sigh maybe i should just take some medicine. my nose is so blocked and i sound like a frog! but i think i just need to sleep. which i can hardly afford given i took a 2-hr nap just now (it was supposed to be 1/2hr but i decided heck i'm too tired) and when i got up, it was so dark i thought it must be past 6 but it was 5:50pm.
so frustrating, why do these things happen to me? stupid soc class, 91 is A- and 92 is A. guess what i got -_- now i have to take that stupid final. i'm tempted to just let it go but it was SUPPOSED to be an easy A. i guess jackie's right, either we should've listened in class or done the reading. but seriously, lectures are so boring... whatever, i shouldn't have taken this class cos i'm going to fulfill the GER next quarter anyway, but that's too late...
psych study guide qns are hard. or at least, i can't do more than one at a time, which slightly screws up my crazy timetable... how to do 4 qns a day?! augh. it's so mentally taxing. maybe i'm just being lazy.
i wonder how europe will turn out. i hope it'll be good... and not TOO expensive. eek.
i hate time value of money.
somehow i was reminded of this verse (which I've read in one of the Anne of Green Gables books before, coincidentally. such a kiddy book but i don't care! whee). "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" - Psalms 30:5
not that i was in tears last night (although jackie's ra-ra speech was rather touching, but it really seemed quite hopeless. in which i couldn't sleep and sat up for 1/2hr drawing out this ridiculous timetable for the next week and a half, which i actually think is going to work. :) He has blessed me so richly and direct my path. Praise Him! anyway, i guess it helped that i went for econ 111 office hours today, and really, I feel, by God's grace, there was just one other guy there who was just talking about stuff so i pretty much got personal tutoring for 45mins. SWEET. :)
and it also helped that i started studying for psych earlier so i finished going thru lectures and can SLEEP. YAY. i thought i t\was going to die in econ 153 today. don't know how come time passed SO slowly, sheesh.
anyway, i believe. now, i believe i can do it. yesss! inspirational speech to self. ahaha.
so... after the initial relief at finishing my soc paper (which I really hope, by God's grace, will go well so I don't have to take the stupid final), I am now DEAD!!! whee. with a thump i fall back on the ground of reality. from soaring in the clouds. wheee.
here is what the rest of my "quarter" (more like week and a half) looks like:
tmr: econ 153 pset due (which is like 5% of my grade and i spent >4hrs trying to write up the analysis on facebook.... how inefficient is that)
thurs: psych 60 quiz. i NEED to ace this one, at least i started reading earlier so this shouldn't be such a problem, i hope and pray
fri: econ 111 pset due. this is driving me UP THE WALL. i am going to be a bat soon, hanging from the ceiling. what sort of noises i'll be making, i don't know.
mon: optional soc final (which i really pray i won't have to do)
tues: econ 111 take home essay due (1500 words, yippee!)
wed: psych 137 final (i have no idea how to integrate lectures on "models" and "concepts" and various other abstract things, our study guide has 19 qns, we're supposed to look at the midterm study guide which had about 15 qns which may be on the final)
thurs: econ 111 final (so, i'm currently below the mean for this class i.e. i NEED TO ACE THIS FINAL ELSE I'M DONE FOR)
fri: econ 153 final (also think i'm around the mean for this one, and i have no idea how to answer his qns to the point, so that's going to be interesting)
... basically, i need a miracle. or actually, LOTS of them.
yay for primal scream. enough said. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. stupid dead week with classes.
sigh. it seems i blog only when at the extremes. anyway, this is so sad. everyone thinks i'm hardworking (or so it seems, at first) and i guess i used to be, since i think my grades actually used to be decent. and now they're down the drain! augh. maybe this is motivation for me to start disciplining myself better. :( what have i done to myself?? how puzzling.
i have a couple more hours, a paper to write - it is so unformulated at this point.. i mean i did think about it but the structure is just not coming to me. a case to prepare for, problem sets to do, ... i have to stop thinking it's overwhelming and just DO something. :( procrastination. maybe i need serene here to motivate me. haha. i wonder how that used to work.. she'd finish her problem sets really really early. i was gonna say dayoung does do her work pretty fast too... but still a little different somehow. i always tell myself i'm going to get my stuff done on time. i don't think it normally happens though... and it's already my 3rd year. actually scrap that, i think i was a lot more motivated last time hmm. weird.
yay for good music though. even if it's kind of addictive. O.O
so, story of the week. well, not really since there was florida. but anyway...
we're at target and dayoung says she wants to buy wine. then she thinks "hmmm. i wonder if i can." and then i'm like "i'm 21!" so okay, we stop by the wine thing and she chooses her wine.. sutter or something. and then we go pay, cos the marguerite's coming soon and we don't want to miss it.
at the cashier, the dude says "can i see your ID?" so i take out my driver's license. he peers at it. and peers. and peers for a really long time. so much so that i'm wondering if he can't count (it even says "AGE 21 in 2007) or can't see my birth date or what.
so we're standing there wondering what's going on when finally he gives it back and says "you look really different." apparently, i look a lot younger in person. in which i said "i guess it's the glasses". and he repeats "you don't look anything like the photo". i just shrug (what else to do right) and at this point i think dayoung got slightly annoyed cos she looks at my license and is like "it looks just like her" and brushes it off, and the guy gets defensive and is like "you have to look at it from my point of view. this is the first time i'm seeing her." so dayoung says "yeah, i guess after two years, it looks the same to me" and the guy sounds even more defensive and repeats something along the same lines.
after we get out i'm like okay... so wat'm i supposed to do if you don't believe that's my ID. -_- how ridiculous. and to think i lent jackie my ID that day in case she got carded while ordering some drink. hah. anyway, another good story to add to the collection.
i bet CS would say i shouldn't be surprised, cos he saw quite a few photos on my macbook on the plane and apparently thinks i look pretty different in a lot of them. even if they might have been taken during the same time period
whyyyy am i doing so badly in my classes this quarter. getting stupider? lazier? okay, lazier is probably possible. haha. but really, is it too much to ask to just be pleasantly surprised for once... doesn't seem like that's happening anymore. which is probably my fault. ugh i don't know. this is so confusing.
and i really want to go to gilroy! only problem is that it's so far. and i don't have a car. oh look, that rhymes. oh, and i won't be there for the thanksgiving sale either cos i'll be snowboarding. which i'm very excited about, but then this is the only time i actually shop during the year so that's also a little problematic ><
it's time for amusing psych readings again! yippee.
"In their first weeks of crawling, infants (averaging around 8.5 months in age) unhesitatingly and competently went down shallow slopes. Confronted with slopes that were too steep to crawl down, the babies typically paused for a moment, but then launched themselves headfirst anyway (requiring the experimenter to catch hold of them)."
somehow. the image of babies "launching themselves headfirst" tickles me.
"Toddlers will attempt, in all seriousness, to sit in a tiny, dollhouse=sized chair or to get into a small toy car"
haha. i think my imagination is too good.
and i don't know why i'm eating so much. maybe it's subconscious stress. which is kind of ridiculous, but nevermind.
pooh. i had such an unproductive weekend. oh! i got my macbook!!!! :):):) but i'm so sad, it's a little scratched already... sigh. i shall wrap it in a shirt! haha. and i'm so afraid it'll get dirty.. which i already know is going to happen. boo. oh well, nice to have a laptop though, so useful... and it kept me awake in class on mon :p
and jackie's belated bday presents to me are hilarious! a stuffed llama and a peacock feather quill.. both of which relate to my art class last spring. i drew 6 llama heads (plus some of the neck) in different mediums. okay, i don't even remember what they're called - ink, pencil, charcoal, ... and i really liked using a quill! i don't even know if it's really a quill.. whatever, the type of pen with a nib which you dip into the ink! anyway, i came up with this briliant idea of having a huge peacock feather quill which i could use in exams and distract everyone else so i'll get my A :p and can tickle people with the quill. haha.
just back from XA. don't know why i'm feeling a little out of sorts! so weird. just happens from time to time and i've no idea why... i really don't like reading about the history of the Fed's monetary policy. somehow, i really don't like macro. even though that i know it's important and everything... it just doesn't click or something.
and i guess i'm somewhat worried about my class grades.. econ and psch. well, developmental is fine cos i know i can handle the quizzes if i study early enough. the other 3... ugh. i don't even know.
lindsey is right though. deficient substitutes for real life relationships. i did, after all, spend like 15+hrs watching that whole drama last weekend or something. oops. at least i did some nice things for people today i guess. haha. this is so silly.
anyway, me and jackie with quill and llama.
my academics are so going to pot. last week i had three midterms, all of which i'm rather sure i royally screwed up. well, one of them i just got back and i am DEAD. below the mean, it's such a hard class. why didn't i drop it when i had the chance? and that psych language class.. i was writing so much nonsense, and i sacrificed the other psych quiz (i mean okay, i can drop one) to study for.. and yes, it's also my own fault that i didn't do my readings and such. and then i bet this stupid econ class is going to turn out like last year's 140 (financial econ) but i just can't let that happen again! but i really hate that class. why why why.
and i really shouldn't have slacked off so much this weekend cos i've no idea what the 153 midterm is going to be like, and i don't know if my soc paper is going to be decent. help me.
even while i am desperately (and i repeat, DESPERATELY) studying for my psych midterm...
"In humans, compared with other mammals, the larynx is low. Although this feature is good for producing speech sounds, it comes at a cost. Because our larynx is low, food from our mouths can fall into the trachea, and we run the risk of choking to death. (...) Changes in the shape of the mouth that go along with the lower larynx also account for the frequent human problem of overcrowded teeth and impacted wisdom teeth (Lieberman, 1991). These life-threatening disadvantages that come with a vocal tract that is good for speech suggest that speech must have been very useful to the first hominids who had it. It must have given them a survival advantage that more than compensated for the risk of death from infected teeth and choking on food." - one of my psych readings.
isn't it classic? haha.
