hakuna matata

moderately eventful week. actually. no. the only event was getting sick. on monday night i decided i desperately needed sleep and therefore purposed to sleep before 10. unfortunately, after happily thinking i had no more work to do/..., i suddenly realised i hadn't written my introsem essay yet. freak. so i wrote 2 pages worth and then it was 11pm so i decided it was time to sleep.

woke up at 4.30 with the feeling of inevitability. throat/nose/watever felt weird. 37.6degrees! yay.. go back to sleep. wake up, still around there. toyed with idea of skipping introsem later (while editing/finishing my essay). went down to breakfast, ate fruits and padded along to econ lect. in no condition for running so better leave earlier. econ lect was okay, not particularly illuminating that i remember of. back to nice warm dorm.

during lunch had to go look for all the nonheaty stuff (not that there's alot to begin with). oh before that i finally decided i was going to skip introsem and dance and come back and sleep. i decided i couldn't survive 1h15 of pointless discussion and 1h30 of moderate exercise. thankfully no midterms this week.
came back after math, which was also only slightly useful. and slept. roommate was like "are you taking a nap?" and i'm like "i'm sick! i have the right to sleep!" and she's like "watever roomie.." cos she's forever taking naps (and most of the time she's not sick)

anyway thankfully by wed i was quite alright and today even better yay~ my toes were cold on mon/tues night though. random comment. haha. and i had this really weird dream on monday that i was back in spore and i forgot to pack anything (i.e. no luggage or sth) so all my stuff was still here. and feeling an acute sense of annoyance/despondency cos i'd left all my stuff behind and i wasn't about to get on a plane back here to get all my stuff. crazy stuff that dreams are made of.

have to choose classes for next quarter soon and i am torn between so many things! rather equates to being totally clueless. am seeing my advisor tmr, but i'm not sure he'll be of much help. all he's going to say is to advise me not to take 20 units again. actually when i went to see him i said i was gonna take 18 and he was already advising me against that. ahh.

not in a very good mood tonight.. don't feel like doing my work especially cos i know i have so much stuff to do. bah. tmr there's the performance, then sat morning there's melody (i almost regret doing this) sat night dinner out, sunday church, ihum thesis and introsem outline due monday, ...... how depressing. and i desperately need to practice math. ahh!!! i want to skip next week and go straight to thanksgiving. "like monopoly", chuan sheng says. haha.

man. i'm so glad that midterm is over. i'm not so sure how i did though, sigh. hopefully it'll be good to make up for all the nonsense i've been handing in for econ. it was a rather terrible realisation that there're only a few more problem sets to boost my grade. and i was so zoned out after it i didn't even recognise xianyi when he biked past haha oops. until he called me and i looked properly and was like oh.. haha.

actually my head is still a bit woozy right now. i better sleep early tonight, who cares if i finish reading introsem. haha. and thankfully i managed to get the dance tickets.. and i talked to my ihum tf about my paper.. it was very reassuring:) maybe i'm not so bad at ihum after all, given that that first paper was written in virtually two days or less. (although chuan sheng keeps saying that doesn't matter, hmph) but anyway i'm feeling proud of myself for now yay

oh i tried jamba juice for the first time today. it's.. interesting. and it was so funny.. i suddenly heard "clarissa lin!", whirled around, saw sean and wondered what he was doing there. "yeah.. monday morning right" (cos he watches webcast instead sometimes) anyway he started telling me all the good flavours.. haha he really is synonymous with good food. oh we went to coldstone creamery yesterday! it was fantastic.. it reminded me of the dairy queen thing last time at mobil petrol station where you can choose what you want to mix into the ice cream.. ahh. different, but still good! and i was late for econ review session but who cares. haha. food is more impt! oops.

i'm hungry! :( but i don't think i should be eating dry/heaty stuff. oh dear. guess i'll just starve.
ah i just remembered i had to do laundry.

i'm so freaking annoyed.. i forgot to hand up my econ problem set and only realised it after the solutions were posted, so they aren't going to accept it and i have to drop the grade.. which totally sucks cos this was probably one of my better ones since i went for office hours and got most of the stuff explained. and it also doesn't help that i got the median score for econ midterm, even though i'm relieved it wasn't any worse. and i have so much stuff on this weekend i haven't studied, nor do i feel like studying at all.

okay i think part of the annoyance is cos i'm sleepy, and i can't even figure out why. i think i'll give up and go sleep. i'm very glad for my new stanford sweater though its nice and furry inside and warm. thanks to wangning's discount coupon. oh and i'm also glad jane's gonna come over and stay the night before big game! yay!! okay. i have cheered myself up slightly. but i'm still tired.

crap la i just tore part of a page of my econ txt cos my hair dripped water on it and i rubbed too hard at the page trying to dry it. i really need to sleep before i start destroying more things and getting even more pissed off.

i think chuan sheng is right. it all depends on my attitude. anyway, i was blog surfing, sort of, and came across some stuff in judith's blog which is so true. so i koped some phrases from her. replace H with stanford and you have it. my sentiments exactly.

||One of the hardest things about college is having to start from scratch. Then, the fact that you're starting from scratch at H, where you -are- scratch, also doesn't make things any easier.||
it's so easy to forget that though. like when i talk to pple i don't realise that these are like super-smart pple or anything.. the way i forget age differences and all. and i didn't realise like everyone who's here was valedictorian of their class. haha.

||My time here feels so precious and so tedious at the same time (...) And I'm not even bonded to any particular job when I get back. It's like the whole account is accountable to myself, and that makes it all the more frightening. If I don't make good, it'll really be my own fault.||
i don't really think about it (like many many other things) when i'm swamped in work. but sometimes the realisation just comes and hits you. i really should be doing my work. okay nvm, lemme finish this. so yeah, as with many other things, sometimes i just suddenly remember that its my parents who are paying for all this (hell lot of money too, i might add) and i don't even think i'm living up to their expectations at the moment. which of course they don't know, but that makes it even worse.

i'm not driven the way so many people i know are. although actually i'm quite sure that's a defining characteristic of any student in a university like stanford. i haven't the foggiest idea what i want to do.

i'm really glad i'm here though. i realised it is really different. my time is entirely my own; there's no mom to nag me to stop playing around/wasting time and study. not that i really needed that much nagging but sometimes i do tend to not do my work. heh. anyway i guess i'm getting more used to the reading textbook thing..which is gd.

alright, ranting over. yay i have understood my math. i feel better:) oh. i think cs & ser are right too, nxt quarter i better find courses that i actually like.. although given that pwr n ihum are compulsory.. hmm. must find some way to make them appealing (haha)

bah. i'm so sleepy. but i haven't done much work today:| last night was frosh formal! we were SO late, haha. but dressing up is fun. and i don't really think i would have wanted to stay very long. this partying thing is really not me. then we went to jonathan's room to eat ice cream! yay. pity the ice cream was sort of melted though haha the sorbet became a (rather thick) smoothie. but it was still good:) and i only remembered jackie was sick after we finished most of it. but nvm, i'm not going to get sick.

uh. yeah. so we left jon's room at 2.30 (and therefore no more midnight express/shuttle, horror of horrors, had to walk!) thankfully it wasn't that cold.. but of course there wasn't much choice. and i ended up sleeping at 4. !! i don't think i've ever slept at 4 in spore. maybe that night when my sleep cycle was screwed up cos of being sick/trying to study for bio a level prelim mcq, but that's about it. and i've already done that 3 times (sleeping past 4) and it's only been 1.5months. man.

so i happily woke up at 11.30! actually i wasn't that happy, cos i got woken up at 8sth by my roommate talking to her family on the phone. why can't she get out of the room and talk? ... although maybe she thought i was still fast asleep and wouldn't hear. given that chuan sheng can spend 2 hrs on the phone outside his room cos his roommate was sleeping.. later she saiid they forgot about the time difference. and assume that she's awake. since they're always awake after 7 at home. but really, college is so different. how can one expect to keep the "go to bed early and wake up early" routine? forget it man..

i think i'm a terrible person to room with:| i'm very picky about sleep. if that's the way to put it. like, when my sleep is disturbed, depending on my mood, i can really feel like screaming my head off.

anyway. sigh my neighbour opposite threw a birthday party and the music's been going on for 3 hrs and it's giving me a headache. actually maybe the headache is also due to fatigue, but i prefer to complain. seems like people are more vulgar though, f*** seems to form a rather large part of conversations sometimes. and i also frequently hear "goddammit!" in the hallways.. maybe i was too sheltered before though

i hope there's nothing wrong with my computer anymore, it's so tedious to bring the whole freaking thing down to stanford shopping center and have to back up the hard drive.. thankfully ruixiong had an external hard drive to lend me.. yay for sporeans! haha.

oh wait i haven't explained why i haven't done any work. after waking up, went for brunch/lunch at lag (and met wang ning on the way, how coincidental) he was busy eating yoghurt or something and only looked up when i stepped into his path haha. then i decided to go visit chuan sheng since i'd never seen his room before. and he just woke up! well done man.. haha. it was rather amusing. then i figured since i was at lag i may as well walk over to frosoco n visit kiat (also cos his roommate isn't around for the weekend, like jon's). since if i were in my dorm i'd never trek over to either of their dorms. haha. killed two birds with one stone! then aft tt i decided i'd visit jesley too since i'd never seen her dorm either.. and i caught her just when she came back frm movie! lucky day:)

then i finally came back to my room. and did two weeks' worth of laundry. (this is what two midterms on the same day at the end of the week does to you). messed around a bit, decided to go shopping. alone. i think there's something rather wrong with me. find it tiring to have to create/continue conversation for long periods of time. i guess i just wanted some time alone. which is weird cos i'm mostly alone anyway. i must be becoming a hermit.

