gettin somewhat socially inadept. i dunno why too.... maybe it's cos i hardly talk much to ppl nowadays? hmmm where does all my self-doubt arise from....i think sometiems its so deceptive. like sometimes u just get disillusioned with urself.. then u need someone to tell reassure u that u are fine etc... but then again when ppl console u they tend to say nicer things, things that will lift ur spirits so it may not be true in the first place. but then sometiems somehow we feel better to have heard such 'nice' things.... and i'ts not to say that these ppl are really deceiving u or anything, they are nice to be there for u definitely... hmm nmind i think i am just getting incoherent, too late at night.....