Excerpt from my psych reading:
At the level of the sentence, our knowledge of the rules of grammar tells us that "There is no time to question" is a permissible English sentence, but "Question, no time there is" is not permissible or, at best, is extremely awkward (unless you are Yoda, who says this in Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith).
got to love it. haha.
crazy week! i seem to have forgotten how hard i've to work to keep up with 20 units. like really... maybe this just happens all the time and i take it as status quo. quite possible, really.
birthday wasn't particularly exciting i think, esp cos i had a midterm and a pset to do (which i frankly hadn't much of an idea how to do either, i hope it was alright though:|) ah. since i procrastinated on finishing this post, i got my midterm back and praise God! did pretty well:)
oh, my birthday stuff all came at different times! diffused happiness. haha.
so first it was dinner..
then poor sealnet pple singing me a bday song twice (once at mon night meeting and once at midnight! so sweet :)).
i think serene's present came on time (yay! pretty bag:) although it wasn't as exciting cos i chose it anyway haha:p) hmm.
oh! yah, dayoung gave me a mini cake and yellow victory roses which seem to be slowly dying, unfortunately.
tuan's present was a little late.. but so sweet. at first i was like wat?! why is he sending me vietnamese cds? and then i saw the rest of the package and i was like ohhhhhh. aw.
then my bday card from my family arrived just this monday.. which amused me so much but made me miss home a little. the envelope was bright pink and then when i opened it the first thing i saw was the back of the card which said "princess and pony", and the front is SO cute :)
and yesterday, chris' present came! such pretty earrings from the art institute in chicago! :) which was nice cos i had a slightly crappy morning yesterday, what with professors standing me up and dvds not being where they were supposed to be -_-
yeah. i need to muster up the motivation to do my work. ack! ohh! sicheng gave me speakers! yayyy. :) i was getting rather annoyed with the pathetic-ness of the mac mini's internal ones (even though actually my bro says he's going to buy me a macbook for my bday! :)) but yeah, it makes watching stuff on my computer really hard. not anymore yay!
planning this europe trip is such a headache. i wish we had more time :( and i've been to paris/rome so i don't particularly wanna go, but other people wanna go... and i really wanna go to nice/florence/venice! we'll see i guess. maybe i'll just disappear off for a bit and meet back later.
as usual, i'm blogging to procrastinate. well, i'm trying to start the paper but it's starting off sounding kinda weird so i don't know... aiyah. anyway. bday dinner today! i have now learnt that ming's honey walnut prawns aren't that fantastic. oh well. they are right though, i think normally pple's bday dinners don't have 2 tables' worth. actually, three this time cos we couldn't fit everyone! i'm glad everyone came:) other than those horrible ppl who couldn't make it! haha.
anyway. i'm a pledge parent this quarter. which means i can't be mean to pledges! how tragic. i guess it's good to get another side of the experience. and to see my pledge bros in action as MOR/AMOR! haha it's great. and aw, di and andrew are pledging.
suddenly i don't know if i'm overdoing it by doing 21 units. it's not just the homework but the class time and all.. i guess my timetable isn't that bad - i only have class on fridays 3 times a quarter! and one of those fridays has passed. :) but my mon wed is practically class straight from 10am to 5pm without much of a break. and tues thurs is 1 to 6pm. my nights aren't very productive i think. dunno leh. arghhh. it's like 3rd week of quarter already, don't know what i've been doing! i think i need to be more hardcore.
looks like i really am supposed to be an empress.
You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
it's time to leave again. no matter how many times i come back and leave it's always the same. would rather stay, don't want to go. but i guess when i get past customs and stuff i'll be looking forward. but before that! ack. so much for my telling tuan that i was trying to get used to saying goodbye cos it's so inevitable and it always happens. bleah. should try to think less. but it always happens, looking at luggage and trying to think of what else i need to bring back. i think i did pick well, when someone asked me during spotlight on: "if you could destroy one of your possessions, what would it be?" it was really quite hard.. i mean, if you HAVE stuff it's likely that you actually LIKE the stuff that's why you have it right. although i suppose that's not always the case. anyway after prolonged thought, i said luggage, cos i hate packing. so much for liking to travel! like young people should. -_- i wish i wouldn't get so attached to things sometimes.
it's been a week! and i'm so tired. i guess the combination of a crazy night + not enough sleep + hectic day is getting to me. and being sad. haha. sigh. i thought i'd gotten used to leaving but i guess i never really do. and things like last day at work are terrible cos there's the whole DAY worth of pple reminding you that it's your last day! bleah.
and i have to admit i was quite annoyed with kelly! he was like okay, i'll be around later to say bye and stuff but he DISAPPEARED. hmph. i don't even know why i was so annoyed actually. i suppose cos everyone else whom i wrote notes to was still around for me to say bye to. luckily i delivered the notes early though. just in case pple disappear.
kind of weird. throughout the week i was a little regretful i was leaving so soon, then i was suddenly ready to leave (and go back to school). even then i kept thinking of leng's point about needing "closure". which pretty much equalled my brownie-making/bringing and note/card-giving. oh well. i think as long as i was able to be a blessing to their lives while i was there, i'm glad. sometimes i wonder if that's me being selfish/proud in a way though. like it's a bit like me wanting to feel like i've been able to do something for them. it's a little complicated. the mere christianity book by cs lewis has been very interesting, although not something one can read at one shot, i think. takes time to digest.
anyway. it's junior year. not really looking forward to the unpacking and all that, but i hope i have a good year.
sigh i can't sleep! maybe the excitement hasn't worn off. anyway I feel so blessed. just one night (more like afternoon + night i guess) and God has given me so much. I'm almost tempted to say "all I ever hoped for", but of course that's not really the case. it's so weird though, He works in such mysterious ways. and I don't even know why I'm so happy about it. I suppose somehow or other, after all the people I've gotten to know, Citibank has come to mean something to me. kind of weird huh?
anyway.. so originally when my boss asked HR they said i couldn't go. even though, in his words, he fought very hard for me. so I was kind of disappointed but resigned to it -shrug- it's really funny cos at first i was like nope, why would i want to go.. it'd just be weird. then i gradually got more amenable to it cos pple were all talking about it and what they were going to dress up as.. but then I found out I couldn't go so I was like sigh, whatever then..
And then today I decided to go to the costume shop with my boss and his fellow management associates, one of them is a relationship manager(RM) in training [rahul], another one is a full fledged (well, sort of) RM [EC]. since they were leaving early and i had nothing else to do anyway.. not until dinnertime when i was supposed to meet jiahui and adeline.
so we got there, and i was sort of advising them on costumes and such.. and then rahul kept asking me why i wasn't going! anyhow in the end he just called up the organizers and asked if there was space.. and there was! and i was like serious???? so i called up poor jiahui to cancel on them.. for like the dunno how many-ieth time. felt kinda bad about it. but luckily they were meeting pam yeo so it wasn't so bad i guess:p
oh and i got to wear a fun costume (egyptian queen!:p). although it got rather scratchy/hot after a while -_- haha. actually i don't think it looks THAT good on me. anyhow. yes, i also got to see everyone I wanted to see (which was quite amazing cos different departments were at different tables). anyhow hopefully everyone sends photos to me cos I didn't have my camera -sob-
and then kelvin drove me home too. so, very blessed today I feel!:) it's not even such a big deal I think. oh well. just happy anyway:) two weeks left.. hardly. I'm so glad I got to intern here though. Although it seems like what I'm taking from it is more about my style of interaction/getting to know people/work more than the financey stuff. Even though I'm sure there's that stuff too.. not as impactful. it's the interactions with people I'll remember.
it's been.. a week? i think. somewhere around there.
i guess this week wasn't so busy but i was doing random other things. like getting my specs done. FINALLY! that poor salesman. haha. i must have frustrated him so much. cos i took a total of two hours (one on each day, i went down twice cos i couldn't decide) to choose my frames.
and i met more people this week. oh i got to talk to my investment consultant person. and a couple other people.. including one girl whom i originally thought wasn't very friendly cos when she gave me the card she just gave me that sort of impression. or maybe i just caught her at a better time this time.. it's funny how first impressions are sometimes so wrong.
anyway my mind is more preoccupied with non-work stuff. i'm so sick of telling people what i do at work! it's such a horribly boring topic. i guess it really shouldn't be, but it sounds slightly lame somehow. same with MOF prison rehab thing last year. but you know, "website content" and "trusts presentation" just doesn't sound particularly impressive. i suppose in general things aren't as glamorous as they sound.
i drove to pam's house and back today! yay:) despite my mom's rather obvious doubts of my ability to drive the car safely >< couldn't really face a 1hr train ride, not after all the commuting i have to do during weekdays. anyway first she was trying to convince me to take MRT cos i'll have to find parking and etc.. then afterwards she was like oh, you better remember to take down the carplate and insurance number if anything happens. luckily nothing did! haha. praise God:) and my parking was quite good. although granted, there were two lots' worth of space.
and it was rather queer being the odd one out. cos the bunch at her house today was mostly 3G (her class) and RJ councillors/RI prefects. and there was me. well puee and jiahui came later. and poor lyd was sick. hope lyd feels better soon! but while i was sitting there it just struck me that the situation was somewhat similar to val's bday party last sat. actually i also dunno how come she invited me, but the groups of friends were like columbia/air rifle/3J/412. so i just hung around with the 412 girls.. was good to see them after so long but also so interesting to see their dynamic. and to find out that most of them aren't attached! i suppose cos it seems like half my class is attached. dunno la.