yay!! my midterms (well, first round anyway) are over. finally i get like two weeks before its midterm week again. not that two weeks is a lot but one becomes thankful for small mercies.
i walked out of psych introsem midterm into the quad and drank in the sunshine n cool air. that sounds cliched but really, such a blessed relief. now i know why time management is so impt. and "if you don't have it now, u'll have it by the end of (first quarter/freshman year - i forgot which)"

well anyway. now there's less work there's time to think about other stuff like ccas/socialising. both which are in a very sad state. and skype is driving me nuts with the lag.. my mom keeps repeating herself. and repetition really annoys me.

i still want to go to the zoo/disneyland. i think disneyland is more fun.

ooh i'm very happy:) went w sean to cupertino village and found khong guan biscuits! haha. okay. nvm. i already have too many snack as it is.. but anyway we had an interesting chat. as it was on friday night with jackie. speaking of which it's thanks to going shopping w jackie that i realised my SUID was missing, and thankfully daryl was nice enough to go over to stern and help me get it back:D

and i'm also very glad that i get to get off campus at least once a week. thanks to sean haha. and he was saying we're very lucky cos when he was a freshman it was either "lag or stern today ah?" haha. but yeah, i think because our campus is so huge, it's kinda hard to get out and everything. and like they were saying yesterday on the way to lunch, california public transport system is quite pathetic. this is when one appreciates spore. (and its size, in a way)

okay even though i was like "sharks" when my alarm went off at 0730. didn't wanna get up. but i guess the fatigue wears off after a while. although i think in spore i'd never wake up at 0730 to go to church. i shall try and sleep earlier on saturday nights

i don't think i had a very productive day but i'm so so SO glad jane came over. it's been so long since i've seen one of my girl friends. i mean okay here i have jackie and other pple but it's just different. this is why i know i can't stay here this winter and let my family come over. i need to go home. and of cos i have to bring stuff over which i thought i didn't need but now i know i want. like my multiple coloured pens haha. now that sounds superficial (i forgot the other better word for it) but well.

i thought it would be better coming here without people i knew. i thought it would force me to make friends. it doesn't turn out to be that simple after all. at least i'm not the only one feeling that way. but now i miss jane!:( boohoo. that means i ought to make a trip down to berkeley soon heh. oh well.

you can choose to make yourself miserable. or you can choose to be happy. but again that isn't that easy either.. maybe i'm just saying that cos i'm already here, and like jane said, a lot of people romanticise the whole overseas study thing. oh well. maybe i'll figure out wat to say tmr or another time.

hmm i wonder if i have too many things going on this weekend. there's lunch in a bit, then concert at night. and jane's coming over. and tmr there's church. and dinner at prof's hse/sas bbq. and my econ is in a mess n there's a midterm nxt week. and i also have introsem midterm nxt week. it also doesn't help that i don't think my econ problem sets have been done very well. and it's going to be week 5! crap.

anyway i just suddenly felt like going to disneyland. haha. sigh.

heh i just realised something. people are telling me college isn't all about studying, and my mom last night was telling me u better make sure you do your work.. didn't come to college to play. i guess she's afraid i'll spend all my time doing things other than work.

when the work piles up it's when you miss home. i wonder if it's because pple told me that, or i just happened to feel it. at night, when i'm in my bed reading ihum stuff and then i suddenly think of places at home. i don't know if that counts as missing home. which brings me to another point. last time, when pple (relatives/church) asked me if i missed my bro, i'd usually say no and then feel guilty. maybe i adapt too well in that sense heh. i know i just got used to not having him around quite quickly.

and my dormmates just went off to late night. amazing.. i wouldn't walk all the way there to eat at night unless i'm like really energetic/hungry.. usually i just bear with the hunger (if any) or eat snacks. oh well.

anyway today was a better day.. although last night i fell asleep and got up to find that it was 5.30 and my roommate was working on her ihum paper.. so i tried to read baldwin for ihum. but after 10 pgs i was like, forget it, i'm too sleepy to make any sense out of the book. decided i could go back to sleep and get up at like 8plus and still have time to finish reading.

so i got up. and didn't, after all, have time to read. so ended up reading it during breakfast and lunch and finally finished it at like 1pm b4 i had to go for math and then ihum. and i had things to say during ihum today! yay! haha. this is so silly. maybe it's cos i complained to more pple and they're like, you're sporean, sure can crap. but i think hk's suggestion of discussing the book b4hand is gd too. if i do get round to it.

the econ-math thingy was quite interesting. although i reaally really really have to go read the textbook.. sigh. midterm tmr and two nxt week. ah well at least there's concert on sat, should be gd!

i forgot to say something. it was kinda weird at lunch on sunday. cos everyone else there besides daryl was a grad student (or co-term) and they know pretty much the same people and all that.. suddenly was feeling young (as compared to feeling old cos i'm in college) but anyway the food was fantastic:p not as gd as yumcha (i'm probably biased though) but still

okay back to math. i really must go shopping. clothes-wise and snacks-wise. friday! we've to find somewhere to go though.

okay after that momentary lapse into abject misery/pessimism, i am now feeling better. at least, i have just thought about how it'll be interesting to go home during winter break and see things differently. and then i realised there are so many things here that i wouldn't get to experience at home. it isn't so bad after all. i guess music and mr white bear helped too. but besides that it's still really easy to push things aside (i.e. remain in denial) and go on with life. kinda related to church yesterday actually.

i'm in such a terrible mood today.. i can't imagine why. maybe it was my roommate talking to someone on the phone at 6.30am, and the someone couldn't hear her so she kept repeating herself, which totally drove me NUTS. i was ready to get up and clobber her. okay i wasn't, but well. that was annoying enough. ah. apparently it's her ex-boyfriend whom she was talking to. and she assures me that as much as it annoys me, it annoys her to have to hold the conversation too. at least that's cleared up.

econ lect was okay i think.
got annoyed during ihum cos wolff was going on in all sorts of tangents and still talking about tolstoy when we're reading baldwin now. apparently he's supposed to link them, but somehow i find his lectures are so unstructured it's really irritating. and the problem with yearley is that he does say interesting things and he structures his stuff nicely, but he says it in such a boring voice that you fall asleep anyway. ugh.

so i had lunch w jackie (who's sick). misery loves company. so we sat around and complained together. she's still halfway through telling me about my imaginary boyfriend.. i bet ser would be amused at this.

math lect. i still get confused about stuff sometimes, and i was falling asleep at the end of it.
ihum section. i am in such trouble for ihum cos i can never think of things to say. i also neglected to finish reading the last 7 pages but i don't suppose that's such a big deal. i kind of wish the TF would say more instead of just letting all the others talk. or maybe that's not what ihum is supposed to be. but it doesn't really seem like i'm learning very much about the text. i mean, fine, people are sharing their intepretations about the thing but i would assume the TF knows more background stuff or watever.. i don't know what i'm talking about as usual.

last night i didn't finish what i planned to do, and i just couldn't be bothered to do it this morning cos i was in a bad mood, therefore now i have a lot of stuff to do. including reading for tmr, math problem set due tmr which i'm partway through.

i think jackie is right. it's about juggling the things one has to do (i.e. work) and the things one wants to do (everything else). not that it was/would be any different in spore.

it's depressing thinking about school/work/... today i didn't want to get up and go to school (i haven't felt that way about school since somewhere in the middle of the term for j2, but i have felt that way about going to work so that wasn't very long ago) esp when doing tolstoy in ihum, talking about how one should live life. life isn't exactly very fun at the moment, nor do i envision it to be when it's time to go out to work. so much for optimism.. just an off-day i guess.

i should really get back to math.

heh i'm suddenly feeling a bit weird. some of my dorm people are gathered outside in preparation to go for some party.. and my roommate was trying to tell people she didn't want to go cos she had to stay back and do her problem set but at the same time she wanted to go. and her friends from down the hall were forcing her to go. so after that she was like "why don't they ask YOU to party?" and i'm like, i don't party. which seems to be an anomaly here apparently. maybe it's just the freshmen, since my hpac happened to drop by and my roommate asked him to support her but he was like "go! freshmen should go out every week!" or maybe it's just my perception. but frankly, i see nothing very appealing about going to places packed with people either dancing/drinking/...

anyway for the first time in a month i can get up at 10.20am! haha. but man, chuan sheng woke up at 12.. oh well. but somehow today didn't feel particularly fruitful. or as i was telling kiat, "remarkably unproductive". i'm still puzzling over null spaces.

oh! i went to wilbur for dinner (on my own, cos every other sane person went to lag which is definitely nearer but it's so tiny!) and then went to daryl's room after that. his roommate was playing classical music. i think that's really rare. even i don't do that. haha. okay not that i'm a very classical person to begin with, but well. maybe he's one of those who really love it. anyway oh.. i just remembered i haven't listened to the mp3s wenyu sent. ooh. i love ravel. well anyway yeah it was a nice change to hear classical music, given my dormmates who like blasting rock/rap/watever you call that genre which they use at parties. it always conjures the image of some quiet high class carpeted luxurious place

finally i have time to upload photos! but not all of them, this is as much as i can take at one shot. i took a 1hr nap frm 12.30 - 1.30 and slept frm 4.30 - 8.00 in an effort to finish my very last minute econ problem set and ihum paper. i promise myself NEVER to let this happen again. man.

stanford has THE prettiest campus around.. these photos don't do it enough justice though.

entrance to the main quad



walkway in the main quad



inside the main quad



clock tower and hoover tower in the background



the claw!



pigott hall or something, engineering building, part of main quad



one of the entrances to the main quad



my side of the room again (sorry kiat i haven't figured out where to put the bear haha)


roommate's side of room before she arrived



my room a few days ago



my roommate's side of the room before she arrived



the corkboard a day (or so) after i arrived



the corkboard on my room door when i arrived

college is crazy. these past few days i've been feeling so tired i fall asleep without intending to (and therefore do not finish my work). for once i'm thankful my roommate wakes up early so i get the choice of getting up to do my work.

