hakuna matata

i never knew packing was so difficult. at first i thought it was going to be fun, you know, fitting things into boxes and i like being neat (sometimes, yeah, i know the state of my room doesn't show that). until it was like 5am and i'm like oh dear, i really won't get to sleep tonight.

so thurs night i slept a grand total of 1/2h frm 5:30 - 6:00am (or so) and got up and took a shower and ploughed on packing. alright i don't even know if that makes sense, but well. sooo tired. still had to move my boxes down 3 floors. thankfully chuansheng helped me move my 30.3kg luggage down if not i would've collapse out of physical exhaustion. heh. and it was so hot! augh.

anyhow, there were 5 of us on the same flight, which was cool:) me n cs n jesley (whose luggage was 12kg + 44kg! crazy..) n jiunhaur n dexian. we didn't sit together but hanging out b4 boarding and during stopover was fun..

it's such a weird feeling to come home and find that it's been six months. everything is sort of the same, yet sort of not the same. don't know how to say also. but anyway i haven't been doing anything other than sleeping (haha) since i'm going off to thailand on wed. hope the trip will be good!

disorientating to sleep so much.
came back on sunday at about 1:45am.
slept frm 3:45 to 8:45am. went for church. amazingly i wasn't that zoned out, maybe i'm used to functioning with severe lack of sleep heh. then lunch, came back,
slept from 3:30 to 11:30pm. ate dinner (rofl, i know)
went back to sleep again frm 2:00am to 6:30am. got up, ate bfast, hijacked my bro's monitor, keyboard and mouse so i could use my mac mini.
decided i was tired n went back to bed (10:15am - 5:45pm)
and i think i'm going back to bed soon. that's like 25 hrs!

i like my bed too much. it's lower and bigger than my dorm bed anyhow.. haha. but i miss my huge screen and my keyboard and my mouse. crazy right. it's always good to be home though:)

it's so funny though, when i went to church i was in the akpsi-let's-meet-pple mode and then i decided it'd be weird if i started asking the adults how their jobs were going. but again maybe not -shrug- anyhow they had camp meeting so i didn't see that many people.

it's also somewhat tiring repeating myself - touched down at 1am, leaving on wed for thailand, (watever i'm doing at thailand), going back 4th sept for soco, ... but i'm also sort of used to it after having to introduce myself to like 50 pple in the past 3 months.

and i still need to think about my freshman year. maybe when i come back or something. haha. the american school year thing is kind of disorientating too.. "see you next year" (i.e. in sept of the same year). just so weird.

it's 5:30am and I'm still not done packing.. I really underestimated the amount of stuff I have. or the amount of space that my things take up, anyway. or maybe it's just because i'm using small boxes and there're like 6 of them:| Kevin passing me the headphones to carry back is really God's providence, cos I definitely wouldn't have had enough boxes otherwise.

today was so crazy. i finally started packing properly on wed night (after i finished my introsem paper at like 11:30pm:|) and then slept at 3, got up at 10. went to lunch at google! courtesy of seng.. it was so cool!!! i think while apple was sleek and everything, google is just cool. heh. they had huge whiteboards with mindmappy sort of things.. kitchenettes within 100 feet of each other (!!! ridiculous.. and with so much food).. sort-of-playhouse-looking offices.. a bunch of smileyface balloons at every intern's desk.. and then stuff that seng was telling me about: a treadmill-swimming pool (actually a wave pool but you swim against it or something like that), a waterfall-decoration thing created by one of the employees, ...

i totally forgot i'd read about google's interesting company culture. but their office is so funky.. i don't think any office in spore is like that. such a pity. it doesn't even seem like an office! heh. well okay it does, it has the normal tables and stuff.. but other than that! ooh. i was telling seng i was tempted to do CS instead and go work at google too. ahaha. but anyway. again, i'm just looking at it from an outsider's point of view.. work politics is another thing. if there is such a thing there? hehe.

alright i really should get back to packing.. can't believe it's been a year. i think i've said that at least 3 times. and i've never slept past like 3am until coming to college. -shakes head-

man. one final in a day is more than enough for me.. i just finished two almost back to back (thankfully not, i don't know how kiat survived his 3-finals-in-a-day) finals and i'm so drained. still have another one tomorrow morning which i haven't finished studying for. sigh my roommate is packing and watching a movie at the same time.. i'm going to have to ask her to stop when i finish typing this. or maybe i should just go down and read since i don't particularly need to be at my computer/in my room. hm.