3 weeks left to leaving. hm. i think i need to make better friends at stanford. one of my colleagues was saying "your classmates are going to be future presidents (and wat not) so better start networking!" i just smiled. i didn't want to say anything cos i don't really think i'm that close to people there somehow. i guess i need to make an effort to hang out with people more, am so bad at doing that! so easy to get preoccupied and such.
it's really been a while! what with starting work and SEALNet people coming for the ASEAN celebrations to present our circle paintings and get the PM to paint on it.. That was definitely a crazy week. Entertaining SEALNet pple until 11+ everyday and taking a cab home. and then Top (from project thailand last year) randomly came to Singapore and I got his email on Friday night asking if I was free for Saturday lunch. I'm like.. well done. But anyway I managed to get a couple of people to come down. and then sean's bday dinner on Sunday.. which was quite fun even though i was the youngest. honored to be invited though. haha :)
yeah, lunch with yingheng and then dinner with lyd n pam on monday. i don't think i was very good company somehow. dinner with aud n changmou n shaun n hongking yesterday. reminiscing about rj days was rather enjoyable. and somehow all my conversations include an element of animal! maybe i only notice it now cos tuan kept telling me i was obsessed with animals. ohwell. anyway, it also struck me what a GEP group it was.. i don't know why only today though. maybe cos we really haven't met up in that group so it was a little different.
today was a rather eventful day i guess. meaning most of my time wasn't spent at the desk which made me very happy:) it felt a little like being in school and doing PWR research again though, haha. cos i was trying to find books on trusts to help me understand. rather than random googling. i'm glad my boss let me go though.. hopefully he didn't think i was slacking or something.
so i went to NLB from 11:30 to 3:30 and had lunch w jon in btwn.. that was nice too. rather amusing and i got to see his van! apparently one of his ex-gfs or something was very averse to him picking her up in a van. and he was like "why couldn't she see past the van!" which was just hilarious cos normally it's like see past the money or something.. oh i don't know, it was just funny.
and then my boss forwarded me this email about RM (relationship manager) training.. so I got to sit in on this session where the RMs were taught about citi's house view, investing for long term, etc. and i found out that one of the guys i met was quite an important person. i THINK. anyway i shall go ask him what he actually does.. hopefully tmr. yeah, so that took up the rest of the day and i wasn't deskbound! ahaha. victory.
i'm also actually home for dinner, which hasn't happened since i don't know when.. oh wait it was last fri or something. and fireworks tmr! yay
anyway, i think that guy made such a big impression on me cos he was the only one to answer me at that first team huddle thing. but again i guess he didn't have much of a choice since after all of them stared at me like i was crazy when i was like "hello! what're you doing? i'm an intern and I heard a lot of noise so i came out to see what was going on" (this was Nat'l Day eve), and went back to doing whatever team activity it was that they were doing, i asked him specifically what was going on.
and later met him when i was going out in search of a hashbrown. haha. oh this reminds me of the French guy at Total in 05. he was so nice! and smiley! i suddenly randomly remember going into his office and finding out that he went to INSEAD.
the weird things i do.
i am so tired. why am i getting sick twice in a month?? :( and it's so hard to work on this ASEAN exhibition thing. okay i should just do something about it and stop complaining but i am somehow drained. i don't even know why i'm feeling so negative about it. i guess cos we're past the deadline and i feel bad about it. haha.
anyway yeah, i think i'll finish my complaining and then get down to finishing up. after all, that's what a blog's for anyway. so, like i was telling tu, a sick strawberry + an internetless ryan working on this is really quite sad! not to mention the difficulties of working across countries -_- i guess it's similar to the leadership curriculum time, but somehow that was easier. i guess we had more defined deadlines and roles. doesn't help that i've been sick since sat and couldn't stay at the computer for more than like half an hour or something.
i think i need to take a break. not that i've been doing very much since 10am. haha. what to do.. lack of energy.
man. it's been almost a month since i've been home and finally.. i see something like a confirmed job in sight. which isn't even by my own work, which is quite pathetic. but i think i've grown to accept the need for connections and using them. and it's not necessarily a bad thing. even though i thought things should be done on pure merit and ... idealistic. and yeah, i suppose colin's right, i don't like people helping me very much. haha. but then it's a reciprocal thing too huh. like if you like offering help people have to accept it. anyway, praise God! yay!
anyway, this sealnet thing is rather exciting. i'm kind of glad i get to be in charge of this thing with ryan cos i'm free and i'm around! yayy. i suppose it carries on my post PV07 euphoria, as JH calls it.
my hair is really getting out of hand. sooo long and annoying! time to cut. hmm. maybe i'll do red streaks again, that was kind of fun.
i'm quite sure i had a lot more to say but somehow i forgot it all! here is my quote of the day. more like quote of yesterday. so colin was trying to find this rooftop place in NUS (the view was pretty cool) but really, it didn't seem like he knew where the place was at first and i was wondering if we were ever going to find it. and then i was also thinking of my various conversations with tuan involving my fascination with animals and duck/swan-feeding. so i was like "where's the wild goose?" [and i did really think it would be quite amusing if there had been a real goose we were chasing] colin turned around, looked at me and started laughing.
anyway, i have since decided it's one of my better lines. haha.
ohh meeting up with sean n jia'en was fun. although i wish joel could've gone!:( i think it'll be even funnier if bert comes along next time.. oh and jon should be back by then. and ruixiong'll be there too! lots of good times. anyway so apparently bert's scholarship officer said sean's resume had 5 pages (and when i heard that i was like uhhh good resumes should be like 1 page? haha) anyway sean was like "wat.. maybe she counted the appendix of "best places to eat in the bay area" and we couldn't stop laughing. man i miss our SLSes! bro wat and bro goh. they are so comic..
and i'm so glad PV07 is having a mini-reunion tmr! hope it'll be fun! miss them lots. miss a lot of pple. where is jackie... sigh. everytime i see tu's msn pic i miss her too! even though she's really good at googlechat haha. its a cute pic. i can't believe chris is going back to cornell 11 aug. it's too soon! humph. and i need to decide what to do for winter break. europe? hm. east coast? (again). now i have more ppl to visit there though:)
really can't believe i'm going to be a junior! ahhh.
ah. somehow i just got to thinking about what kevin said about friends and drifting apart. actually i thought about it on and off after i met him last sat, but i guess i just never got round to posting on it:)
anyway so i realized this time round, coming back, i'm waiting for people to organize outings rather than doing it myself. man, blogger is really slow. anyway.. yeah. i used to be the one always msging pple to meet up and stuff. but i think it's kind of changed now. so far, most of the times i've gone out = someone else organizing it. haha. which is nice, cos it's really tiring to coordinate with like 10 different schedules. but it also makes me wonder.. actually at stanford it's kind of similar. which is bad! maybe i'm getting too lazy. but for sg, i realized i'll just msg the pple i really do want to meet. the last 3 times i came back i was still trying to meet as many pple as possible.. now it's just like. mehh. will see what happens. good and bad i guess. sometimes it's nice to meet up with pple i haven't seen in quite a while.
so kevin was telling me about this friend he used to be really really close to, but somehow they drifted apart and can't really connect anymore. and some people he didn't use to know too well, he connected really well with for some reason or other. i was thinking about it.. can't really think of pple i've drifted away from. unless you count the primary school crowd. used to hang out with jo, steph, michelle, emily, hon a lot. and now i hardly see them at all.. which is kind of sad really.
but at least i do still keep in touch with chris n junwan. n emilyn sometimes. etc. jieying i relief-taught with, which was kind of interesting cos i never was that close to her but we had lunch together sometimes and all.
serene asked me if i found that it was harder to make good friends as we get older. i don't really know, exactly. sometimes you just find friends where you never thought you would. like. haha. this is still one of my prime examples. rachel, whom i worked with at the learning lab (super-enriched tuition center) before going to stanford. my first impression was like hmmmmm i don't know if we could get along. cos the first time i met her was in the library and she was rather unhelpful about where i could find 'the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe' cos i had to write about it for some cloze/compre passage. but somehow along the way i found out she's such a silly squid! haha. and we still have lots of fun when we go out.
she's hilarious la.. she wanted to go to spotlight to get decoration stuff for harry potter day (ie saturday) and she wanted gold and silver ribbon thingys. and at first i didn't think twice about it, then i said she ought to make it red and gold for gryffindor colors (and i actually remembered correctly! i'm amazed:p) and she was like huh? wat's gryffindor.. and i'm like.. win already..
and then of course my dearest jackie:) man i'm going to miss her a lot in storey next year.. boo. it sort of took me a while to get used to the fact that i can't just turn to her and tell her something hilarious/whatever cos she's not rooming with me now! (and she's not even in sg, -_-). oh well. yeah, it was kinda funny cos i somehow found her on facebook before orientation, and we also somehow bonded thru the fact that we were very sick and tired of introducing ourselves at int'l orientation cos nobody remembered anybody's name/hometown after a while.
there you go, my prime two examples i guess. and my batchmates at stanford are always a great source of comfort. all the times we had random dinners during freshman year.. hm should try to do that a lil more often next year huh. this year was all comm meetings, haha kinda sad. random note. i can't believe cs n jon are gonna graduate next year! and daryl's going to be gone after dec! man. at least he should be around in the area i hope. augh. he is so amusing. man.
ooh deb fung's songs are so nice. she's not super well known though. yay for adelene who lent me the cd!:)
sigh! i am now feeling out of sorts. why is my internship stuff so hard to settle.. today we were having revival meeting in church and the guest preacher from klang was talking about faith in God and how leaving it up to him gives him more space to work in our lives.. and i was thinking yeah, trusting somehow that I'd have a good internship since march when my first round of apps weren't successful and i thought i was pretty much settled with the hedge fund.. but then the guy replied to my email and said they're still thinking! augh. i am so frustrated right now.
and it's so hard to type this stupid entry, dunno wat's wrong with my computer. ah i gave up on downloading the korean show. slow connection. man i don't even know why i'm in such a foul mood >< actually maybe i do know but i'm in denial or something, hm. that might be it. UGH. i think i shall go read a book or something. probably more calming.
it's been practically a month since i updated.. crazy times!'
my grades this quarter were slightly abysmal i think. but i don't care anymore. actually maybe it's cos it's the last quarter and it's hard to stay motivated.. dunno. will try harder next year.
anyway, last days of the school year were as usual crazily busy. meeting people, TRYING to pack, not sleeping as usual. next year i need to figure out my packing better.. and i have a ridiculous amount of stuff. oh i so did miss blogging. anyhow. props to all those who helped me move - i really appreciated your help:) philbert whom i called at the last min, colin who got up early to help me even though he hates getting up.
and then PV07 (SEALNet Project Vietnam). as usual i didn't really feel like getting on another plane (after SFO-NRT-SIN, and a 4 hour delay for the last leg) to go to Vietnam, but our lovely team changed that. i have to say, i was probably most surprised by our two MIT guys, just cos i guess they were very different and very endearing. not that the rest of the team wasn't, but something about the two of them.. or maybe i'm just biased cos my bro went there haha.
it was so horribly depressing just now, people leaving one by one until there were like 5 of us left for lunch.. but i guess going to tu's house helped, new environment so it doesn't matter if there aren't 20 of us. whereas being in the hotel and there being only 4 of us left to clean up... oww.
from being a very-last-minute trip member last year to a hybrid between a co-leader and the leadership i/c this year. the experience has been so different yet slightly similar. in that i'm sure we had just as much fun (or maybe more, hm) but now PT06 seems like such a distant memory. which kind of makes me sad, cos I think I would like to remember exactly what it was like. ah. luckily last year I compiled notes, kind of.
anyway, i'm not sure my mom would be exactly pleased about what i achieved in leadership though, most of our members wrote about how they see that leaders don't have to be loud and chatty to be effective leaders. and my mom's always going on and on about how i should talk, which i should, but well. i try... or i will have to try harder hm.
and i'm glad i pushed for the autograph book (or yearbook, as americans call it) thing. only problem being we gave it to people too late cos they had trouble finishing writing everyone's. and tu was apparently very surprised that people were so concerned with writing for everyone cos people stayed up until ridiculous times of the night yesterday to write before they flew off.
alright daniel came back so i shall chat w him and finish this later.
i love this.