i wonder if it's cos i've been wasting time doing things i shouldn't be doing. it's crazy! i have to figure out a (sensible) question to ask later during ihum lecture and send it to my TF.. and my ihum paper is due friday (i've hardly started, only have some vague ideas) and we're supposed to bring the opening paragraph to class today to share.. i suppose at least that forces me to get started, since one can't write an opening paragraph without knowing what one is going to say in the rest of the paper, but ... i have 1.5hrs to do all of the above

and then i've hardly started on my math problem set, haven't even looked at econ (not to mention still being behind on econ reading) and i have to read two articles for introsem tomorrow. !! and the entire cycle is going to repeat itself next week unless i magically find extra days during the weekend to catch up on everything. groan. math midterm next week.

i need to review what i've been doing with my time.

okay i'm having a REALLY hard time trying to find "a person who has reached a high level of achievement in an area i value" so i shall give it up for a while. i suppose this essay shouldn't be that hard to write since it's more about facts than opinions. although that means extensive research, i mean, who's going to tell you how much effort they put in/how much natural talent they had?? ugh.

so anyway, happy birthday to me! haha. thanks to everyone who remembered my bday:)
sporean juniors/seniors who came to my room last night.. it was so weird cos i hadn't seen half of them before, but it was really sweet:)
got up for church (not without being annoyed by roommate's alarm clock, she changed the alarm to radio so it blasts like rock/rap music.. but i think it's more effective cos she switches it off faster, but still)
dennis came by to get me, thankfully, then i didn't have to walk to escondido turn-about. haha.
church was interesting. it was rather touching, i wonder why. anyway i'm going back to campbell next week to see if i really prefer them.
and max called! haha. that was sweet too:) i was rather amused.. he thought i was his mom! man.. and by his tag on my facebook..
back to room, agonised over hero to write about for introsem (am still agonising)
decided to take a nap, kept waking up cos i was afraid i'd wake up late for dinner.

so at 6.25 i went to tresidder and was wondering where in the world jesley was. (haha, where in the world is carmen san diego). and i thought we'd missed the bus but it was in the other direction, thankfully:)
caught the bus to palo alto transit centre (hah, they refused to believe me yest when i said midnight express didn't stop there) and walked to university ave. looked quite cool.
then jesley walked into this restaurant which didn't even look like a jap restaurant, i thought it was like american or something. but then there was jap food on the tables so hmm. and i was still wondering why she walked straight in, then i saw everyone and realised haha. it was a great surprise though. and huge bear! haha. which yf said was as big as me. hmm. i wish wang ning n daryl weren't videoing me though, i must've looked v idiotic.
had a HUGE dinner. oh in the middle the lights went out and some guys got up on their chairs and drank some sake bomb or sth.
and then after dinner, lights dimmed again and kiat came out with a cake! which jesley bought from le boulanger at stanford shopping centre.. that shop is awesome.. haha. and i guessed as much those were trick candles.. the sparks were crazy.. so yf blew them out for me but they relit themselves after a while.. was quite hilarious:p
and the waiters made me stand on the chair and drink 7-up! haha. i was quite sure it was sprite or sth but the rest were speculating whether it was sake haha. thankfully not, wat if i end up drunk -horror- but anyway they gave me a photo of it! so funny:)
definitely a very memorable evening.

and then when i got back, jamie knocked on the door. tomi refused to open the door and stared at me so i was like, weird, okay, and i opened the door. and it was just jamie, which was even weirder haha. but anyway in a while they flung open the door so hard it hit the recycling bin haha. and more cake! man.. i'm SO full now i feel like a ball.
philip's poem was hilarious.. but anyway it was really sweet too.. pple gathered in the hallway singing. haha.

it was a very nice bday! yay:)

and now i better go figure out the rest of my week, can't believe i have an IHUM paper due fri, it's crazy

in econ lect just now i was wondering if i'd bitten off more than i can chew.
disregarding the need to digest the stuff after every lect, my current workload per week:
1 problem set for math
1 problem set for econ
1 essay for introsem
1 chapter of prof's book for introsem
variable number of articles (with varying number of pages) for introsem
2 stories (on average) for ihum
that's also disregarding time needed for other activities, which i still haven't decided on. as it was last night i went to try out chi alpha and it was like.. almost 2hrs.

am i complaining too much? hmm. introsem is supposed to be the lightest/most fun course but it can rival ihum. they're kinda similar; reading and responding. but i think ihum's harder, i'm out of practice with analysing texts.

and now that i have to read research papers i'm so thankful i did smp/terp in sec sch/JC cos at least i know what a research paper looks like and don't have -that- much problems reading it (as compared to if i were reading it for the first time)

i probably shouldn't have slept at 2.30 yesterday. so sleepy now. argh. back to reading the 12pg paper for introsem later.

went for aikido today. it's really different from back home. i kinda (as usual) miss alvin's teaching haha. i must email and tell him that.. and miss training w deborah/melvyn. anyway, the arrillaga family sports centre was so freaking far away (okay it wasn't that bad, but compared to where my classes were, it definitely was) plus i had to do TB test at vaden before that, so i had to skip lunch (poor me)
lots of brackets

anyway, i dunno if i'll go train with them, it's quite a tight fit trying to rush from there to math section in Gesb unless the bus decides to come on time (which it normally doesn't, in general cases) and well.. i don't know.

dance class was also different. she didn't focus on perfecting the basics as much as they did back home either. and went way faster.. which is good in a way cos we get exposed to more stuff, but well, working on basics is good too.

suddenly (as usual) i don't have as much to say as i thought i did.

there is so much work it's like the start of j2 all over again.. it's the 2nd week and i'm already behind on econ reading (which never seems to end) and i spent 4 hrs reading 40pgs for ihum. how sad is that! i didn't even realise it was 11pm already. groan. oh wait.. then that's 3 hours.. see i can't count somemore. ...

i'm still wondering wat to join. i think i always assumed i would end up in acappella. and even though stanford has a lot of grps, a lot of them don't appeal to me. on another note, i guess when it comes to college, CCAs are really different from what they used to be in pri/sec sch/JC. or maybe that's just my perception.

i can't remember if i said it before but i think what serene said to me on the night before i left was true. the sadness one feels is worth it for what you get to experience here. although actually what chris said is also right; there's so much work there isn't much time left to enjoy the non-academic parts of college life here (or there, in her case, in cornell. heh.) maybe it's the question of knowing how to balance. which i definitely haven't achieved, given that i feel really like a hermit.

ah. i am going to take my shower soon. but i decided i'd better blog before i forget wat i wanted to say (as usual).
i don't know why i find it so hard to read the econ txtbk. really very unused to reading the WHOLE chapter. usually i think i just skim and pick out more important stuff cos i've already read very-good-lecture-notes-frm-rj. haha. anyway, here's hoping i manage to finish everything i have to tonight, although that seems a tad impossible given that it's like 10pm. unless i sleep late (again). which isn't a very good idea cos i'll fall asleep during classes tmr again. sigh.

i don't remember exactly when it started appearing into my head, but i think at one time or other jesley's blog title was "an awfully great adventure" (frm peter pan!) and that phrase has just stuck for now. it comes to mind when i'm walking around white plaza in the morning, when i'm finding my way to classes/other places using the map (and i don't get lost k! yay for me! hah), when i first took the marguerite with jackie to stanford shopping center/walmart, and most recently, yesterday, on the way and in san francisco.

so yeah, i never saw myself spending the first weekend of school in SF frm 9.30am - 12midnight. nor did i foresee myself being rolled out of bed by the sophomores.
scenario:
-soft knock on door-
clar wakes up with a start and wonders if she's overslept and the rest have come to get her (reminiscent of last last thurs or sth)
clar checks watch. 7am !! !!!
clar closes eyes and hopes the knock wasn't on her door, and that the pple will go away
no such luck
clar vaguely hears someone telling another to wake me up while he went to get someone else. or something like that.
then, loud hammering on the door
clar vacates the bed with great haste and opens the door and complains
poor roommate is awakened
clar, daryl, jiun haur, shin eik walk over to alondra to roll out the next victim seihout.

and we had bfast at the oval. which was kinda weird. but well. it was nice seeing all the sophomores:)
alright i suddenly don't feel like saying watever it was that i had to say cos i can't really remember wat point i wanted to make. so that shall have to wait.

it's so hot in the afternoons! man. i think i may go do my laundry later.. oh wait jackie wants to go shopping. we shall see. so sad, no call backs. kind of expected though, sigh. so i shall have to go find something else to join tmr at activities fair. should be fun though!

i'm happily munching on krispies tt julie dropped by on monday.. so yummy. haha. they're really nice but i'm not sure i want to join them. oops. and she gave me grapes! which i have just discovered. munch munch munch.
come to think of it, i feel kinda isolated here cos we don't have much shopping here and i think everything on campus rips us poor students off. but again there's always the marguerite, which i haven't taken and may take later. okay, i am taking it later, thanks to jackie's determination.

oh yes, i get to stay in my introsem so that's gd.. i didn't bother going for the sociology class. and i went for greek mythology and disappeared half way cos it was so boring.. oh well.

i miss real japanese food. but jesley says we'll eat at a jap restaurant sometime! yay:) although i think i'm going to be quite poor after that. i already feel poor all the time cos i'm not working. weird huh. funny what 2 months of work can do to you. and given that that's my longest job so far.. haha.

right i probably should go read some econs, it's so hard to plough through the chapters.

yay i finally got a decent ihum section. such a nice surprise cos i thought they only posted changes at 8am and 8pm. but it worked out fine.. so now i just have to see about introsem.. i figured if she doesn't let me stay, i'll go take a socio class which looks quite interesting. will check it out tmr!

