hakuna matata

wow, i don't know why i felt so tired by the time it was 5pm... i also don't know why i can't seem to wake up past 9am anymore. i guess it's kind of been like that since last summer/recruiting season last year, but... hm. rather odd. even this summer at home, if i went to bed at 3am i'd still wake up at 9. i guess i wanted to eat breakfast cos there were so many nice things to eat, but really. so greedy! anyway... oh, i got my remote (for the car) programmed today, didn't realize it was so easy! the technician did it for me in a matter of seconds. awesome :) and i paid like USD30 (from ebay) instead of 80 (if i'd gotten it from the dealer).

then, cs cooked lunch. or, i guess, technically winston did. haha. man, that sambal was crazy.. :p i came out from the bathroom upstairs and it assailed my nose. i can't imagine what it must've been like for those downstairs! anyway we had to open the windows and all to let the smell out. ridiculous... it was VERY powerful sambal. i guess there was too much... so hot! haha. so had to eat slowly... which i guess wasn't a bad thing. i'm kinda surprised that they were full with just two dishes though. i was good, but then i'm a girl, and a tiny one at that. maybe the rice was filling. hm. and then cs made molten chocolate cake! gosh it was sooo good. but so bad too cos we had crepe + ice cream last night, and then i eat dessert AGAIN today. ah well... -shakes head-

anyhow. dropped bert back at his dorm and got a tour of the newly renovated crothers. man, it is SO nice. i was like why did i graduate again... hm. then went to visit lorra for a bit. and back to talk to cs.. heh. now i understand. the pressure of expectation. the better your track record, the more expectations you've to live up to. but you know, just do the best you can and God will do the rest. after all, He put me in my job and as much as it's tedious right now/people are working crazy hours and not going home... there is a purpose. i'm sorry i'm really not more positive about talking about work right now. it is SUCH a pain to have to explain my job to people. "i work in economic consulting." "what?? what is that?" "well, we work for lawyers and figure out how much damages to pay when one company infringes another's patent." i really need to just write it on the back of my namecard and people can read it themselves... jackie'd probably say that's so me, given that (this she always recalls with great fondness) when we met at international orientation and she asked what my name was, i just held up my nametag wearily. something to that effect. maybe this is what chuansheng means by "clarissa lin! never change..."

yeah anyway that whole job-explaining thing came into effect especially during the sas bbq, when i was meeting so many people. but wait. i get ahead of myself. that will come in soon...
ok, then i dropped by borders. i think i will buy these two francis chan books. one of which was recommended by this lady at church last week. it's called crazy love! just exactly what i need, i think. how do i love God...

after that, went to pick cheukka and shifeng up from the caltrain station and showed them around campus. it's funny, i've graduated and i'm still showing people around campus! it's nice that i get to go back though. bought a decal for my car :p

then brought them over to cs and winston's. wow, the astar scholars are really close. i guess i started getting tired then. and then when it came to the bbq... gosh. all these people i don't know. and don't really want to meet, hm. making conversation is tiring. i guess given that i'd been hanging around people since 12:30pm and it was almost 6:30pm by then.. too much. was really really tired by then. so yoga was good. too tired to run/do elliptical. and yoga music is relaxing. ahh. sooo good. i don't even know why i was more tired today (mentally, i guess) than from work normally.

Posted by clarissa at 10:04 PM |

realizations

so i was re-reading one of my childhood favourite books (the anne of green gables series by l.m. montgomery, haha - yeah i think some of my friends would be appalled i'm reading that at my age, but whatever) and it described one of the characters going off to college and having to leave home and all. when i read that, my mind involuntarily did a flash back to when i first left for stanford. i guess, also because cos i'm leaving again soon and every time i leave the experience is slightly different.

i remember getting a panic attack before leaving (maybe a couple of days before? or a week?) and not wanting to go, and serene having to message me all the way from boston to assure me that it really isn't that bad, i'll adapt.
i remember going to the airport and having so many friends come to send me off - church/chorale/class/... flying to an unknown place which i'd never seen before (well maybe when i was REALLY young) with kiat & wang ning.
i remember being disappointed that we didn't enter stanford through palm drive cos we dropped off a grad student first (-_-) but subsequently being amazed by the open space and greenery that is the stanford campus and finally, the loud noisy welcome by the international orientation volunteers!