"[mexican] bus drivers may engage in an impromptu race down the boulevard, even as their passengers are shouting that they want to be let off at their stop"
from my psych reading on mexican american cultural models. oh and that was to illustrate the concept that they really prize relationships over abstract concepts. if that makes sense. the other example was of a mexican taxi driver stopping to pick up a friend he sees walking down the road, even if he has a paying customer in the back.
i can just imagine the two buses zooming down the road while the poor passengers are flailing their arms trying to get the driver's attention. kind of reminds me of chunkai & jon racing down el camino at 80mph. also, that we just missed the bus coming back from stanford shopping center and had to WALK. but i'm quite proud that i estimated the time correctly - 30mins!
at least there can still be some joy found during finals week.
oh and we were at andronico's and the cashier (this nice old man) remembered us! so crazy. i think the last time i was there with jackie was like a month ago.. and then he was playing around and pretending the counter was closed and then telling me i couldn't buy chocs cos they were reserved for mother's day.. and then he asked for our names and said we had very nice names or something. and he remembered it today! rather surprising.. i wasn't sure it was the same guy but i guess so, hm. yay for sat night shopping at andronico's.
heh i just spent like 2.5 hrs talking to colin. i really can't believe it's the end of the year and people are graduating! i suppose this year i didn't hang out with seniors very much so it wasn't like with sean and joel - the acute realization that they're leaving and won't be around next year to have fun with:(
and yeah, thinking from the time i first met daryl to how he's walking this june and graduating next quarter. daryl if you read this, i really hope you get a job here so you can hang out with us for another year! :p
anyway yes i've been rather slack concerning pwr cos rushing work since sunday has just taken a bit of a toll on me. and i have until 5pm tomorrow to do pwr so i THINK i should be fine.. pray pray pray.
oh also very thankful for jap dinner + ice cream :p quite sick of going to the dining hall and seeing sucky food. isn't finals weeks supposed to be better food!!! :(
i thought i had excessive-paper-writing syndrome, after spending the entire night (and early morning) on my psych paper, and i really did NOT want to start revising my pwr paper (urgent though it may be) but then i finally did (yay) and i realized how sucky it is.. haha. my psych paper paragraphs are so much longer and more substantial. i think i know why he gave me a B. thank goodness for rewrites..
on another note. i was listening to daryl's song (again), and then it suddenly reminded me of how 2 years ago, i was sitting in the US embassy in Singapore and upon "eavesdropping" on a conversation next to me, discovered that daryl was coming to stanford and met him. so very interesting. and then the gathering, where i met cs & jon for the first time. they still look like a pair of Ent-like giants to me, although they aren't THAT giant (as compared to the guy whom I catch a ride to church with). i suppose compared to me they are though. and flying over here with kiat n wang ning (both of whom which i hardly see as compared to cs & jon, interestingly enough).
first times are so interesting. i mean, first meetings. or like, roots - there are SO many pple from nyps here (or coming here, at any rate), it's rather uncanny sometimes.
reminds me of something else jon was saying yesterday, about how next year me cs & wangning will return to our freshman-dorm-areas. well for wangning it IS his frosh dorm. for cs its like west campus. and for me it's central (storey is, thankfully, nearer to campus than flomo) :)
anyhow i guess i was in a somewhat reminiscient mood cos seniors are graduating! it's crazy. i can't believe i'm going to be a junior :|
ahhh! stupid PWR has destroyed my ability to write a proper paper. after writing my script for the past two weeks now i keep wanting to write informally and that is so not going to work! -tears hair out- okay. shh. it'll be okay. just a bit frustrating..
Something I just randomly remembered while thinking of church. Last night, Leng was speaking (he's one of the professionals who helped to found SEALNet) and he told us to remember 3 things when we were on our projects this summer: commitment to faith, commitment to hope, commitment to love.
Ididn't realize it at first, but when he repeated them at the end of his speech, I recognized it.
1 Cor 13:13 "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
the universal truth.
SUCH a long day.. of akpsi and in-house draw and sealnet. and feeling very drained and feeling like i didn't want to be places. i'm glad i came back and caught sean online! improved my mood by a lot, definitely. googletalk is quite phenomenal. haha. althought really, it's because of sealnet pple that i'm using it that much now. the new IM...
anyway in house draw was so dramatic.. but i thank God for his blessings because we got a TERRIBLE in-house draw number so we were one of the last few rising juniors to draw. so the way in-house draw works is this: you're assigned to a house, right. then there's in-house draw to determine which room you get. and it's another lottery thing (ie the equivalent of picking a random number out of a hat) and the lowest number gets to choose first. but usually in-house draw goes by seniority then by draw number (i.e. rising seniors with the lowest numbers get to pick first and so on..)
yup so there're like 8 doubles in this house for us to pick from right. and i think 6 pairs went before us.. and dayoung (my nxt yr roommate) was totally freaking out about us getting a horrible room. and i'm like seriously, it's not like you can do anything about it at the moment.. plus i'd been praying for a good room so i was pretty sure God would give us the best, and He did give us our 1st choice!
it was pretty crazy.. cos we had quite a lot of criteria -
* 2nd floor (cos 3rd floor is too hot)
* on the non-frat side of the house (there's a rather loud frat next to my house so if we'd ended up on that side.. the music would be that much louder)
* decent-sized room (although i think we may have been slightly deceived about the room size because of the way the current occupants utilized the space)
and we got the room we wanted! really praise God for his faithfulness. it was rather interesting cos i was sitting there staring at the floor plan thing "seeing" our names written into the room we wanted and hoping that other people would choose other rooms, and they did! very amazing. and dayoung was so relieved. haha.
anyway yeah, that's my amazing story for the day. but also rather nerve-wrecking. cos even while i'm sure God will always give us the best, sometimes what He thinks best isn't what we think is best so i didn't know what the deal was.. but yay! haha.
at this point i just received my TA's comments on my psych paper due monday which i have not really started on. a bit freaked out. but i have faith.
The Tale of Three Vaden Visits (Thurs, May 31)
(vaden's the name of our health center, which is notoriously unhelpful to poor sick students)
background info: last thurs my right thigh started hurting mysteriously, followed by a long bruise stretching till my knee. and then i started limping. (reminiscent of when i hurt my left hip during winter cos of snowboarding...)
and this is the detailed timetable that i sent to my mom, updating her on my adventures for thursday. it was definitely too eventful for my liking, even though i got my wish of not going for 2 classes (be careful what you wish for!)
11am went to see doc about my leg. She says probably trauma, like lunging during tennis or something.. So take ibuprofen and ice my knee (to reduce swelling/pain)
So I got the ibuprofen from the pharmacy and took the tablets during lunch and then iced my knee after
1pm went for psych section, everyth’s fine, leg’s feeling a little better
2pm go to library, sitting around checking email and stuff..
2:30pm right eye suddenly starts itching
2:40pm itching increases, can feel some swelling
2:50pm swelling is getting QUITE bad (and at this point I was emailing jackie about being bored etc and she was replying pretty instantly so she was like go to vaden now, wat if it’s conjunctivitis! - but I said I must wait till my introsem starts so I can go tell the prof exactly why I can’t go to class)
3:10pm look for prof, he stares at my eye and says yes, I should go check it up
3:20pm ask for emergency appointment at vaden (at this point right eye is rather rather puffed up n I’m looking like a freak)
3:30pm nurse gives me benadril (sp??) and says it’s probably an allergic reaction, take the medicine and come back later to check up.. The antihistamine will make me a lil drowsy (and I’m thinking that’s just fine, I’m not going to class anyway)
3:40pm ice the eye, take the pill, fall asleep (leg’s feeling better but now my left eye starts itching a bit)
5:55pm get up (I don’t know how come I didn’t hear my alarm at 5:45 but oh well) go to vaden, see doctor, who says they don’t know what’s the cause but for now I’m allergic to ibuprofen.. Prescribes me some antihistamine which is non-drowsy and recommends that I go to longs drugs and get it asap (cos the vaden pharmacy is closed)
7:00pm reach town & country (where longs drugs is – took the marguerite shuttle) and go get the prescription.. They say it’ll take 10-20mins so I go get dinner
7:30pm the pharmacist tells me my insurance card is insufficient cos they dunno who to charge the medicine to.. And I have no idea what’s happening. And then she says they can only call them up tmr (since you know, it’s after office hours). And that it’s $88!!! When I see that I’m like okay.. I really don’t think I need the medicine that badly. And if I really need it I can just get it from Vaden tmr.. So I took back the prescription and skipped getting the drug. (and the pharmacist said claritine is ok too but I couldn’t be bothered..)