but first, i have to write that psych essay. bleah. and yay! i'm done with 1st-round auditions. now we have to see if anyone calls me back. sigh. i didn't realise tmr's thursday already.

oh something i wanted to say, during orientation when they (faculty) were talking to us, i felt so old. like. 25 or sth. rofl. i don't know why. i mean, in JC i never felt 17 or 18, nor do i really feel 18 (or going-to-be 19) now. i guess it's just that college is so new and on-your-own that it has such an adult feeling. i should really be writing that essay for tmr but nvm, just a few mins to blog this won't kill me.

so, i think it was just because of all the research and talking to faculty is good and drink responsibly and make full use of the opportunities stuff.. but well. i realised college is quite different frm JC. like, haha, no notes? i never used to read textbooks.. now.. i find myself having to plough through 1 chapter of econ each night (i'm already backlogged, what are the odds) and there are NO notes for math (or even slides). ihum is a bit like lit class but i've only been for lecture so it's like, lit lecture.

right, i just realised i missed my ihum section today cos i didn't know about the change until like 4plus. anyway.. i guess i'm pretty much done blogging since my train of thought derailed.

right, since kiat says he'll post it if i don't, here goes: my bank of america visa card got sent to singapore. yeah. i must have written the wrong address. i think these things only happen to me huh. oh well.

and !! everyone's been telling me that oh, if you go for introsems and stay and talk to the prof, they'll usually let you stay.. not in my case.. this prof is like, if the 2 pple who didn't come today don't come on thurs then u get to stay.. sigh. being no. 2 on the waitlist is not all that fantastic. she said there were 104 applications for that introsem though, heh. but now i have to go find backup class just in case

and i hope they give me a good ihum section cos i just petitioned to change it again (they gave me a 6pm one ! !!) sigh. hope it works out..

just came back from everyday people auditions, i'm wondering if i'll get called back for any group, really. there're so many people auditioning! sigh.

and i have quite a bit of homework to do, and no inclination to do it. serene where are you when i need you? haha. i've been slacking for too long..

okay this sounds quite melancholic, but start of sch isn't exactly very happy, i realised. heh.

oh i was going to blog about the first party i went to. tonight was kinda cold, dunno why.
anyway, there was O-show. I'm rather confused about which acapella group i prefer, actually. and i thought mixed company was good cos of the recordings i heard from their website, but today they certainly didn't sound that good.. maybe i thought they were the best cos they're the oldest co-ed acapella grp, but well. hmm. guess i'll do wat tomi suggested (that's my roommate), just audition and see who takes me. maybe i won't have to make a choice as usual! rofl. don't know if that'll be gd or bad. oh well.

uh, yeah. i finally finished class enrollment. sort of. the introsem app was such a headache. like, 2.5hrs, how'd u expect me to come up with something decent? okay i probably should've started thinking before coming, but well. oops. and there was this guy blasting music a few doors down. wanted to decapitate him. i don't mind, normally, if i'm not doing anything, but hi, i'm trying to write something here.

ah. then, the party. haha. my dorm mates claim that all the party-deprived people are there. anyway, there were people talking inside, people dancing (or trying to) outside. and the dancing outside.. was like pple rubbing against each other and watever.. your typical american tv scene? watever you call it. oh well. mom called so i disappeared inside to get some peace and quiet.

yeah.. tmr's quite free, which is gd, but also bad cos i don't know what to do with myself! well done. anyway yay i'm finally going shopping on sunday, meaning i hopefully get a kettle n comforter (yes, i will have survived a week without a comforter) and a bike. although it is a pain shopping for stuff sometimes, like how to get the best deal and blah blah blah.

i like my dorm pple though.. the seniors are really nice.. i went to disturb melissa just now, and complain about the height of the bed. (we're both short, and the bed's kinda higher than is normal in spore). so she was like, in her freshman year, she lofted the bed so the drawers could go underneath, so she had to practice jumping into bed.. like high jump? run a semi circle and leap into bed. rofl.

yeah. but i kinda miss the sporeans sometimes. and wanna meet up with the seniors again! it's different when we're all here.

like my PHE (peer health educator) said, it's when you listen to the dean/provost/whoever talk, that you remember how fortunate you are to be at stanford. if not it's just so easy to forget. and in the day when i'm walking around, it's just such a nice feeling to look around and say wow, this is such a pretty campus and i belong here! haha. and all the tourists with hats and such hiking around. hah.

oh and they really have a big thing about alcohol.. like a complete briefing on it and very detailed. stanford wants you to drink responsibly! but i think they got the point across. hopefully. and last night there was this play about drinking/sex/... rather explicit as compared to wat pple wud've done in spore i think. but just as propagandistic in a way.

today larry page (google founder) came to talk to us! way cool man.. i was just sitting there gaping. haha. he's quite funny.. and there was this music prof who created his own instrument out of various things.. and with the help of an amplifier or some other music equipment, he improvised this piece of music for us. and he tapdanced while playing the piano! i have NEVER seen that before.. a one-man show. so cute. but also so difficult.

yay!!! i finally set up my own computer, thanks to shuyee who dropped off my mac mini, and to my RCC who lent me a monitor! although i kind of need an extension cord for the monitor power cord, everything's great!
i shouldn't have stayed up trying to get the internet going though, it was SO slow and today it was so fast. heh. alright gotta run for orientation stuff soon

oh, i forgot, for pictures of the famous beautiful stanford campus, look at kiat chuan's blog.. you won't regret it! go look for his name under my links. since my monitor hasn't arrived, i still can't set up my comp so no photos yet. not that i've taken many to begin with.

yeah, i'm like always rather tired just after dinner. was falling asleep today during the meet-the-authors-of-the-summer-reading-books thing.

and nothing seems to end early! sigh. like today we ended book discussion at 10pm, yesterday the band run ended at 12midnight, the day before i think was still normal, can't remember wat's happening tmr. ahh. right i need to go check out other things.

cell phone: 650 796 6107
dorm phone: 650 497 3949
mailing address (USPS):
P.O. Box 15277
Stanford, CA 94309

mailing address (courier):
436 Mayfield Avenue
Loro 301
Stanford, CA 94305

wow, it's only been a couple of days and i remember everything so well. why? multiple bank accounts and telling family and ... oh well.

okay, i finally am blogging. this is only because i'm waiting for the rescomp website to load, hoping that somehow, i'll be able to register my stupid laptop for internet connection so it'll stop hanging on me. it's actually almost 1am, normally i'd be asleep by now, but we had some late night follow-the-infamous-marching-band-and-go-disturb-all-the-freshman-dorms thing and we only got back around midnight.

it rained today! ugh. i bitterly regretted wearing flip flops. haha. and i met my roommate. she's a black from boston, MA. and i met all the other freshmen in my dorm.. i don't know why but i get this feeling they don't like asians very much. or maybe i'm just paranoid. and it's so weird, all the other asians i'm meeting have american accents (or something like it), even though they're from asia. i guess they were from international dorms.

oh right i finally got my cell phone, but when the guy emailed me the numbers he didn't tell me which was whose number (we signed up for a grp plan) so i'm rather clueless now. oh well. will figure it out sometime.

uh. yeah. i haven't gotten a bike or comforter yet so i'm quite screwed. i REALLY need that comforter. why is stuff so hard to buy here? or maybe i'm just picky.

okay this doesn't sound like a very happy entry but it's just to let off stress. all this stuff is driving me nuts.. deciding which bank account to get.. blah blah blah. there're so many things to do i kind of regret not getting my parents to come along. haha. sigh.

somehow, when you're here, (dunno how many) miles from home, you don't think about home as much. the night before leaving i woke up in the middle of the night and was suddenly gripped by the horror of not being at home for so long and wanted to cancel my flight. quite crazy right. but that's me, capable of being totally obsessed about something for a while.

ooh i had a very good day today:)
unfortunately i have taken to the habit of leaving the house late. which makes me late for appointments: oops. but that was partly cos i was regaling melvyn with tales of my escapades in the heartland shops/wet-market.

i must detail my adventures at the above-mentioned places another time.. it's really quite amusing. although, of course, it wasn't exactly very amusing on monday, but the rest of the days when i was in a better mood, i could laugh at myself.

anyway.. today! lunch w lyd pam tinky kahli. in order of arrival, sort of. this is like the 2nd time i've done this.. walk into a restaurant telling the waiters/waitresses i'm looking for friends, wander around in search of them, realise with a start that they're not there yet! (or i've gone blind or sth, choy) and back out of the restaurant to call the pple who're supposed to be there. the first time it was with church pple for the twins' farewell dinner.

okay so we had a fun time.. pam's forever full of nonsense.. she and lyd were just itching to eat up kahli's share (kahli was rather late). there were a number of quotable quotes, but i'm lazy to go check my notebk.
ohh!! kahli and her pink beads!! haha. she didn't want to give lyd her "bubble things" cos -ahem- "these are taoist beads! i went to the temple to get them!"
when questioned on why they were pink, "i dropped them into a bucket of pink paint"
later, elaborating on the pains which she took to get these oh-so-precious beads, "i queued for 2 days on my knees at the temple"
pam "why not on your nephew? so biased!"

sigh.. but it was funny cos it was so silly:)

went to get my shower gel.. and marks n spencers to get stuff for tll pple. and birkenstocks to look at shoes! they're prettier than other comfort shoe brands, but more expensive.. like twice the price! sigh.
then to toa payoh to look for stuff.. was quite tired by then actually. wanted to sleep. haha. and it didn't help that the things i was carrying were all so heavy.. poor me.

and i finally decided to get my butt down to novena. was still looking around trying to find earrings for rachel/something whaley for christine. unfortunately it was to no avail, so they shall have to wait.

treading the familiar way that i've traced and retraced the past 2 months. comfortable in a way. but no, i didn't feel like pulling out the timesheet to ask fernn to sign haha. i was just kinda afraid it'd rain and then i wouldn't be able to walk to newton, but in the end i was late anyway so had no time to walk.

