though i have a stiff neck; and ache all over right now, i'm so thankful everything's over... shall postpone all the worrying till next week. but another big 'worry' is gonna come up in a day-- am going to take out my wisdom teeth on Saturday! aargh. now i have ONE day to eat whatever i want before being 'reduced' to a semi-liquid diet on Saturday.... mum has been telling me to just take two out at a go... was also regularly warned how dreadful and horrifying taking all 4 out might be...to much amusement. hmmm maybe i'll just take 2 out... cos i fear the pain but above all i'm also vain and greedy and wun want to hav a swollen face and to have go hungry over this festive season.....

am rather upset that i'm about to turn in a crappy history paper, esp cos i really enjoyed this class and cos i really invested so much time into all the readings. and i'm so gonna screw up both my econ finals and i only have myself to blame. =(

i hate myself for always doing things that will screw up my finals during the finals period... and i hate how there's never allowance for 'emotional regulation'.... life goes on, whether you are upset, sick, unlucky or not. stop and cry and risk getting a double, or even triple, whammy.

i turned all rabbit-ish since last evening, almost devouring the whole packet of baby carrots (which i normally wouldn't even finish in a week) within one day... the reason being that i decided to copy my Thanksgiving hosts by making myself some fresh ranch dip using sour cream and the dip mix.... and it turned out to be quite addictive so even though i dun usually have any particular affinity for RAW carrots, i quickly depleted my supply of carrots.... haha. well at least they aren't chips this time round. (though i hav to admit the dip isn't exactly very healthy =P)

while on the issue of animals (somewhat) i had a close encounter with a squirrel today! was eating a sandwich outside Gianini before my review session when a squirrel came into close proximity (eyeing my food i guess).... and so i pinched a piece of bread and held it out, staying as still as possible.... and waited for a min or so (in attempt to convince it i wasn't an evil person) and it actually came forward and picked the bread out of my hand! so cute... but haha i guess squirrels dun like turkey and cheese so it sniffed at it for a lil while before discarding its 'find' and bouncing away....

finally up after a long sweet slumber and sleeping never felt so good... haha. =P well so everything's turned in but certainly somewhat "substandard".... ended up with only 16/17 pgs or so of prospectus; wonder if prof would take that as sign of incompetence or sloppiness? but of course i myself also realize that it certainly wasn't a very well put-together one... and seriously..... i don' t think he'll even get a good sense of what i intend to do... i'll be rather surprised if i get in. but whatever lah, i will toss it out of my head for time being =P while i really do like writing, it now pains me that i have yet another 10 pgs of a history paper to turn in next week.... tog with finals, of course; but after next Thurs, i'll be DONE! =)

decided since i'm gonna embark on paper-writing marathon from about now till 4pm tmr... what's 200 words or so about a random blog-worthy incident this morning? =P

today's the last day of class... was in 142 lect when a fair-skinned jap/korean-looking lady stepped in and started shooting Ken Chay lecturing, with her digicam... didn't even notice her till KC announced, "oh, that's my wife".... then for like 1 min or so after he seemed a little nervous and couldn't really continue lecturing (with her standing there silently taking his pics....) haha. thought quite sweet though like quite weird too... well she left after 3 min or so but it was funny witnessing KC's "weak moment" after getting so used to him being always all-confident.... he's one lecturer who doesn't even get the least bit uneasy when bad-mouthing some of the most accomplished individuals around (good-humoredly, of course)

i think it takes some skill to be a good GSI and my 142 GSI is pretty cool-- cos he really tries to be 'fair' to be everyone.. he ensures that everyone who turns up gets to ask his/her question and lets ppl take turns... and what made me pretty impressed was that he could read my cues.. like he could tell when i didn't seem to understand and then double-checked to make sure i did... =P (not just this time round; at previous office hours too...) oh well, unless whenever i am confused it's so obvious that he picks it up straight away? haha. alright, back to studying for midterm in evening.

it really struck me today, after listening to a presentation on online advertising in China (touted as the next big market blah blah) that the way a presenter chooses to present the material to his/her audience can really skew the "receiver's" consequent view of a particular issue.... ( i doubt she did it intentionally but it somehow turned out that way in my opinion) esp for an unsuspecting person, and esp if he/she happens to possess no prior knowledge of whatever he/she's are told... i'm not claiming i know a lot about China though, nor that i'm critical about everything i'm told (on the contrary, there are plenty of instances of my gullibility, i have to admit....) sigh i guess i can't blame ppl wanting to invest to target big cities... maybe i get a little worked up whenever ppl seem to neglect the fact that the urban population makes up less than half of China's population.... just reminded me of how one can be made so "powerless" by being unknowledgeable and uninformed...