anyway, end of long story: eyes are pretty much back to normal (yay), leg still hurts a bit, been icing it, that should help. i should've taken chuansheng's advice n not taken ibuprofen -_- oh well. and colin asked me something interesting - 'do you not like to be taken care of/dependent on someone else?' (because i didn't want to ask anyone to drive me to longs to get the drug) i guess that's kind of true though, i probably have more to say about that but later.. too tired...
so anyhow, i had to blog about this before i forgot. SPEED DEMONS!!!! yesterday night, i was out with akpsi pple at a rather unearthly hour (in my opinion, on a schoolday night), and we were driving at 80mph down el camino real (which is really a 40-45mph road). haha. it was CRAZYYYYY. i also need to tell jackie about this later.
little explanation: my co-sib is chun kai - who happens to be from philippines/taiwan and is currently a senior who's taking very slack classes cos it's his last quarter. he drives RIDICULOUSLY. he hurtles around everywhere (in a manual car, no less) but still, surprisingly, manages to be quite safe.
oh, one of his ways to cut down driving time - when the light turns red and there's an intersecting road, turn right, do a quick U-turn and turn right again and you get out onto the road! this has to be seen to be believed.. he did this last night and my lil sib sabrina was like "u totally just wiggled!" (like off the main road and on again).
i still remember when we went to get gelato for our lil sib and he was eating with one hand while driving (A MANUAL CAR!!!) with one hand. man. and apparently last night he drove from castro to stanford in like 9 mins (the journey normally takes maybe 20mins at a normal speed i.e. keeping to the speed limit).
anyway, so his roommate jon chang (the two of them are really cute & funny) has this really powerful sports cars (its a subaru something or other with a turbocharger and dunno wat else haha reminds me somewhat of jon goh & his eclipse) anyway... so jon was driving last night as well and they decided to race along el camino!
apparently chun kai's car is quite lousy as compared to jon's car but we were racing anyway.. super thrilling. but of course, really not a very good thing to do. and i think they kept slowing down to check for cops. haha. it was ridiculously crazy though..
yeah so last night we had this akpsi big sib-lil sib thing, which i was at first really reluctant to go for cos i really have lots of work to do and all, but i went cos i felt it was my duty to. but it ended up a LOT of fun, we definitely need more social events like that. and so i'm happy:)
daryl's talent is amazing. http://www.upok.net/triskaidekaphobe/TheHeartbeatOfGod/
i really don't know how he managed to come up with the entire song - vocals, backup, the 16+ instruments (or even more? haha). well given it did take a few months to complete.. but still.
actually through fellowship i really see how amazing people's musical talents are.. christina, sicheng, colin, lindsey. i guess it just got brought back to me at chi alpha on wed nights and praise night and yesterday at adelene's house.
anyhow, very glad i got to meet silly ser today.. she definitely says a lot more silly things than i do. >< wish our school was over and i can chill! sigh. really i'm so slack it's shameful.. ser was like "it it were 2 weeks to finals i'd be freaking out already!" and i'm like nyah.. two weeks.. hm. well. they are on semester.. -shrug- i will survive. :p
yay for watching pirates yesterday! although i realized it is a VERY bad idea to have 3 groups of friends there cos obviously i won't get to talk to all of them. anyhow. i didn't even know it was 2h45! that was quite crazy.. stuffed so much into it. but yay for jack sparrow:) and the maelstrom scene was cool:p
my cultural psych class has destroyed the way i look at things now. everytime i see ads/listen to songs/something and it reflects the concept of individualism/believing in yourself/american dream-ish stuff, my mind automatically tells me that's the european-american cultural model playing out right there and i'm like ugh! no! i don't WANT to think about it! eek. right now it's christina aguilera's "voice within" and it says "when there's no one else, look inside yourself". anyway. yes, i feel like it has destroyed my worldview. ignorance is bliss sometimes, really.
anyway my housing for next year is going to be rather interesting. so since we got a pretty good number, we wanted to stay in a row house (better location, food, community feel, but coed bathrooms and less singles/2-room doubles unless you pick the correct places). to summarize: we ended up in this row house which has a GREAT location and great food and everything.. but has 1 room doubles only. sigh! haha. and we thought we weren't going to get in cos this is a bio-themed dorm, meaning a lot of pple can apply to be priority residents (and participaate in the bio-themed events) and most of the priority pple were girls.
I really think I forgot just how heavy a 20-unit courseload is. seriously. after last quarter. I mean I was recruiting and CS106A (java programming) was driving me nuts, but I think I had much less class time and quite a bit of time to slack around and read books. now it's a struggle to finish my work on time and juggle SEALNet stuff and be able to sleep enough and celebrate pple's bdays (i only mention the last cos the past two nights i've been over at wilbur to watch pple get thrown in the shower. haha.)
and I don't even know how come SEALNet takes up so much time. how do other people handle so many clubs n stuff? man. oh well. it's not other people we're talking about anyway, it's you. and i guess everything in SEALNet is a challenge. coming up with curriculums, getting people involved, evaluation matrices, ..... ahhh. anyhow I am so looking forward to this weekend.. long weekend and ser'll be here! haha i want her to meet so many people it's crazy. probably not going to happen but i guess we'll see..
stupid 9am classes. seriously, i think i'm going to pick classes such that i NEVER EVER AGAIN have to get up so frickin early to go to class.. hope that's possible. so much for being naive and idealistic and thinking yay! spring = nice weather so it won't be so hard to get up! somehow 9am class just gives very little leeway for doing last min work. haha. as bad as it sounds. though technically it shouldn't.. oh i don't know. weird. ok back to silly pwr. i really need a better attitude towards my classes, but 3 weeks ago i was already a little bored with them!
i really should go to bed cos i have to get up to go to church tomorrow. but i feel oddly pensive. maybe cos it's been a slightly crazy weekend so far and ...
i did NO work today. seriously, like, NO work AT ALL. ah well. got up at 930 cos i had to return the DVD for psych class (we had to watch this movie about native americans and it was on reserve at the library but they let me check it out overnight cos i checked it out 1.5hrs before closing and usually the limit is 3 hrs). and then i met grace & co and hannah & bf and gave them a tour (w wangning).
lunch at cheesecake - sooo full! i must really learn to eat less. and the apple crisp was too nutty for my liking, i thought it was going to be more ilke the crumbly stuff. ah well. and the two guys.. manjun (sp??) and timothy.. eat so much! pretty unbelievable.. they just kept on clearing plates. like stuff i/other pple couldn't finish, they'd just polish it off without much problem.
after lunch i decided i was too full and went to bed. and then i got up in time to prepare for jerry's special dinner which dayoung invited me to and had good food again.
preparing was fun though, jackie had this fantastic idea of getting me to bring a cardboard dog along (we were supposed to dress for the theme and the theme was fairytale so i was dorothy fr wizard of oz). but we didn't have cardboard so we printed out a pic of toto (the dog) from wikipedia and tied it onto jackie's stuffed moose/reindeer toy. it was hilarious:p had a lot of fun.. oh and i borrowed jackie's red shoes. sigh. wat will i do without jackie next year! -makes note to sleepover very often-
anyway after dinner (and i had this ice cream-cookie crumb dessert thing, fat fat fat) dayoung suggested going to the testimony show and i was like ok! (Testimony = christian a cappella grp). they were okay but talisman is so much better still.. i'm so biased. ah well.
and then we went straight to watch shrek. which was okay, i think the parodies weren't as funny. or maybe cos i heard beforehand that it wasn't that good so my perception was tainted (similarly for spiderman, but i never really cared for spiderman so that's probably not too valid). i hope pirates 3 is MUCH better. baaa.
ok now i think i shall sleep.
get up, bum around, walk around, eat, sleep, eat, watch acappella show, watch movie. such a bad example, please never do this.
man. yay for staying up to do PWR, at least i have company online. haha. just now cs was up, kiat's up too (cos we're pretty much in the same boat, except that i'm not really rewriting my entire paper, which is nice). and also I really thank God for Jackie, she's probably saved my ass countless times (with regard to having to wake up to do work and not waking up cos I'm too tired/have no more willpower). haha. I can't remember if Tomi did that for me last year, if she didn't it's probably cos I had less trouble getting up I think. but I know I had to go over and poke her sometimes cos she'd have to get up to study and such. us poor college kids!
anyway i suddenly crave fishball noodles. the ones that we used to have wayy back in pri school. yellow noodles and fishball/fishcake! yum. sigh. anyway here's a pic, doesn't really look the same but it's the closest i guess. 
oh and zhixiu the silly giraffe is here! how fun. i think i should be able to get to see him on wed.. hopefully. tmr (or today, really) is ridiculously busy. after pwr i have to come back and work on my music introsem presentation, then my art midterm proj (i'm drawing llamas! haha)
okok my goal is to finish this at 7 (i.e. in 3.5 hrs time) so i can get another 2 hrs of sleep, we'll see. blaaah.
i don't really know what induced me to take on this happy mode of oh-i'm-not-going-to-sleep-on-mon-night-and-write-my-pwr-draft, but it was definitely a BAD idea. man. it was so torturous to sit in class on Tuesday I really wanted to die. Thankfully I came back after introsem and took a nap (which extended past what it was supposed to). My alarm rang at 6pm but I turned it off and only awoke when Jackie asked me "Aren't you supposed to be in class?" and it was 7:40pm. ah well. (my art class is from 7 to 9 pm). and then I was like crap! My longstanding fear of sleeping thru my phone alarm and missing class has come true! eek. but then I figured my body just wouldn't take it (and I really felt very weak, hence the 'flopping around like a jellyfish' part of my nickname on msn/googletalk.
so i gave up and slept 9 hrs last night. yay! but today somehow still kinda tired. and it's going to be a long night. well i guess not THAT bad but given that it's already 1am and I need to put together a decent introsem presentation in case I -do- have to present tomorrow, a peer review (which shouldn't be TOO bad since I've already read Janet's paper), figure out leadership curriculum stuff, response to my Psych reading. oh great. that's the list.
anyway I screwed up my econ midterm. but at least my draw number was good! 338! yayy! maybe we can go on a row house or something.. not sure yet. anyway the housing draw is like a lottery.