was anticipating shocked/surprised looks at my reappearance. no one at inner recept. pushed open the staff door.. ohh only debbie's there.. ey having class and wtc doing cover class. oh well. nvm at least i got to see zee later for a while heh. haha poor debbie's left all alone writing! maybe the choc biscuits will cheer her (and the rest) up though:)

oh phyllis' shocked look when she walked past and saw me was v funny:) then i popped into tlu to give rachel her pigs and tim-tam (which i had to go to cold storage for cos ntuc didn't have). eng seng was still around. when i look at him i think luohan. hahaha. christine's fault.
followed rachel to library. i'm kinda glad i don't have to tidy it up anymore. it got a bit boring after a bit. after returning the books, rachel decided that they were too lan4 to leave in the library so time to dump it in the lousy books box! ahaha.

pushed past the mirror door.. it was fun to see christine's and shang tyng's shocked looks:) and christine shout "have you packed?" at me thru the door. haha. so charlene opened the door for me and i gave them their choc rolls.

i really don't know how i managed to spend like 50mins there and not realise it. maybe cos of the interruptions of my phone (sms alert) and call from kai-lyn (whereby christine yelled "7pm!" and "newton!" and "dress nicely cos u're going out later!" at her when i was answering kai's qns). and call frm charlene upstairs (i can remember her extension by now, haha).
actually, i only realised i was late when christine and shang tyng asked me wat time i was supposed to go and !!! it was 6.55pm!! ahh. well done, clar. oh and i probably inconvenienced poor shang tyng quite a bit by koping her chair haha. oops.

anyway, time to go.. christine said she was going to trail me, i have no idea why. so i said byebye to debbie n phyllis and went out to paris 4 w cc to find wtc to take her dinner order. n after that byebye to christine and then to rachel.

and dinner! yumyumyum my stingray. haha. i was late. oops. a lot of hilarity, cheukka always says the funniest things. "are there cartwheels in ballet?"
kai-lyn hums part of waltz of flowers tune and -gestures- "cartwheel!"
rofl
oh and cheukka doesn't like chicken cos it comes with bones. something to that effect.

okay now i'm lazy to elaborate, shall go write my own diary.

this is very bad. i can't remember if it happened every night (okay maybe i'm in denial) but i know for certain, last night i was panicking about how many days are left and how my packing is still half-past six. at least today i got down to a little more packing since i stayed at home. and i started reading old school! i think i'm terrible at lit hmm, can't seem to analyse poems very well. or maybe i'm just too lazy (over-used excuse).

like i was telling darryl last night, sometimes i still wish i'd chosen to stay here, but actually i think once i get there i'll have a whale of a time (haha, whale). at least i certainly hope so. have so far remained blissfully ignorant with regard to career choices in the past few months after the state of no-scholarship-ness. weird to have to try to start thinking about it again. or start thinking about anything to do with school, actually.

i was going to visit rg and rj this week before leaving but well. inertia got the better of me? i know i'm too lazy to walk frm bishan mrt to rj. haha, this is why i need a gd pair of walking shoes which i have yet to get. and rg.. bit weird, i don't think i'll have anything much to talk about also except "how're u prepared? excited?". i guess i'll go back during first week of sch nxt year.

and i thought my nick was supposed to inform pple of my flight and all so i wouldn't have to keep telling pple 9.15am!! sometimes it still doesn't work. oh well.

yay i hope tomorrow will be a fun day:) seems quite promising anyway.

went out with rachel today! was good to see her:) there's nothing like seeing people in person. as compared to talking online or emailing or watever. i think i shall visit tll on thurs. though that also means i have to buy stuff before that.. maybe i'll buy after lunch w lyd pam tinky~

march of the penguins is cute! but the soundtrack is really annoying. esp the singer singing english songs! man. i wanted to get up and bash the speakers. anyway.. slightly-grown baby emperor penguins are cute! haha. so downy and fluffy. and they waddle around looking like puffs of fur. and penguins sliding around on their tummies and clumsily falling over and all.. haha. so amusing.
oh the penguins smacking each other with their flippers reminded me of the madagascar penguins! i love the madagascar penguins! they're hilarious. i want ALL the penguin clips. heh. not that i've bothered going to look for them, but nvm.

uh. lemme see. tcc is so lovely! but very expensive. sigh. the real food, that is. i guess one can go there and splurge once in a while.
and pool! rachel's actually not as bad as she claimed. i haven't played pool in a long time i think. the last time was probably with ser.

and last monday class today.. i think bruises are definitely going to appear tmr. i also think deborah's right (i -think- she was the one who said so), sufian is a bit hard on poor white belts like me. but he does teach quite well.

alright i guess i should go and do something constructive. oh introsem mailing came today! there's nothing like receiving mail frm stanford to make you feel more excited.. if not it kinda feels like you've been forgotten. haha. maybe i just like getting mail/sending mail.

I HATE PACKING!!!!!!!! ugh. i want to whine and whine and whine and whine but everyone's overseas already:( poor clar.

haha. anyway, i'm so tired, and it's not like i haven't slept enough. last night was like 0030 - 0700 (i'm still hoping by this week i can wake up later and enjoy extra sleep). then i took a nap just now 1700 - 1900. and now i'm very tired. this thing is taking a toll on me man.

had a really lovely surprise at church, bible class teacher(s) organised a sort of farewell party for me. suddenly i'm so dua pai haha. and the scrapbook was so sweet! even though i wasn't supposed to open it until on the plane, hmm. too bad. haha. i think i really don't see leaving as such a big deal until other people make a big deal out of it. then i start to realise.

maybe hk's right, i tend to be a buffer and make things less serious than they seem. gd and bad pts, of course.

well anyway, off to sim lim for MORE shopping. i realised the inadequacy of my previous research, given that i didn't know built-in mic doesn't equal to mic output coming out thru webcam cable, there usually is another extra cable. so we tramped all over trying to look for either 1. usb-sound stereo plug/jack-in/watever you call it converter or 2. usb headset+ mic or 3. webcam + inbuilt mic with all usb plugs.
bah in the end didn't buy anything, cos not sure if they're mac-compatible. i didn't know apple was so annoying. but bro says the trade-off for virus-free and crash-free computers is worth it. i guess so.

and later when we got home and i did more research, found out:
1. mac messenger doesn't support webcamming
2. iChat doesn't support usb webcam (i.e. must buy the iSight, which is US$149)
3. iChat uses AIM
4. basically, webcamming with macs is a whole lot more problematic than with pcs
so luckily we didn't get anything. i shall just get that logitech desktop mic.

okay i hope i'm still making sense.
then, i finally lugged my suitcase out. and started packing. i understand why siewjin and sarah didn't start packing that early. anyway, and to my horror! there is NO way i'm going to fit everything into one suitcase. that's the first problem. i suppose desperation will give me the ability to handle 2 suitcases of probably more than 50kg (combined weight).
2nd problem, jiunhaur has informed me there are NO lifts in the dorms! i'm dead. i'm hoping there'll be some very strong guys around to help me if not i'll probably be stuck sleeping on the grass. and i'm also hoping some nice singaporean can come fetch us from the airport. haha.

and i'm really so tired.

sleep.

i'm quite tired so just a short post to complain about unfair service:p
dinner w reggie! haha. it was fun:) one of the waitresses was so biased.. man.. not that i really minded or anything but it was rather amusing.. the water in our glasses would be at the same level, but the waitress only filled his glass and happily ignored mine.. actually i thought it was just a one-time oversight, but constant observation proved otherwise. so i was laughing while pointing it out to reggie and promptly collapsed into more laughter when it happened again for the 4th time the entire course of our dinner (and the 1st time after i informed reggie of this rather interesting fact).

oh we had a nice time browsing cds. so tempted to buy david lanz/latin or flamenco guitar but i don't know if i'll like it. even though i liked david lanz's finding paradise, i think his other cds might be along different lines. and i'm actually rather sick of shopping: bah. okie off to sleep.

okay, i woke up at 8 today. marginally better. i suppose it's gd to wake up early in that it gives me more time to do stuff (as compared to waking up at 11 and half the day is gone) but maybe i should sleep earlier then heh. would like to get nice 10hrs before i end up not-sleeping-at-stanford.

and i had a rather amusing time looking at photos of poor eng seng in the library and rachel scolding him. haha. christine is so funny.. but it made me miss everything, kind of. although i'm happy not being cooped up in a workplace, i miss annoying rachel in the library! aah. well.

anyway.. dropped by weiying's house to return her chem txtbk. then i went to nus and stoned for like 20mins waiting for M1 dna lect to end. finally fiona n candice appeared. n monmon n raphael! yay:) mini-class gathering. haha. lunch at coffee grounds. and met hweeying aft that. oh listening to raphael reminds me of all the bio lects when i wanted to strangle him due to the plethora of lousy jokes.

shuttle bus to visit candice's room.. it really looks like a condo la.. from the outside anyway.. i always liked those type of bricks.



it also has the most gorgeous view. candice says drunk international students go and wade in the fountain sometimes.

well yeah. her room was full of ikea stuff.. and not very full of stuff like my brother's. but i guess it's diff cos she gets to go home every weekend/anytime she wants.

uh. lemme see. sat around chatting. then went off to orchard to do my shopping. as usual, didn't accomplish everything i set out to do. i seriously underestimate the time needed for me to make decisions. this is why i go shopping alone. haha. even the most patient person would find it a sore trial to put up with me. the worst thing was the shoes actually. i think i spent at least 1 hr in total trying on all sorts of shoes. the salesgirl was very nice though. she got me a basket and asked if i was frm poly haha. and "isn't it boring to shop alone?" so i was like no, i take very long to decide (not that she couldn't tell that frm my indecisiveness/pickyness)

so, i figured if i'm not satisfied i shan't waste $$. at least i got the shorts n track pants at a gd price. but now i need waterproof track pants. also at a gd price. hmm. and gd cut. haha. oh and i found vacuum packed pillows! yippee. unfortunately my vacuum packed bolster has already expanded:( hopefully i can stuff it into the vacuum pack bags without much problem/deformation. and i couldn't decide which pillow was better, even though i surreptitiously glanced around before dumping them on the bed and trying them out. haha.