the rest of the week will be very rough cos things erm arent going that well... shall try to ban myself from blogging too... hopefully =P

i got home this evening to find christmas lights hanging outside the house. heard the bells hanging on the other side of the door upon entering, and found an undecorated christmas tree and a crackling fire at the fireplace in the living room.... and a whole bunch of ppl having dinner. the house had such a cosy and festive atmosphere.... a refreshing change from the probably si3 qi4 chen2 chen2 house i would prob return to if i were living with fellow Berk students stressing out over finals.... yet i felt oddly 'alone'... i dunno. somehow the house being so cosy and decked up for Christmas suddenly exacerbated such a feeling... not that i was made unhappy or anything, just really aware of them being a family and me being just me...

and i will be terribly terribly busy next week, with 4 things due and a midterm in the last week of class... and extremely worried.

if heaven were a single most treasured memory you'll relive for eternity, what would you choose? just watched this japanese film, afterlife, and was very drawn by this really kinda bizarre but interesting idea (i chanced upon it at the East Asian library when doing research and couldn't resist borrowing it... =P)

but what if I want to choose a "memory" I don't even have?

Sebastiao Salgado's pictures

This picture above comes with the following caption: The children must be weighed and measured in order to adjust their rations. In a nutritional center, Gourma Rarhous, Mali, 1985.


i really cannot prioritize =P am reading about this Brazilian economist-turned-photographer for our Chinese class tmr and got sent his website by our prof... and i couldn't help blogging about it... He takes such hauntingly beautiful but depressing pictures. Check out his other pictures

sad to say, i think i've reached the point in the semester whereby interest in every subject is starting to wane and i just want to get over everything... am looking forward to my holiday... bout 17 more days... unfortunately there are so many things due from now till next Fri!! aargh and a 142 midterm next Wed! sigh i fear the worst for my GPA.

a series of unfortunate incidents

just when i got up early enough to drive down to Honda for an oil change, i see a sign "open tues-saturdays" upon pulling up at the service window... (when its normal service reception opens on Mondays too) Yesterday, when deciding to reread the history response paper i turned in on Monday night, i discovered to my HORROR that it was nowhere to be found and the file i saved it under turned out to be an incomplete (2 out of 4 pgs!) file... and that i actually sent my GSI that incomplete file... really dunno what happened cos i distinctly remembered saving the final copy... so had to rewrite bits of it to turn it in again and prob will suffer some penalty from turning it in late now. =( aargh. and my wisdom tooth also chose the best moment to start aching... and i might have to extract all 4 of them before finals, esp if the evil one tooth continues to give me trouble. why why why...
ok the first i only hav myself to blame; cos i checked the opening hours some time ago and didn't recall them taking Mondays off and so didn't bother double checking again before driving up. and it's not a big thing lah-- it isn't that far. second incident... i dunno why i was so careless... i REALLY did save it.. why screwed up on me i have no clue =( and i'm upset cos i really spent so time on it to make it good...hmm as for my tooth, perhaps all the crap and sweet stuff i ate over Thanksgiving weekend made it overworked so it's now complaining and punishing me... sigh whatever. i need those cute chocolate band aids they sell at Fisherman's wharf for life's "boo boos"....

hmmm. dun really know where to start but that Courtney's family was really kind and hospitable and despite being a first-time visitor, i really felt comfortable and at-home =) Disneyland was fun, shopping today was enjoyable (when is shopping ever a horrible let-down =P) but baffling as it might sound, my favorite day was the first day, spent at home most of the time, baking, having dinner and just chilling out... having a pseudo-family for a day... =P nevermind how many calories i put on these past 3 days.... i shall (hopefully) shed everything over the next 3 weeks or so stressing out. it was a minor tragedy though that the careless me brought the faulty converter for my camera battery charger and batt went flat on first day... so... anyhow, still hav a few pics to share!

our grand creation

front and back of our gingerbread house! the gingerbread house kit from target was initially for Courtney and I to 'play' with, but we ended up getting almost the whole family involved! it was extremely funny how when the Dad decided to make his small contribution, he unfortunately 'tore down' the whole house and got a mini scolding for it...everything was fine in the end though. it's supposed to contain a total of 53 servings of 120 calories each... but considering how we added all the additional m&ms, marshmallows and what not. i shall not even venture a guess =P anyway, it's not meant to be eaten...though i totally had the intention to do so before we started...
yes, it's me with a stroller again... but with a most unusual passenger-- it's a cat stroller! i''ve never seen any family that loves cats this much... out of the 4 cats in the house, 1 was extremely affectionate and friendly, 2 were moderately afraid and the white furry/fluffy one (and most comical-looking too, cos its face made him look as if he were perpetually in shock or something) was extremely wary of me... so ya, didn't get to hug him even though he looked the most cuddly.