1. you form a group (of people you wanna live/room with)
2. you submit your application online
3. they assign you a number
4. according to your number you choose where you want to live
5. they assign you your residence
6. you go for in-house draw (to pick exactly which room you get)
you have 2 preferred years - meaning that you get lower numbers and hence better housing preferences. the numbers for draw range from 1 to 3000. 1 to 1999 = preferred, 2000 - 3000 = un-preferred. and if you get '1' you pretty much can choose to live anywhere.. of course there're more desirable residences depending on wat u're looking for. row houses are the party places but they have better food (but also smaller windows for mealtimes) other places are less social/more quiet (ie my current dorm) etc
anyway we got 338! which is pretty good:) and i was very happy cos i was praying that we'd get a good number, couldn't face having to live in horrible places. and comparing that with my lousy econ (which was really my fault anyway), i think God was trying to teach me that some things I still can make up for (i.e. i NEED to work on that financial econ class, the irony) and sometimes i need a wake-up call, but other things he'll bless me as he sees fit. like draw numbers which i have no power over! yay. well i suppose that might be stretching it a little but given the range of emotions i went thru (angry/annoyed/sad/despondent abt my econ to ecstatic about housing) it just came to mind.
okay. work. work work work.
why is it that i always feel bad after home calls. or certain sealnet meetings. i guess they remind me of things i want to forget but shouldn't be forgetting. hm. and then after that i'm rather unhappy with the state of things but i don't want to be. man this is complicated. nevermind.. go and study.
hmm. this is rather sad. just now jon was asking me whether i'd decided when i'm going home and that i should go home earlier. besides the obvious fact that i still have school, i suddenly had no inclination to go home! which is a little peculiar cos i think usually at least the food will be some sort of an incentive. or seeing my family or friends. (and you see how food comes first, i'm such a bad person). i wonder. if this is a start of being distanced from home. i was like right now 17 hr flights don't seem particularly desirable.
haha. i'm in another one of my crazy moods. i just told jackie i want to bring some piglets to pwr class tmr instead of my 2 written responses to my research sources. then i'd throw them around and people will scream! haha. man. i think next year dayoung is going to think i'm nuts if i do that to her.. we'll see.
quote of the day. i slept from 11:30ish to 4am cos i was too tired but i still had pset + paper to write. (and it also doesn't help that jon called me up at like 11:40 and i was so puzzled and, as usual, wondering if it was time to get up already) so i was online at 6:30am and my brother IMed me and asked "why're you up so early? trying to beat the breakfast line?" haha. i love my bro. he's such a silly pig.
augh! i'm so bad at making decisions. like, seriously. :( even the simplest things.. so many things to consider. first housing.. rooming w jackie has been really fun, but it would be nice to try rooming w dayoung too.. and then off campus vs on campus and whether we'll get a good number.. okay that part is really out of my hands. but then i realized how bad unpreferred is... heh.
and then now both akpsi and sealnet have spiderman3 outings. i think i ought to go for the akpsi one just because.. but it's on friday and i know i'll be really tired out on fri by windsurfing heh. and sealnet's is free!! haha. and i kind of already know it'll be more fun, but it IS on sun and i have a 9am midterm on mon. i guess precisely because i know i should get to know my akpsi pple better this is somewhat of a problem. and the timing. aaahh. see! simple things!
maybe it'll be easier if i think in the indian cultural model - dharma! moral obligation. hahaha. yay for cultural psych.
alright i really need to do my pwr paper. it's so hard to find books on cirque du soleil though. hm.
i am so tired!!! i don't even know why, i think it's psychological or something. i've had 5 hours of sleep and it isn't really that bad, so that's why i say it's psychological!! bah. so tired.
it seemed almost prophetic that bible study was about servant leadership and my meeting later was about leadership. not that it really helped though, i was still trying to figure out draw cos i don't think i'm going to go to oxford anymore. i'm kind of glad i know, although i was a little bummed about it cos it would've been nice to go. but i think #15 on the waitlist isn't particularly hopeful, so i'll just get on with my life:)
psych pretty much screwed me over, i think i suck at psych exams >.< i don't want another A- for psych! grumbles. last year it was cos i was pledging but this quarter... can't be. okay sleep. and get up early to do pwr.
i am frazzled. haha. that is the word of the day. and last night. and probably tonight. and tomorrow night. there you go. i did think i did work this weekend! i need to learn to skim my psych articles more efficiently. or actually, take notes WHILE reading them. bah. after 1 2/3 yrs of stanford education, i still haven't mastered that. -shakes head-
and when i'm stressed i EAT. how horrible. at least i have tennis plus windsurfing to keep me in shape (or give me a shape, haha). although i skipped today cos as i proclaimed to jackie last night, i decided studying is more impt than going for tennis! -triumphant- haha.
i really don't think the midterm can be that bad (or so i hope), but after that lousy first paper grade i feel like i NEED to do something about it. so i sat down on my bed and prayed. for strength, for understanding, for wisdom, for guidance in studying, for support to survive and manage everything. yay bible study tonight! :) although actually yesterday while in church i was still thinking about whether i should just borrow cars and drive to my own church when my ride's not around. as much as it's really nice to go to church w the sporean bunch, i don't really like the worship there. too rock-ish for my comfort i think.
okay it's been more than 5mins. last stretch of studying! haha and this when other people have finished their semester/are having finals/will be having finals. the irony.
okay i really should be reading my econ now but i'll get back to it later. cos this was something i wanted to blog about for a while but i kept forgetting!
i can't believe the (sch) year's almost over! :( it doesn't even seem like i accomplished what i wanted to. although i don't really think i had new year's resolutions. and 07 pple are graduating and 08 people are going to be seniors and we're gonna be juniors:| i'm not all that close to 07 pple so doesn't really matter to me as much. but then realizing that the a*star scholars of my batch (cs & jon) are gonna be leaving after next year and the juniors too (yf, jh, shineik, cat, steph, ...) so tragic! well at least ser should be coming so that will be fun:) and there'll still be 09ers around.. although i think more than half the people are going to be abroad at one point or another, not that i see them that often anyway.
and it still doesn't seem like i've found my niche/i've that much of a better idea of what i wanna do. sighh. how perplexing. oh and this random sporean added me on facebook and i had no idea why he'd added me until i realized he's stanford '11. haha. oops. aw little freshmen coming in, but we're all getting old!!! aaah.
a little out of sorts and don't feel like doing any work. it's been a long week. but i say that every week huh... heh. it's an awful feeling to go to class and not want to be there.. but somehow my initial excitement-about-classes has died off as the quarter progresses. which is really really sad!
i really hope that God shows me what it is that He has planned for me for next fall. well, actually, summer is kind of more important in a way. yup, summer would be nice. and then fall too. :| ahhh. anyway yes, what i'm going to end up doing during summer???! that dbs test thing was disconcerting. ugh. and fall, was I meant to go to oxford after all or stay back here? both ways I'm sure I'll still have a good time.. but then if I don't go I need to think about draw and that's always a tricky thing. augh. also given that it's nonpriority and nonpreferred. unless I staff next year? hmm. anyway if I need to draw I don't know who I should room/draw with.
weekend! more and more meetings and midterms coming up. oh i think i just need to sleep.. haha. the panacea to all ills. all MY ills, so it seems anyway. yay for borrowing pearline's wetsuit so I won't freeze in the water tmr! :)
albeit my lousy grade for my 2pg written-in-2-hrs-the-day-it-was-due psych paper, this class is really very interesting. so while the prof was lecturing on chinese cultural models today (i fell asleep for a while, but that's besides the point) and it suddenly dawned on me that it isn't necessarily wrong to be collectivist. it seems (to me, at least) that singapore is busy trying to get us all to be more unique and to stand out and be different, complaining that we're all coming out of one mould at the moment and that's bad. but maybe that's cos of the cultural context we come from, that harmony is important and being part of a whole, rather than standing out by doing your own thing, as they call it.
anyhow, i don't even know if that makes sense but i know i always feel the pressure to be different from other people, to find something that distinguishes me. and i suppose that might help me form my identity but really, sometimes it's just stressful. i think in general i've always been very afraid of doing something 'wrong', whether it's not-speaking-up, or speaking-up-and-saying-something-stupid, or not being able to define myself for interviews, or even now during art class, when i don't really know what the teacher's asking for but you can't really be WRONG in art cos it's whatever you want it to be/make out of it. which is kind of nice i guess. the freedom.
it's been a week since i posted! a VERY long week, in fact. sigh. partly cos i got hooked on another korean drama. :| haha. it's even older than full house (2004) too. beautiful days (2001)! i didn't even know lee byeong heon was one of the 'big four' as they call the four most popular korean actors. ahh.
anyway. apart from that. wasn't particularly well this week so that was sort of annoying. and i skipped windsurfing today cos 1) it was cold 2) i hadn't gotten a wetsuit yet 3) i decided i was still coughing and needed sleep. but i didn't really succeed in napping. sigh.
misha is right. i am cynical. and it doesn't help that jackie is just as (or even more) cynical as i am. cos i was telling her that i just don't feel anything. like the virginia tech shootings, i know it's a tragic thing to happen and all, but i can't seem to feel anything. i'm just like okay, this senior killed 33 people.
and then sealnet (or just service projects in general). i know they benefit less fortunate people (or i certainly HOPE so, at any rate) but i also don't feel anything. it's like a disconnect between the intellect and the heart.
and the last thing which i told her, about my drawing class. it's a lot of BS (like lit), the way they talk about oh, how the artist uses the lines to create something.. the curves say something... there was this particular picture which i unfortunately couldn't see any art in, it just looked like a mess of scribbles to me and people were making all sorts of things out of it. modern art, as long as you can crap something out, it's art.
so at this point misha was like why're you so cynical? and it reminded me of wat andrew said about geppers being cynical. so i told her, product of singapore. haha.
find your passion. what passion? i'm too lazy to be at stanford. no, let me correct that. i'm too lazy to be part of this world. it's all the protestants' fault (jackie: "damn those protestants!"), for the work ethic. that work is virtuous. i hate working! i think at one point in JC i did enjoy doing homework. and i guess my PWR paper should be fun since it's on cirque du soleil:) but nowadays i really can't be bothered to do my reading and that's just sad.