and i need a new wallet. i shall attempt to find one tmr or something. although i wish i'd found nice comfy walking shoes sigh. i am really too picky. i have this tendency to want to buy a lot of things which i may/may not use when i see 20% discount. haha.

anyway, then i walked (very quickly) down to borders to look for old school, but it was not to be! ugh. i can't believe it.. kiat went down to buy last week or sth, and this week they tell me they don't carry the book anymore.. saves me $$ i suppose. but really..

dinner at venezia with lijia and pam who was like 1hr late cos she severely underestimated the journey time for 67 from tampines and then ended up stopping 2 stops late, bcos i didn't tell her it was guthrie house. oops. that poor girl, i can totally empathise given that i took 67 frm bedok home. and lyd who was 2.5hrs late bcos she went to get her phone (so she could return me mine) and eat dinner w her mom. but it was fun.. and it reminded me of mugging days with lijia (and occasionally joon). they revamped the decorations though. so black now. hmm.

alright. now to think about what to do tmr. i am so not ready to go. haven't started packing, haven't finished buying stuff, haven't read my books, haven't packed my room, haven't haven't haven't. i had better make all those things "hads" soon, if not i'm done for.

i was in a very horrible mood because of all the wrong things i did today. (and the unbelievable amount of time needed to choose a new school bag/books to buy which i didn't buy in the end).

but i checked the mail and surprise! mag sent me a letter! so heartwarming:) cheered me up quite a bit at any rate. and the quote was so sweet. thank you dearie!:)

and my bill has finally arrived so dad can stop bugging me about it. it's not my fault stanford is full of idiotic things which drain money. i suppose they have the luxury of that as well as sending stuff late and pple will still go there cos of who they are. argh.

uh. oh.. something i forgot to say. i look around my room, think about the days left. so i'm supposed to leave in 11 days' time, live a different life for 4 years, and come back.

sigh mac mini is giving me problems. why does it not have an audio in??? i am so annoyed

oh i have remembered something else. on sunday i was at sim lim with my dad and bro trying to find keyboard/mouse/webcam.. it was rather surreal. now i'm drawn into the world of computer specifications and hunting down the best bargains in sim lim (which my dad totally adores) . and thanks to the mac mini not having an audio-in i'm trying to find out if there's a webcam with usb mic. all this i wouldn't be doing on my own in normal circumstances.

another transcript

cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
oh!
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
it's 1am.
clar:] 2 weeks says:
well done
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
i thought it was still midnight
clar:] 2 weeks says:
you can tell time
clar:] 2 weeks says:
oh wait
clar:] 2 weeks says:
you can't
clar:] 2 weeks says:
oops
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
haha
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
i'm set on GMT +7
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
that's why...
clar:] 2 weeks says:
for wat??
clar:] 2 weeks says:
that's so silly
cosmos - 18th sept, 0915. T2, SQ16. says:
i'm just joking...

i'm too gullible. haha. anyway, that was an interesting conversation. who here thinks i act like a kid? rofl. i suppose i do sometimes, that's why rachel n christine are so amused. hmm. maybe it's a way of keeping the child within.

shopping tmr! oh i must go and check my bank account for my pay! yippeee haha

ahh. i just remembered something i forgot to say. on sunday bible class teacher was just asking the other girls how many guys will be left next year and then i just realised that we'll be moving out of the class cos we've been there 3 years already. and i still thought i just finished jc. it is rather unnerving how the year is almost over and i don't seem to realise it. maybe that is why we need to be more aware. instead of rushing along all the time. esp those working. "no time!" is the most common complaint. but so much has been said on that already anyway.

i shall go finish reading my books so i don't have to pay library fine:p

bah i still woke up at 7.30 today:( this is not gd. at least i finished writing my diary stuff and have started getting my act together. it's not very nice to look around my comfy room and think, 2 weeks left. oh well.

melvyn who likes to annoy me. and then claim that it brightens up my day. he says he is not photogenic and prefers to be photographed in a hakama and a bokken (so a more impressive image is created).

deborah the all-things-jap girl. we ate so much at sakae sushi today! it's a wonder we could still roll. haha. and i'm sure she must be a really gd hostess.. can just talk and talk and talk.. chatter-box deborah.

okay i'm too lazy to post all the pics from yest (not that there were a lot to begin with, sadly)
i am so so tired, i shall crawl under my covers soon and hope tmr i wake up with a clear head. sleeping at 2am and waking up at 7.30 is doing nothing for my sanity. not to mention spending most of the day out. groan. tmr's gonna be another long day.

debbie the deejay! haha. she won some competition so she's going to seattle in nov to represent spore! cool huh..

christine the crazy whale who insists on calling me a goldfish.. oh she predicts that i'll come back with 5 boyfriends, one for each weekday (during the weekends i'll accompany my parents and pretend to be guai..) she's hilarious:) so full of nonsense..

rachel the librarian/squishy squid 2/octopus who keeps on saying i'm mad and wanting to squish me (ser, she bears an uncanny resemblance to you in this aspect) she was also trying to coax me to buy earrings yesterday, but her efforts weren't particularly successful cos 1. i'm lazy to change earrings 2. i'm v picky

wah. i'm quite zoned out. actually i've been quite zoned out since 10 or so, rachel will attest to that. but i revived while transferring my photos. but now i'm beginning to get woozy again.

anyway. last day of work. as usual, in the morning got nothing to do.. so went to pack library and wait for either rachel/debbie to come so can ask if they need help. well and also pack up my own stuff.

and i was wondering when either one of them was going to come in cos both of them were late.. haha.. well done. =shakes head= but for diff reasons. so debbie passed me this magical creatures book.. do cloze based on the creatures inside. the stories were hilarious.. i was summarising it to amuse melvyn.. okay my brain is really non-functional now.. maybe tmr.

then lunch at genki sushi w debbie n ey. haha i didn't know they pissed off national geographic pple. and ey treated me.. so nice. i must really go and get something for them. but i'm so lousy at presents.. sigh.

hum. oh T-notes. haha. by a very happy coincidence, the L2 CW that debbie did included a beached whale. hahaha. i shan't say anymore. and it wasn't my idea.. really..

and later christine came in and dumped a package on my head. the card was so cute.. i think she draws better than i do. haha. and i actually wasn't feeling that sad before that.

so hilarious. i'm glad i have the photos anyway. tho maybe i should've taken a video.. sharks.. wat a waste. nvm i think i shall go back n say byebye before i fly off. we shall see.

2nd last day of work. rather queer in a way. and i didn't really like the ending of my 2nd SR.. but i have no idea how to keep to the length and put a moral in and ...
oh but on the bright side zee said yest during gen t meeting the teachers said my SR for the L2 topic was good! (the topic was a house burglary) cos it's a difficult topic since there isn't much action.. haha. yay.

when i listen to phyllis n rachel talk about how TLU doesn't allow them to eat together (and times them for lunch -horror-) i feel very fortunate. the trouble is that i don't know what to get for ERU. it's not like i'm very close to them to begin with (a far cry from how johann was, at any rate), i'm just glad they're easygoing and everyth, even with all the crap that jc rains on them sometimes.

oh well.. yay rachel's going to treat me tmr!:) i think. anyway, dinner should be good. and very filling.. oh i'm so happy i finally found the battery charger for the digicam.. although i should've just switched on the light in the first place then wudn't hafta msg my bro to ask. ah well. but the thing is, i found it!:):):)

anyway i'm happier. as compared to just now when i was glowering because the IMM place cheated me, i thought the scholls were supposed to be cheaper there but they were the same price! in fact, they marked up the price and told me it was 10% off.. ridiculous.. okay i shan't work myself up.

rather sleepy. maybe it's the effects of contacts in two consecutive days haha.

haha. i had my free lunch today! i must admit it was quite boring half the time, given that we had to wait sooo long for food to come. like. appetizers were instant. but then the main course took 45mins!! !!!. bah. but globetrotters was really full.. i think there were like 70 pple heh. wonder how much jc has to pay for us. oh well. it was really filling though, i had maybe 4 or 5 slabs of fish on my plate and potatoes and veges and i ate everything up. haha. so fat. grilled fish provencale!
so we were all happy, full and sleepy at 2.45pm. haha. i think i might have liked the cheesecake but i don't think i could have finished/enjoyed it in my very full state so well.

and we took almost 2 hours over lunch. or maybe more:p i enjoyed going over to annoy rachel n phyllis. haha. apparently rachel was "throwing a tantrum" cos her food took a real long time to come.. ah well. i think christine was amused w my cartoons:) she says i'm still a kid. oh well. i think so too.

man there's something very wrong with me nowadays.. i think i've been doing too much writing, when i want to use a certain word i can't find the correct word.. it just sticks in my head and refuses to form into a word. blah. feel like an idiot sometimes.

yay melvyn came today.. i think the saying that everything which goes around comes around is true. bcos i annoy rachel, and he annoys me. okay i don't know if rachel annoys anyone (maybe phyllis) or if anyone annoys melvyn. oh well. and i still haven't seen deborah in ages, she must be too caught up with her cute french manager:(

so.. 2 more days left at work. oh it was so funny, one of the teachers came back frm maternity leave and was telling us abt how she shocked pple with her huge stomach (apparently larger than is normal for pregnant women). one day she walked past mcdonalds and a malay woman nearly dropped her burger upon seeing her, and exclaimed "so big!" (in malay). rofl.