hmm what else? guess shopping today (esp during the holiday seasons when there are so many nice things to buy) just made me realize that even though getting rich definitely isn't one of the big priorities in my life, money can make buy you so many lovely things and when i saw things i really liked, i did wish i were rich =P while not all expensive things are good/chio...(in fact, some can be extremely ugly) it also happens to be true that chio things are often expensive... but ya, i guess even if i did become really rich, i still cannot bear to be too extravagant...

today i baked..... a french apple tart, choc chip cookies and decorated a gingerbread house... had a rich but delicious dinner and strawberry jello cream cheese dessert.... AND... am gonna have a piece of tart and pumpkin pie and ice cream for dessert in a while.... how many calories!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

this shall be my first (but also last) truly American Thanksgiving here, cos i'm gonna head down to LA tmr morning to stay with my UCDC roommate (and her family... and her cats!) till Saturday =) and am going to go to Disneyland for the first time ever (so suaku right haha) and of course, will get to see Courtney again. kinda miss her actually, though i'm also reminded of the occasional 'harrassment' i received throughout the semester... =P sigh, it's actually a break i can ill afford, but perhaps really do deserve and really need. i shall toss away everything's that bothering me for 3 days... hopefully.

though i've tried quite hard this sem to not get upset too easily, i sometimes feel like my self-comforting mechanism gets overused... and breaks down from time to time. and sometimes at the most untimely moments, too. yet i prob only have myself to blame that i also wun want to cry on any available shoulder kind souls might be willing to offer...

"You visit illegal websites"

sitting in VLSB and just finished most of my history response paper. and just got this seemingly intimidating email with the above title. it's obviously some kinda virus email, but perhaps i'm exceptionally wacky after 2.5 hrs of writing or so and decided to look more closely at this virus email...
ok so the sender is "Department@fbi.gov" and so just these two bits of info made me 10% scared when i first got it. but as i thought a little more about it, it seems almost laughable that they think their recipients would fall for their ploy. Firstly, if i really committed some crime visiting "more than 30 illegal websites" why would FBI care about such petty crimes and why would i be so 'easily let off' by answering the questionnaire they attached with the email? Secondly, Department@fbi.gov actually makes little sense.... so vague, so many depts... highly unlikely that any or every dept's gonna give a damn (i dun usually use such phrases, but just for the sake of flow for this sentence =P) whether you surf illegal websites? What's interesting though is that they included a Washington DC address and phone number... i wonder how authentic that is. but aiyah what i mean to say is that if you invest so much energy creating some lethal virus, at least invest more time in making it sound authentic right? else waste so much energy and no one gets the virus cos it seems like a horrible joke....

alright i'm officially bo liao. i should take a break and go for lunch..... =P

i just spent most of the weekend trying to learn about 2 decades of Chinese history in order to piece together yet another history response paper... though eyes feel extremely strained, i feel extremely happy and def less ignorant about 2 of the most interesting decades in twentieth-century China... and if anything, it also made me realize the havoc bad government policies can wreak... though consequences were mostly unintended. and i dunno, i think i really have a 'soft spot' for good English... i also liked the book partially because the writer writes really well... =P hopefully one day i can unabashedly say that about myself...
i'm really spending a disproportionate amount of time on my history class... but i also feel like in history i learn a lot more on my own. these days lectures have somehwhat deteriorated into watching documentaries in class and everything i've learnt recently about the Mao era i picked up from the readings assigned... whereas for things like Econ, i really do learn most of the stuff in class; somehow i cannot imagine myself spending hours and hours reading up on free trade agreements etc haha. i dunno, for history i really process a lot of things on my own whereas for Econ it's more passive; i'm told a lot of things but haven't spent that much time thinking over deeper stuff on my own.... i'm such a bad Econ student =P

my previous post led me to think randomly about religion; it seems like ppl who are religious set the percentage for 'fate' (or in this case, their faith?) at a pretty high level? not to be offensive to anyone, but i just don't see how one can live thinking your whole live is planned out by some 'higher being'... well maybe i have some fundamental misconception about religions cos i don't really care much for it at this point and consequently never bothered to really delve into it; but you know, it really beats me how some ppl can be SO religious.... it becomes kinda freaky.

on the other hand, even though i believe that perhaps 5-10% of stuff you attribute to fate, isn't it so sad that you just can't change that 5-10% of the things you wish you could change and you're just powerless to influence... but i guess it's a really bad idea to get really sore and upset over that 5% of stuff though it's so tempting to. such is life. =( and then there are things lurking out there, out of that 5-10% that you don't know exist that will one day turn your life upside down... and cos we don't constantly think about that we think it doesn't exist.... alright, i'm getting carried away.