when the door is closed i feel like i'm in a world of my own. a world where i can do anything. but when the door opens, reality floods in.
anyway no i'm not depressed or anything. i wonder if this is like a cyclical thing. i know everytime we have one of these sealnet meetings i feel quite sian after that. it is, of course, supposed to do some good and help us improve but nobody ever likes these things. at least, i don't.
i really should go to bed. or get some productive work done. but it's been such a long week i don't feel like either of those two! and i keep having the weirdest dreams. okay they're not really that weird but i'd rather not dream.. dreamless sleep is usually best. at least i don't have to get up at 8 tmr.
i really am going to try not to have 9am classes every single day anymore. never again! :( sobs. or maybe i just need to be more disciplined about sleeping early. but you know, that hardly happens in college unless you have great willpower. which i don't really possess all the time.
art class is fun, get to sit around and draw stuff. i don't think i succeed all that well, but it's not too bad. there simply isn't enough time, though, i never really thought about how much time it takes to draw something. really admire megan & emilyn.
oh yes, and so while carrying my huge poster board & drawing block i lost control of my bike handles and crashed into a jolly little bush. it was a rather spectacular crash (although less so than a couple i've witnessed this year) and this guy came over and was like "are you okay?" while i really felt like cursing & swearing cos my knee felt like someone had hammered it with a lead pile, but i gritted my teeth and was like don't worry, i'm fine.. just lost control..
and i sat by the roadside and fumed for a bit. more like trying to bear the pain, but there you go. and the crowning glory: a caterpillar (one of the many infesting our lovely campus during this season) found its way onto my jacket. i should be glad it didn't get UNDER the jacket. eek.
hopefully my knee will be alright for windsurfing tmr, i really shudder to think wat'll happen if this waterproof spray thing doesn't work. probably will end up shrieking my head off!
bleah. anyway i feel remarkably unmotivated (as usual), it being the weekend and all. but dad's coming to visit for a couple of hours on sat (and fix my bike basket on, haha).
i shall take a leaf out of christina's book and post the sealnet flyer!! apply for projects if you're interested!:) it was an AWESOME experience.. so much fun. 
WICKED!!!! haha. I am so blessed. So on Thurs afternoon I was at Meyer Library at an iMac G5 clearing up my mail cos it was reaching the limit soon apparently.. and then Kara (one of my dorm staff - focus assistants - cos my dorm is humanities-themed, so these FAs are in charge of humanities events) emailed me to say someone dropped out of the Wicked trip so I get to go!!! ahhh. and it's so great that I didn't have anything on Friday/today (well I was supposed to help with some AKPsi thing but whatever.. haha). and also that Steph (one of my other FAs) cashed my check and I never did get the $ back from her cos of rather weird circumstances.
but anyway.. so I got to go!!! yayyy. and it's even better cos I didn't get to watch Wicked in Chicago. Although maybe the front row seats may have been better in a way (we were nearer the back and the LA Pantages Theater was kind of big I think). But it was SO good.. the actress/singer playing Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) had SUCH a powerful voice.. man. Eden Espinosa. her alto voice is very rich and her sop voice is pretty powerful too. it's just such a pity that 1. the CD is of the original cast and 2. doesn't capture the power of the voices (i'm assuming the original cast was as good or even better). I guess being IN the theater and actually hearing the reverberations and stuff makes a huge diff. but the songs are still nice!
and I got to see LA! sort of, the traffic was so bad we didn't really get to walk down Rodeo Drive. And we only paid like $25 per person for everything.. cos our FAs got some grant (i.e. lots of subsidy).
It was rather exciting though, the musical ended about 4:50pm and we had to drive to the airport/return rental cars and our flight was departing at 7:25pm. so Kara was like "we all have to RUN as soon as the performances ends, okay?" anyway we got to the airport in good time.
We also got to visit Steph's house which was frickin' awesome!!! it is HUGE. actually, all the houses there are huge. and she has like every music instrument there is. okay maybe not, but 1 normal piano, 1 grand piano, 2 guitars, 1 drum set, 1 mini-cello, 1 violin (i think), .... and a pool.. and this really cute little cocker spaniel puppy. i wanted to steal it. and her mom/dad cooked SUCH GOOD FOOD. i haven't had such good kalbi in a while. i feel like home cooked is so much better. maybe cos more time to marinate or something. anyway i had like 4 pieces. yumyumyum. and sprinkles red velvet cupcakes ooohhh.
Wish I could spend more time in LA but nevermind.. next time! And then I shall visit Desirae and Esther too :)
spring break! man i can't believe it's over and spring quarter is starting soon.
link to photos are at the side..
anyway, quick recap of spring break:
SAT (Mar 24) got to chicago o'hare int'l airport late, flight was delayed. and then i was still figuring out my housing for that night! oops. i really will make it a point to get stuff like that done earlier next time. seems like i always have problems with housing. anyhow, after many phone calls back and forth to various long-suffering pple (including jiunwen & junwan) i ended up staying with jessica pan.
which is so funny cos when we were in sec 1 we were all like ooh! house capts! and then i end up staying with one of them. but she's really nice and funny and very hospitable, taking in some random kid (i.e. me) for the night.
SUN (Mar 25) umm. slept in (really not such a good idea) cos i was kind of sleep deprived from the two late nights after finals ended.. watching some hilarious korean movie w jackie and then matchpoint w dayoung.
had lunch w jason, he is so funny.. was muttering about how he could still handle taxis (on the road), just cut them off, but buses.. another story altogether. saw his apartment which had a really nice view except for these two high rise buildings which obscured parts of the lake michigan view.. the lake is so pretty!
went down to wai keong's apartment and saw aud! yay. haha. haven't seen her in a while. me & chim agreed the two of them are kinda cute together though:p
then jason dropped me off in campus, i was walking around and met gerald (and fellow frosh) for dinner and saw his dorm.
MON (Mar 26) original pancake house w aud n chim! yumyumyum. i love that place. but it's the sort of place you can visit only so frequently. made fun of exhibits at art institute (i think chim was rather disconcerted by my irreverent attitude at first), walked around downtown chicago and discovered this lovely choc cafe called moonstruck! it is SO cute. ahh. met megan for dinner, she brought us to grand lux cafe, a sister company of cheesecake factory. followed megan home.. i like evanston! i guess its more like stanford than uchicago.. more suburban.
TUES (Mar 27) met jiunwen and her bf at panera bread (haha! the company which i sort of analyzed!) i liked their iced green tea and raisin scone. yumyum. anyway, jiunwen had to rush for class so her bf gave me the tour of northwestern instead (i was so amused, really). northwesstern campus is really pretty.. a little like a park! also visited the baha'i temple (an architectural wonder, so it looks) and then the weather suddenly CHANGED and i froze. boo. i knew i should've worn shoes. but the awesome weather the past few days caught me off guard. played settlers at night w wk & hui leng, it was rather amusing although not as crazy as the monopoly game we had during thanksgiving
WED (Mar 28) wandered into downtown for the morning, did some shopping (YAY! i'm shopping deprived) and then left for UIUC. it's kinda weird cos i was really looking forward to UIUC when i first landed in chicago, but then when it actually came to it, i wasn't so enthusiastic anymore cos i realized it means my break is ending! sigh. but anyway, junwan decided to bring us along to her SSA film festival thing - they were screening 'be with me' which had SO much food - i'm like, you definitely know this is a Singaporean movie. haha.
it was so nice to see everyone again though.. got to see pple's dorms, cars, houses (jon's & zhixiu's apartment is ridiculously clean and neat - it has definitely motivated me to do something about the state of my own room, although how successful that will be is another thing altogether). and junwan's apartment is really so social! although as me & chim decided, there is a price to pay since they can't do work until after midnight. haha. they've such a nice sporean community i'm almost jealous.
THURS (Mar 29) sent chim to amtrak station, she didn't want to get back to chicago late at night.. toured UIUC w junwan & fiona. and met zhixiu on the way. lunch at jon's fav korean restaurant.. i think it's kind of nice that they have a street of restaurants. but i guess that caters to apartment-living pple. um. walked around, i heard about some of their ridiculous stories (they want to buy josh a live chicken or a huge inflatable one for his bday!)
LEX to airport. it came late, and i was wondering if i would have to find another mode of transport to get myself to the airport. not that it mattered in the end, since my flight was delayed. and i got to use the lounge yay star alliance gold:D then my flight was overbooked so i ended up w a free hotel stay, free roundtrip ticket within US, economy plus exit row seat (which probably has as much leg space as first class yeahhh) for the next morning. woohoo!
tahoe trip today was rather screwed up i think. had trouble trying to please everyone yesterday, colin dislocated his shoulder today, slopes were kinda slushy. definitely the last time for this season..
YAYYY clar is DONE with WINTER QUARTER and FINALS!!!! woohooo!!!
man. that was cathartic. anyway i've had rather the craziest time since finals ended on thurs at 9:30PM! wheee. so i was supposed to go to late nite w dewen but that didn't really work out cos late nite was closed! cheated. humph. anyway i was going to say hi and happy bday to top but he was on the phone. and then yf called. so i piled into the car w the rest of them (jh who still had a final today, megan & viet) and we went to viet's place to play wii tennis!
haha it's ridiculously addictive. and pretty fun! yay. and then tu misha daniel came over.. philbert and dex came too but they all ended up playing beer pong. hum. oh then we came back to lantana to celebrate top's bday.. yay cheesecake factory cake! yums.
i don't really think i've been eating any less since finals were over, hm. oops. and then i watched this ridiculous korean movie called guns n talks w jackie until like 5am. (partly due to her doing laundry at the same time, she has SO many clothes and took so long to fold them -sigh-). also it was either the dvd or my computer, but the subtitles were sort of wonky and annoying. ah well.
didn't get to sleep in either cos we had a PV07 lunch meeting (sigh). sometimes i think i see too much of SEALNet pple for work man -shakes head- and then spent two hours with music yay! harp and then piano.. that was nice:)
went w jh to get his car tires fixed. i felt slightly obliged to cos he was going to be nice and give me a lift to the airport tmr. haha. but it was cool, haven't talked to him in a while. actually i really haven't seen yf in a looong time. ah well.
came back, went out w dayoung for dinner! wow korean food is pretty crazy.. i think i still prefer jap though, ah well. it's kind of funny but i think the food and language are somewhat linked. like jap food/lang is a little more palatable/fluent than korean. but i may be biased:)
then we stopped by this korean supermarket yay bakery! it was a small one, but nevertheless, asian bread yayyyy. i miss bo luo baos greatly. umm. oh yes and yayyy dayoung let me drive back -happy clar- i really like her car. and she doesn't like driving! and she has a car! so ironic. haha. says it's stressful. i could definitely see why, but i enjoy it. ah well. then we went to coldstones and i stuffed myself full of sugar :p then we came back and watched match point, which had a pretty disturbing plot, not altogether very satisfactory. i LOVE my screen though, thanks to my bro:)
okay i should really pack or shower or do something useful.. aahh.