bittersweet. although today i was bored even while alternating btwn doing a compo on something that happened at the beach and shelving books. oh well.

ooh sarah's pics look nice.. also a reminder of how everyth'll be new. hmm.

ah. i actually think i enjoyed my job at tll the most. which is quite queer, considering how everyone else apparently has a lot to bitch about. i'm just glad i ended up in ERU, even though i don't talk to them that much, cos TLU doesn't sound like a very nice place to work in heh. they seem to have so much more stuff on their hands (and subsequently are more ngiao about stuff)

so, back to why i liked this job the best. i think it has to do with them relying on interns quite a bit, and so it's quite normal to be an intern and everyone just fits in. or slips in. whichever. and colleagues are mostly quite young and fun. haha. and of course the job's interesting. though i think i may cross-eyed from staring at dictionary.com for like 50% of the time i was there.

okay i'm speaking like i've already left. but only 3 more days, it's gd to reflect just before the end. ohhh yes rachel calls me squishy squid (doesn't it roll off the tongue nicely? haha) so i decided i shall be squishy squid one and she can be squishy squid two. haha. like bananas in pyjamas (tho i never watched the show) "B1, are you thinking what i'm thinking?" and so on. and i drew my cartoon garfield fish for her today and she started squealing about how cute they were. i must go dig out the garfield paper again.. i only can draw the fish facing the left.

and i went to look at sherman's lagoon yest, as usual, and found that the cartoon had to do w whales! so i printed it out for christine. let's see what she has to say tmr. haha. hopefully she'll be amused.

and free lunch tmr! wahahah. and no minutes to type, yeah.. but i'll probably end up inktrailing stuff again. inktrailing is quite mindless, poor zee. ok not really mindless, but tedious. well. bleah. i don't feel like typing anymore.. time to disappear

hahaha. i can't believe myself.
transcript of msn conversation btwn me n kiat:

cosmos says:
in exactly 21 days from today
cosmos says:
we'll be sitting in the plane
clar:] 3 weeks says:
bleah
clar:] 3 weeks says:
don't remind me..
clar:] 3 weeks says:
i think i might cry at the airport. u'd better bring tissue for me. rofl.
cosmos says:
haha okay
cosmos says:
how many boxes do you think u'll need?
cosmos says:
3 or 4?
clar:] 3 weeks says:
boxes?
clar:] 3 weeks says:
we're only allowed 2 pieces of luggage leh how to box
cosmos says:
i meant tissue boxes

[unrelated stuff has been edited out.]
i couldn't stop laughing at myself. but really! luggages are related to airport too wat..
and now the mad hatter's diaoing me about dino tears are being large so i said maybe i'll cause a flood and everyone'll die. in which now, we have seemingly discovered why i'm the last dino around. everyone else drowned. although the question remains: did i float because i was the smallest/the fattest?

how thought-provoking.

more like how nonsensical. i must have read too much bagthorpe/gerald durrell. but i'm still going back to read more, given that i must return the bagthorpe book soon. haha.

i may be making excuses, but i think it's because i get injured so often i don't take it particularly seriously anymore. and i heal fast cos i'm young. oh well.

blading today! daryl's blades are really horrible, i have no idea how she can blade in them.. i was totally suffering during the first 45mins or so and wondering how my blading could have deteriorated so much in a few weeks.. then charm very nicely offered to exchange with me cos she says she usually wears daryl's ones anyway so its okay.. thus i discovered the joy of blading in good blades. haha. although i think that poor gal may have gotten a blister:( -feels guilty again- groan. but charm's blades were so much smoother. which is gd and bad. gd cos it's easier to fall if it gets out of control.. and the slopes, although scary at first, were super fun! haha. just roll down.

and i got my vacuum pack bags from parkway. heh thanks to passerby who asked val where she got hers from.. and it's such a coincidence i read it last night (i think?) and then was going to ecp today. ladida. am rather tired again though, yesterday i just plopped on my bed and fell asleep with the lights on and woke up at 3sth to realise i fell asleep.

i think part of the reason why i'm reluctant to leave is that i've made new friends in these very short eight months. which i don't really want to lose so soon, but hopefully that won't happen. and what's gd abt going off is that i get to shop for a whole lot of things haha. fun but tiring. and i'm so glad i'm going to a pretty place (so everyone says), cos i think i'd be quite miserable if i were stuck in an ugly place.
i think i'll have fun while i'm there, but while i'm here, inertia sets in.

i hope i haven't been repeating myself online. cos i can never remember whether i said it to people in person (and can't remember whom i said certain things to, for that matter) or whether i blogged it. so confusing.

sigh i was actually quite happy until i got home and got scolded by my bro:( but i think he's right really, i'm too absorbed in myself sometimes. therefore now i am feeling guilty. maybe it's just another of my -ignore-it-and-hopefully-everyth-will-be-right- tendencies.
i think i'm trying to do that now anyway.

and i'm quite tired. want to sleep. and sleep and sleep and sleep. i brought my tendertails whale to work today to show christine. actually i realised when i thought of whale i didn't think of the real one. cos the real one's really quite ugly haha. oops. tend not to think of animals the way they look in real life. usually think of cartoon/stuffed toy ones haha:p oh well.

i'm going to retire to the sanctuary of my room. and clear up my desk. haha.

i don't know why i wasn't in a very happy mood this morning. even annoying rachel didn't help. rofl. luckily it improved nearing lunchtime:p and i also don't know why christine keeps laughing when she sees me. apparently something about me is very amusing. anyway, i printed a whale tag for her today. rofl. it was most amusing.. she was sitting at the reception doing computer stuff and then the whole world saw it.. and when they asked her why, she pursed up her lips, pointed at me and said "ask the goldfish". i so do not look like a goldfish.

and i'm rather tired now. finally, my specs are made. but i have a sneaking suspicion that they didn't check my eyesight properly. i mean, my left eye is sufficiently blurry for me not to believe that my degrees increased by 25 only.. i must go find the prescription for my old pair of specs. and as it is, this pair is quite old cos i'm sure my contacts were of higher degree.. argh. and i don't like doing eye exams cos it merely serves to remind me how bad my eyesight is:(

i have increasingly less stuff to do at work, weirdly. not that i mind, because after a while writing articles continually does take a toll on me. so i go out and help rachel stick barcodes (and talk nonsense).

i want work to end, yet i don't.
want it to end so i don't have to get up at 7.45 every morning, spend my day in the office, ... and i'll get to go shopping! woohoo~
don't because i'll miss rachel and christine and listening on tchers' amusing conversations (esp ml & lcn together) and it also means i have only 2 weeks left.

so, while i was stoning this morning, i made out a list of things to do and people to meet. i have trouble visualising how i'm going to meet so many people when my weekday nights are very unfree. hopefully i can catch them for lunch. and my brother's still confined during the week!
:( very angry me:( i still haven't shown him the ipod flea movie. oh well. i'm sure he'll have a good laugh, since he was the one who told me about how apple's success is partly thanks to the sale of accesories for their main products.

at least i think i'm going blading this week:) let's hope i don't fall down anymore. haha.
i'm really too tired. and i need to finish clearing my table/getting ready to return the books i've been hogging haha:p oops

lemme see.. i was uber-bored in the morning.. oh wait. mom woke me up, but bcos i slept at 1sth last night i went back to sleep in my slothfulness.. luckily 5 mins later mom checked on me "not going to work ah?" that never fails to work heh.. except on 10 aug:D
and somehow, i put my phone in the pouch, and forgot to put it in my bag. so i was phoneless today. it isn't such a big deal actually, just that i was supposed to meet hk for lunch, and without a phone it's not as convenient la.

oh and before that i was trying to haggle my last 2 days' pay.. so i can work less.. but it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen.. i feel kind of bad when i'm bargaining with charlene.. maybe i'm just too nice. rofl. self-confessed.

it's nice to have mutual friends sometimes. but other times it's nice to have friends who're totally unconnected.

let me see.. i forgot wat i was going to say. nvm i shall just skip on to the next thing i wanted to say. read val wong's blog.. frankly, i don't know how she can feel so optimistic about leaving. maybe it's cos i'm just being contrary and not wanting to leave when i am going to (and if i weren't, i'd wish i were). maybe cos i still have 3 weeks to go. maybe i have just too much and i haven't come to the point to let go.

in a way i'm afraid i'll change and some relationships won't be wat they used to be. but again that has already happened in the many transitions frm pri to sec sch then to jc and now to the interim btwn jc and uni. sigh. and hk asking me how often i'm going to come back.. just brings home the point that although i'll come back this dec and nxt june, probably, after that i probably won't be coming back that often. and i won't see a lot of people. and a lot of things will change.

okay i think i worry too much. and i'm a very.. of-the-moment person. which may or may not be good, really. hmm.

haha so now we're on the subject of nicknames. i have just christened kiat "mad hatter". don't you think it fits him? i do:) now i need to wait to be inspired as to wat animal melvyn looks like.

it's funny how you just click better with some than with others huh. speaking of which, i frequently pop into the library to annoy rachel and be my crazy self.. so fun:D it's a way of stress relief. and requires the correct settings. haha.

i've kind of realised next week will be my last week of work. i don't know why i'm thinking more about it today.. guess once i stop work i must start to prepare to leave. : anyway, i realised when i'm working, i don't really think about how fast time flies. although it seems like for this job, there're less times when i feel like i don't want to go to work. maybe it's cos i have rachel to bully rofl:D and christine to make weird faces at me haha. or maybe cos it does encompass things i like doing. hmm.