kind of crazy, really, that it's been 4 years

[update, after meeting rgs classmates]
while we were sitting around eating at chinatown/on the bus from chinatown to orchard, i looked at my friends and it was just such a weird feeling to think that we've known each other for 8 years (well, 10 if you count from sec 1) and we still get along so well. or so i think, anyway. more ponderings to come later, am too exhausted to think or type anymore.

also realized that going out with girls usually entails dessert, maybe because they don't go out and meet people every day. but since i do that when i'm back, that kind of kills me... sigh. really should not have drunk that milk thingy at tcc... -bloat-

Posted by clarissa at 8:07 PM |
Labels: remembrances

realizations

i really have been overeating and my days really do revolve around food. tummy is growing! felt so gross i had to go run just now. and while running, i also thought about this past sunday's sermon. the preacher ended by asking us whether our spiritual life had been healthier at some other point, and why that was the case. i came to the realization that this summer hasn't been as good as last summer spiritually because i wasn't as convicted in making God/learning about Him the centre of my life. instead, i fell back into the old trap of idolizing food, amongst other things. i would like to blame other people for influencing me, but really it's my own fault. anyhow, at least i know what's wrong now and hopefully will do better at correcting it.

also, am in process of writing a testimony about my senior year and job search. was supposed to try and get it done by today (wed) for the church bulletin but unfortunately that didn't happen cos i had to trawl through emails and chat transcripts to quote my friends accurately. i really should've started it earlier so it would've been in time, but oh well.

Posted by clarissa at 9:11 AM |
Labels: discovery

excerpts from Life of Pi, Yann Martel:

Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
________________________________

What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, "Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesteday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate the camel. The wek before it was painted storks and grey herons. And who's to say for sure who snacked on our golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.

"Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up."
"Hallelujah, my son."
"Hallelujah, Father."
What a downright weird story. What peculiar psychology.

_________________________________

This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is heckled and harrassed, who has to put up with followers who don't get it and opponents who don't respect Him - what kind of a god is that? It's a god on too human a scale, that's what.

_________________________________

It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expreses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.

Posted by clarissa at 7:35 AM |
Labels: Christianity

thoughts since coming back

weird that lyd's not around, she's usually the one who calls me to go out. got pretty bored within two days (even though i had barney and peiying's wedding to go for the day i returned!) and almost sank into slight depression thinking about how disconnected i am from my sg friends since i'm not even sure if they're on the same cell phone etc. silly me though, it wasn't that hard to contact people. so i've spent much of the week meeting people, tomorrow's my only "free" day. which i am contemplating going shopping but i bet i'll be too lazy. it is really boring getting on a bus to go to town (or any of the bigger shopping malls) cos all the buses use the same route for at least 60% of the trip! :( sigh. i think i need to find an exciting book to read..

anyway, singapore is changing an awful lot. i got off the bus at queen street terminal today to get to bugis junction, passed by bugis village and there were all these clothes shops i hadn't seen before! and then i get out of bugis village and find myself in this brand new spanking huge shopping mall i hadn't even HEARD of! and that's saying something since new malls are always announced.. or so i think. anyhow, i discover this japanese food street thing. tis kinda cool, albeit a little on the more expensive side. they claim to fly in fish from tsukiji. hmm.

hilarious quotes from cheukka:
her marveling at my shopping stamina - "i can last two hours at most. after that, i start seeing blurs (instead of clothes)"

background: my mom's going to relief teach for the month of august (or something) and she was afraid that i wouldn't have anything to eat for lunch when she's teaching. i'm like, don't be ridiculous, #1 i can cook, #2 i can go out and eat. so i was telling cheukka about it and she said, "wow, you're so practical/problem-solving" and i was totally confused as to how she concluded that, so i asked her what she would do in my place and she's like "oh, if my mom's not at home then i don't eat lor."

then she explained herself a little further by telling me this hilarious story about how she wanted to eat ice cream one day and she was trying to persuade jon to eat ice cream too.. but he didn't want to. so then she said if he didn't want to then she didn't want to either, so he should eat with her. and then apparently he said something like if it were me i would just go get the ice cream myself. independence. haha. i'm like okay... interesting. she says she always needs people to do stuff with her, else she won't do whatever it is. i definitely like doing stuff alone, which i guess isn't the healthiest thing.. but like for shopping, i feel like other people are inconvenienced if i drag them along. and if i want to eat random stuff instead of eating meals, it's more for a on-the-go type thing not so much when i meet friends thing. although i guess if my friend wants to eat random stuff too then that works. ah well.