I really should be concentrating on studying for Int'l Econ (final on Mon 8:30am augh) but somehow the SEALNet meeting this morning keeps popping into my head. About how I've (as usual) gotten myself into something I have no idea how I'm going to deliver. Actually I sort of remember saying that at some point.. oh right that was about recruiting.
Anyway, I find it so interesting that KB (one of our professional mentors) is so invested in SEALNet and she's really all out to push us. I mean JH does say that sometimes.. His favorite phrase is like "I challenge you to..." I bet he got it from KB. And we finally have like set roles for each of us in Project Vietnam, which I think is great cos now at least there's something tangible (or defined, anyway) to work towards.
And the way the professionals 'dissect' and summarize our aims is so interesting. Sounds rather like work lingo or something.. And it was so amazing how KB got us to talk about our view of the 1. mission of PV 2. our stake in it 3. how we're going to interact. While we were talking she whipped out a marker and drew this really cool map on the whiteboard (those are really useful things) and organized it/used black lines to show us who we'd be talking to (mainly) and stuff.
Actually I don't even know why I think it's cool.. Stepping back it could be seen as a rather artificial way of distilling things. But I think it worked for me.
So what I've gotten myself into is like planning the service leadership curriculum for the entire SEALNet (okay I'm quite sure I'll have a team, but the initial impression was that she was going to hold me accountable for it and KB is quite scary haha). cos I was asking, isn't that the SEALNet-wide curriculum that everyone uses, and KB said (actually I forgot what exactly she said). But later Tu was like, but there ISN'T a documented curriculum at the moment, we've to start doing that. and KB was like "oh yes, I forgot to add: there IS no SEALNet, YOU are SEALNet." and I was like okay!!! well done...
Alright at least I've gotten that out of my system. I realized the way I punctuate kind of depends on my mood. Now it's like a semi-formal thing or something.
At this point I feel like SEALNet is going to have a huge impact on my life. Leading a project and all. And I wish my frat would have that kind of impact, but somehow I don't know if I can see that happening..
Actually this whole business with professional mentors sounds vaguely like CCAs in school where we had teachers-in-charge. And uni stuff is so different cos it's all student-run. I guess sometimes it's really nice to have people around who know more than you. And in that sense I guess that's what former-committee members (in the case of S@S) and older-bros (in the frat) are for. Which I've kind of just realized. A little late there.. oh well.
i was going to post something just now in the afternoon but then i forgot wat it was cos blogger wasn't working at that time -_-
anyway
here're some favourite quotes:
Jackie: We should really cook one day. It’ll be you and me…
Clar: (in the most adorable voice ever <- this description by jackie) And our little frying pan.
As Clar lies in bed,
Jackie: If I go to the toilet, will you be awake when I get back?
Clar: No. I will be a pufferfish.
-pause-
Clar: I think I want to be a monster.
(I started describing Celia in Monsters Inc. - with the hair-monsters and etc)
Jackie: I haven’t watched Monsters Inc.
Clar: Then I’m just describing nonsense.
Jackie: Yah…
Jackie: Hopefully when I come back you won’t be a pufferfish.
Clar: I’ll puff up and pop and then no more Clar. You’ll just have shreds. I guess that’ll be enough.
(on the night when I was getting pissed off with coding NameSurfer, I think)
Me “My aim in life is to annoy everyone”
Jackie “That’s a really stupid aim”
Me, exasperated, “Do I sound like I was being serious you silly pig?”
Jackie “No, but I felt like I should tell you it was stupid anyway”
After an extended campaign to get Jackie to send me the photos of our night out at California Café (which included me calling her so she could locate her phone in the sea of stuff that is her bed), she finds her phone and sends me the photos. Then.
Jackie, peering down at her phone screen, “Who called?”
Me “me”
Jackie “oh yah”
[this is such a classic serene-type of thing to do..]
Me, reading Ch 13 of my Econometrics txtbk, “I can’t take it anymore!”
Jackie laughs. “Oh no.. what happened?”
Me “This stupid chapter is so long!”
Jackie “Those damn chapters! Always so long…”
okay this is really a deluge of posts but yay feeling better. bible study was good. although we had like 4 pple.. aaron's hilarious. he was making all sorts of amusing remarks about the parables we were looking at.. 'cumulative investment' - the man who found hidden treasure and then sold all he had to buy the field.. and oh, lots of things. and about how christians are described as 'mustard seeds', 'yeast', 'wheat', 'fish', 'salt'. karen "we're a tasty bunch!" aaron "we could make a meal out of all that!"
i have had enough of people for the moment. well, until like 7:15 when bible study starts cos chi alpha pple are fine. haha. anyway.. yeah. this whole email thing, plus the 2-hour SEALNet meeting I just had = more than enough.
two days later you send me an email telling me the real reason you came here, and that involves a relationship issue with someone i know pretty well. while i am really glad you decided to be frank, what do you want me to do? or say? or think? i'm not sure that was such a good idea, cos now all the possibilities start chasing themselves inside my mind and i don't know what to think of you anymore. like, telling me afterwards and not giving me the entire picture is just going to confuse me more. and i haven't even the foggiest idea why it disturbed me so much. at least i think that's it for the moment, and hopefully we can all move on.
SEALNet meeting involved a length discussion on our working styles and what we've been doing/not doing. I always dislike these things cos they're very draining. I guess cos it indirectly targets our weaknesses and it's very tiring to discuss such things. I suppose it's just easier to remain in denial and push everything aside instead of really grappling with it. Something which I need to do with a lot of areas of my life, but can't find the energy to.
Anyway, so after these two things, I'm just like.. okay. I can talk to my roommate, and that's it. I don't want to have to sit around at the dining table and try and socialize with people I don't feel like talking to..
I still have so much work to do... Where does the time go?
It was nice meeting Philbert by chance at Olives, even though my mind was still rather preoccupied with the email-thing.
so i really do think i spent yesterday effectively doing nothing. well, no work at all. got up at 7:30 to go to church (and daylight savings began! ridiculously soon.. i didn't even know until i saw the sign at the restaurant/bar thing at kirkwood. somehow i think that happened last year too, saw it at some shop at yosemite during spring break. heh)
i thought the sermon wasn't very helpful cos they were encouraging members to give and talked about budget and stuff and i was (most unfortunately) falling asleep. the actual sermon was like maybe 10 minutes long. bah. oh well.. came back and got straight back into bed. jon called an hour later to ask about lunch, but i was rather reluctant to get out of bed so oh well. too bad. it wasn't that great a nap i guess, i kept waking up at random times and wondering if i should get up. esp at 12:30, cos i realized brunch was over.. then i was like heck, i'd rather sleep and i need to stop eating so much anyway.
spent like 1.5hrs updating my accounts (still can't figure out where some of my money went -_-) and then cleaned up my snowboarding boots. then jackie wanted to cook so we did. and honestly, soup is one of the most boring things you can cook. i guess it's the same as boiling water, kind of. just got to wait for it to heat up while stirring. haha.
okay don't feel like chronicling the rest of my uneventful day so i shall talk about saturday! yayyy. i don't even know why i'm so crazy about snowboarding. like if you really think about it.. boarding/skiing is just going down a snowy slope multiple times. okay i guess that's an oversimplification and the same logic would apply to everything else (e.g. basketball/blading/watever). it's the joy one derives from it!
anyway i realized the drive to kirkwood/tahoe is really long. >.< i guess having a tour bus and being able to watch DVDs makes it pass faster. (as for dorm trip). also while we were coming back i found myself staring at the other cars on the freeway wondering where they were coming from - had they been up to napa on a 2-3hr drive? were they visiting from somewhere? went to sacramento for the weekend and were now going home? it's just such a weird concept to do road trips. and especially those across-state-trips.. that's just crazy.
kirkwood has really huge slopes. i mean huge as in width-wise.. very nice and wide! i preferred the snow on the backside, only got there after lunch (and it was such a pain to get there! man. probably took us like 40mins to get over there).
i realized this whole snowboarding thing has a lot to do with overcoming psychological barriers (quote barney). like i KNOW i can toe but part of me is very afraid of trying cos the probability of me falling when toeing is higher than when i'm heeling. but when i do try and succeed then it's like YEAHHH owned the slopes! haha. also about gaining momentum while carving.. if i start and carve a couple of times then it's just easier to continue. also like pearline said.. at first, scared of green slopes, then blue.. then black! haha my aim is to be able to jump by the time i graduate
and my triumph of the saturday was answering my phone while boarding:p granted it wasn't that such a steep slope (if not i wouldn't have thought about answering my phone). so anyway i was going down an okay blue slope, and then suddenly my phone started vibrating in my jacket sleeve (yay for sleeve pockets) and i was like oh crap i bet that's sicheng asking where we are.. (we ended up splitting into 2 pairs) was trying to decide if i should answer it and then i was like heck, i'm sure i can do this! so while carving i was unzipping my sleeve pocket and taking out my phone.
it was so funny cos i was quite sure sicheng could hear my board carving the snow cos it was SO loud, but apparently later he said he could hear the wind and was wondering if i was boarding while talking. and whether i was going to fall cos i was doing that. but i didn't! haha! anyway i felt such a sense of achievement:D funkkyyy stuff! :p :) whee~