oh.. housing package (not really a package, envelope) came today.. stanford really loves forms man.. now i have another 11-qn form to fill up.. anyone wanna listen to me whine? rofl. but like kiat says this form is actually much easier to fill.. as compared to the academic advisor one -cough-

and it's nice to have teachers that you can like. i think i've said it before actually. but somehow, things i think i will do, i don't really end up doing. i also realised after emailing ppl for a while i'll get bored/busy (or the other party will) and it'll just stagnate. but i guess meeting once in a long while is better than never. heh. at least they still remember me, i think.

okay i think i need to sleep soon. ladida. at least today virtually no back pain haha. and deborah keeps telling me about her new cute colleagues (and a cute french manager!) i'm so jealous:( hmph. haha.

oooh i'm very happy now cos daryl sent me the apple ipod flea movie! it's hilarious! haha. i shall show it to my bro when he gets back. sooo funny:D totally made my day:):):)

anyway, met stanford pple today, quite a huge gathering i must say. and actually when i went there and just saw clusters of pple i felt slightly disconcerted. heh. but i guess that's what the gathering's for, just go round and get to know pple. met lots of nice pple, although there was a lack of things to talk about now and then. oh well, looking forward to getting to know everyone better:)

but i don't want to leave again. aiyah. i think i'm forever ambivalent abt stuff. and when the numbers start diminishing.. that's when the compulsion to stay grows.

wah i'm so tired. i think it must be the vaccine. haha. anyway, i slept at 3 last night, got up at 10.30. ate mango cake yay!!:) haha. and finally went to get meningitis vaccine done. (yay!)

then down to toa payoh to look for specs. again. yes. visited like 6 shops i think. very sick of trying frames. decided on one final one, but wanted to check out sth else i saw last week before i made my decision. arm starts feeling sore from vaccination like chris said.

home. sleep!! yeah..
then out to westmall for dinner. supposed to eat thai food but ended up mostly indonesian food haha. oh well. oh i saw my other pair of frames that i was considering and finally am almost decided. happily. and saw nice comfy shoes! yay. keds sneakers. am thinking abt whether to get those/scholl/track shoes i.e. nike.

k sentences are quite short n snappy and not formulated properly today cos i can feel my head going round and round already, telling me i desperately need sleep. gnite.

i think i was actually quite happy today until i came back and discovered my housing assignment. (yes, finally). maybe i should've checked my mail while at work. but again that would have made me lose even more concentration heh. anyway, christine gave me a very-pink-watch! hmm. i'm afraid i'm never going to wear it. it is really, really pink. i mean i like pink, but there are limits. oh well. i shall stand it on my desk so it can replace my mini clock which broke down a few months ago haha.

and then the up-pitching.. wah.. i think i'm too accustomed to summaries/down-pitching things for p1s, cos it was quite difficult to cheemify the clozes.. man. so didn't finish that much of it. or rather, not satisfied. maybe i'm too perfectionistic.

there was this baby crawling contest at united sq which was quite hilarious cos the babies refused to crawl to the finishing line, mostly, and had to be coaxed there with jangling of keys/food/etc.

then selene's farewell party.. rather surprising there weren't very many rg pple.. and i didn't even realise it was shan i was talking to on the phone haha oops:p but it was nice to see/talk to people i normally don't see (yingling, shan, hwying, anna, claire, emtok) and hadn't seen lijia in so long! and serene t. sigh. chris joon ser jane all gone. feels weird. even though i don't always see them.. but still. at least there was pam:)

and i don't know why i'm still awake. ohh.. right i don't have to wake up early anymore yay:)
anyway yes.. so i came home and found that i got posted to loro. which i didn't even know where it was.. so i had to frantically search for housing websites (and almost wanted to curse that i didn't bookmark the pages bcos it'd been such a long time since i surfed the housing websites)
and realised it was florence moore hall, which i thought was supposed to be sle-dominant.

in any case, i was at first rather annoyed i didn't get frosoco (even after writing that idiotic essay! !!! !!!!!). i mean, it does have a lot of perks. but i guess i didn't even pray specifically that i'll get it, because i wasn't sure it would be best for me (e.g. given the distance frm main campus). so well, shouldn't be complaining. i think i'm a terrible person. when i'm unhappy i just flare up at any little thing and usually my family gets the flak: sigh. actually i think it's mostly my mom. poor mommy:(

anyway, i hope everything else goes fine. i think i really need to sleep.

when i read blogs of people who're going away soon/have left, i'm profoundly grateful that it's not time for me to leave yet. it just heralds the start of a totally new phase. leaving a lot of things behind. a lot of things will change whether i want them to or not. and keeping in touch. can i do that? more like, can i do tt succesfully? can i make the most of uni? can i handle all that plus other various newfound responsibilities? i'm totally not ready for this.

heh. so much for wanting to experience all the independence and wat not. i think studying overseas held such allure for me because when i was small i used to love those boarding school books. like mallory towers, chalet school, etc. i also liked nancy drew and famous five and etc but that's another thing. read for the story. anyway.. so yes, these boarding school thingies sounded really fun and all.. i think that must be partly why i wanted to go overseas. and also cos my brother went. i think i'm very influenced by him, actually. mac-convert and all. actually i think windows seems easier to use, mac is just prettier (and virus-free).

anyway. yeah. i haven't packed, i don't want to, i haven't bought a lot of stuff, ... haven't done the meningitis vaccination! aah. ahh. and then i'll have farewell notes to write soon. which is good in a way because these notes will express something that i normally wouldn't say. not in a day-to-day conversation anyway. it's kind of like the end-of-X-years-of-sch appreciation-of-friendship note. to put it very bluntly.

today lesley was wondering at how i could write in such a young manner. (at least, i think that was what she said.) she said she can write but it takes time and her writing's quite dry. she was commenting on my oral reading passages, one of which was on a gal visiting the zoo, another one of a guy getting scolded by the discipline mistress for a crumpled shirt. i'm not sure if sounding young is such a good thing heh. for one, it might be that my writing's becoming juvenile. but again, maybe i just managed to slip into the what-p1s-would-like mode in these past few weeks.

and i was rather surprised when the teacher said she wouldn't give the p3s my cloze cos the language was trickier. i mean yeah there's also time constraint.. but i was still quite surprised. cos of all the 3 clozes, mine had the least hard words. as in, least number of difficult vocab words. ah well. and rachel's so fun to bully haha. miss her on mondays. today she was squishing my arm and telling me -i'm- nice to bully. hmph. it felt like the blood pressure machine, u noe, the one that squashes ur arm until you can't feel your arm. although she didn't squash me that hard. but still.

i think i must go and read some oscar wilde. or saki. suddenly miss their style of humour.

okay my blog entry doesn't sound particularly happy, i realised. but i had quite an okay day today.. was actually doing work most of the time rofl. and nowadays i do work until the last min b4 i leave. rather amazing. but i guess it's cos i'm the only intern in eru left so all the little things get dumped to me. ah well.

today's class was funny. melvyn's always so nonsensical. though i think not so ridiculous today la. and the first time i see him wearing hakama! hahaha so amusing. nvm. i wish deborah would come though, miss training with her. anyway, at least i think i didn't roll as badly as last mon: if not tmr cannot work again haha:p the other day i was reading some horoscope book and it said librans have an aggressive streak and thus will take to judo very well. i wonder... haha.

hais 9 - 7 tmr to make up for friday so i can go for selene's party! oh no.. friday ser n jane will be leaving. blah. anyway, it'll be gd to see selene n anna n hwying n etc:)
oh i met tiff in the morning at the mrt today! so coincidental:) it was nice to see her.. tt silly gal says she keeps falling asleep during briefings haha:)

i think i'm a conditioned pessimist, tend to think the worst then realise reality isn't so bad. which may or may not be gd, since i feel happier when things end up better than expected. haha. wat a weird way to think. just me.

this is so uncanny. suddenly, the lines+melody of "It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life." became stuck in my mind. and i couldn't remember wat song it was.. so i yahooed it. and found that it was the song that chris quoted on her blog and i actually have the song! haha. i like the song. but when i saw the entire chunk of lyrics (okay not that it was that substantial to begin with), i felt very sad. chris this is all your fault. because it's all true for our rg class. at any rate, it is, for me.

was reading some books (koped frm tll library as usual:D) about americans writing about france and french customs. some of it's so true (even after 8 years) and even if the rest isn't (i think), it's still hilarious. maybe i should have gone to france to study. it'll save a whole lot of $$ at any rate. but there's no use thinking about "maybes". maybe i'll just spend a quarter in paris:) oops. i just said maybe again. nvm.

surprisingly enough i did quite a bit work at work today haha. in the morning, that is. maybe cos i had deadlines to meet so i actually did my stuff. but by the end of the day i was quite sleepy/tired/sian already. this is called burn out:p

and sleepy because i slept maybe 5 hrs last night. not good. which is partly cos of a loong phone conversation. i shall try my best to forget the contents. just rather horrifying to find out some things i suppose. and to dwell on them is even worse. please don't ask me wat i'm talking about. this paragraph is meant to be cryptic.

suddenly i can't decide wat sort of mood i'm in. so confusing. sad that everyone's starting to leave? unhappy/dissatisfied in general? not wanting to leave? knowing that uni life is not going to be easy? aargh. i wish they'd hurry up and send my housing stuff. grr. not even a confirmed date yet, and i'll still have to add 5 days to that date unless they fedex it.

oh, i just remembered something. while trying to write that oral reading passage this morning, i realised wat's gd abt my current job. it's kind of like interning at sph, you get to write stuff and it's printed, and you get recognition (in the form of your name printed as author). just that i think it's better here cos i don't have to do surveys:p and i get to write any sort of stuff i like as long as i stick to lesley's theme. yeah, and i get more authority cos i'm the only intern left in eru/helping out with library. so, in that sense, one feels more important/valued. i bet tinky felt even more powerful cos she was there for the longest time and dabbled in the most things:)
but well, that only goes when everyone (including myself) is satisfied with my work. which may not necessarily always be the case.