Posted by clarissa at 10:19 AM |
Labels: some ponderings

okay since serene complained... haha. actually i guess i was meaning to blog about my job stuff and so on but the whirlwind of spring quarter senior year + commencement caught me and swept me up.

so, quick summary of job stuff: God has provided most abundantly even though his timeline was clearly quite different from mine. haha. all those consulting interviews in fall quarter.. i guess they built up my confidence. getting final rounds. even though there were multiple let-downs and disappointments when i didn't get offers. and i also learnt (thanks to serene's honesty, i appreciate that) how much of a monster i can become when it comes to being competitive... quite shocking, really.

winter quarter, i was kind of tired of interviewing and submitted a few resumes for the sake of it, heart really wasn't in it. lazy. unmotivated.

spring quarter, i realized just how little time i have left, and things like air tickets etc have to be settled. fasted that one meal which was quite a big deal since i was eating literally all the time during that period. was quite bad, really. so i tried my hardest, contacted alumni to help. got a couple more interviews, two rejections and this one i was a little iffy about, given the odd location (the shopping complex where college students do their grocery shopping! i didn't even know there was an office building) and also the fact that they called me in directly for final rounds (i.e. a full day of interviews) without any preliminary phone interview. also, lousy website means i couldn't find out much about the company.

went there, met the people. liked the good-natured joking i saw between people, kind of reminded me of last summer (bluepulse). the last guy i met was the CEO. i thought it was ok but it seemed like he wasn't so interested at the end and i had this sinking feeling in my heart. decided it was time for retail shopping. while driving to macy's, told God i was so tired of interviewing and trying to tell people how good i am etc. why is a job so hard to get?! and then 1 hour later, the CEO calls me and tells me i have an offer... cannot believe it man. later i thought about it and was wondering how much i get paid... gotta wait till i get back to find out. get back, find out that it is a really good offer! and at that point i was already ready to settle for anything. plus i get to start whenever..

that's a pretty short summary as it is. but i have been greatly blessed.

Posted by clarissa at 1:41 AM |
Labels: praise

sigh

i wonder what, if anything, i ought to be doing about this. for the (however many)th time this quarter, i wake up to my roommate telling her boyfriend what's wrong with him. ok normally she does that at night, but i'm just kind of amazed at how he manages to put up with constantly being told how he's lacking! <-- this was at 9:20am+ after i got woken up. i REALLY wanted to whine about how i've had enough of this and what not, but... (continue below)

at 9:40am my roommate comes out so i decided to ask her if everything's okay... and we talked a little about how her boyfriend annoys her a LOT sometimes. and how she gives and gives but doesn't receive any appreciation. actually i can't really remember what i told her anymore, but it included things like not expecting in return for giving (and then when you are appreciated that's even better!), that she shouldn't expect him to change (this, thanks to ser's wisdom after almost a year of marriage;p), that maybe she needs to ask God to change her, and she said she's always been really competitive and feels like she has to mould everything. i also said something about trying to remember that everyone's a reflection of God and when friends make us happy, He makes us happy too. anyway, after talking to her i feel more sympathetic about the whole situation, more peace i guess.

frantic econ outline writing. ok, not that frantic since i wasn't THAT clear-minded at the moment. but i forgot about it. oh, and then i printed out jackie's creative writing stuff (SO many pages! i did not realize... haha). i wonder how she managed to write so many pages in a week. anyway, i don't usually like poems that much but hers are beautiful. and short stories! very cool. love the language. love good writing.

so i go and turn in my econ outline thing and i saw other pple's stuff and they were so much more detailed and seemed much more advanced in where they were! i guess i did pretty much change my research question last night, but i don't know if my TA'll be nicer cos of that. eeps. i can only trust. and pray for grace. mrarrrr.

anyhow so i went to the post office, got my EAD card (i look like a BALL in the picture, i am not kidding). i'm like whatever, as long as it serves its purpose, i'm never looking at it again. :p

and my roommate comes back from lunch and says she loves talking to me. given my sleep-deprived state, i immediately forget what she said to me (or i guess i was somewhat dazed so it came in one ear and happily wafted out the other), but it was along the lines of how the things i say are true/wise, and that i make her a better person. i was like awww! -melt- that was really unexpected and quite touching. from what she said it sounds like she spent most of her time in the library thinking about what we talked about instead of reading. but it's kind of cool, i hope it did help...

anyway ok, now it's time to pick a passage for bible study. it's really funny, last night i was thinking about it and i was like hm i think i should ask people to think about things that surprised them this week/where God might have been working and then this happens to me today...

Posted by clarissa at 9:32 AM |