anyway. the IHUM TFs were so nice though, I'll miss them, sort of. so when i arrived at my TF's office to take my exam earlier so I could, quote him, get some rest before econ, he wasn't around! bah. luckily I recognized one of the other TFs (hosek) and she gave me the exam and everything. she was kinda strict about us not being rude and packing up in the last few minutes of lecture, but she was really nice about giving me a room and desk to work at, the exam and paper and things.

so i started reading the stuff and everything.. and i thought i was in her office, until my TF from last quarter (crowder) came in and was like hello! so i turned around and was like !! haha. took me a little bit more than a split second to recognize him. but it was cool, he said "how's it going?" and i said okay.. and he said he was going to work in there for a bit. and i said sure, maybe he'll give me inspiration haha:p he wasn't in the office much, which was kinda good cos i get distracted pretty easily.

after that, my this quarter TF popped his head in and i was like hi. n he offered to get me a blue book (and crowder did too) but hosek gave me foolscap already so i said it's okay.. but they were really nice about everyth:) aw.

alright, better study psych. desperately need to pull my grade up. it's so interesting how psych incorporates IHUM stuff (evil in Eichmann in Jerusalem) and econ stuff (prisoner's dilemma).

now I understand why my brother said it's important for my social life to revolve around a church fellowship group more. I was just feeling (as usual) disheartened and weary and wondering how I'm going to get through finals. and whined at cs for a bit. haha that poor guy, I think I whine at him a lot. but anyway he was like god will give you strength. and then I realized, as usual, I'd forgotten Him. it's always so easy to forget. but so comforting when people (e.g. sean) say they'll pray for you and things like that.

which suddenly made me think of how darryl n daryl are both so involved in their church groups. slightly uncanny resemblance there. although they're really very different characters heh. but anyway, yeah. if you stick with christians your spiritual life will be much enriched. and then that day that email came from church at home about marrying in christ. heh. interesting timing there too.

a while ago i suddenly thought about home and really wanted to be back. how peculiar. reading my psych textbook day in day out is getting to my head, methinks. it's also very person-centered, which may or may not be a good thing. people behave differently in different social situations. so acute.

on wednesday/thursday I thought I had a lot of time. now I'm wondering if I can prepare adequately:| I guess I'll have to rely on BS-ing skills for IHUM. which evidently, I'm still not very good at. save for the occasional burst of brilliance. heh. Let's hope it manifests itself on Tues afternoon.

and so, there's just a week left. and it'll be the end of freshman year. next year will be a different dorm, a different roommate (i hope we have less problems with sleep schedules and etc), a different atmosphere (no IHUM!! ahaha), a different batch of Singaporeans coming in. seniors & masters students will be back in Singapore, working for whoever it is they're bonded to. can't imagine not having them around. but i've said that already.

i wonder who'll pledge next fall. that'll be interesting. and i can't decide if i should go abroad next spring. which means i would have to turn down the peer mentoring thing. which i don't really mind, but i feel kinda bad about cos i did talk to my advisor about it and stuff. or should i go abroad on some other program which hopefully costs less? ahh. i think jackie would wanna go to paris too, which would be fun..

on wed during chi alpha glen gave the seniors a book on how to fit in back at home. wat a curious concept. if u've left home for too long u go back and it's all different. kinda sad in a way. but everything's sad in a way. alright i've just worked myself into a melancholic mood

oh!! kaiping told me about rj chorale's performance at czech music festival.. that was so awesome. pamugun. the bird whistles and stuff.. i wish my comp had let me watch the video:( this is when i'd say stupid mac, grr.

i'm in such a confused state of mind and i don't even know why. must be end-of-the-year blues or something heh.

so, it's been a year. actually not really a year, like.. 8 months. yeah it is shorter than a school year in singapore. i had to stop and count. cos it seems like everything went by so quickly. isn't it always the case. actually i think i'm going to do my end-of-freshman-year reflections later. have more pressing concerns.

i think i spent at least 4 hours not doing any studying yesterday! alright i think i sound deranged at this point. but because my finals are bunched up i need to prepare earlier but it's so easy to slack! augh.

how mildly disturbing. i'm so unmotivated:| and yet i know if i don't get my stuff done i'll crash and burn on tues/wed! aahh. :( at least i managed to stop myself from overeating during lunch today. haha i sound like i have a serious problem.

last night my roommate was like "let's watch a movie!" and i'm like -ponder-. uhhhh.... -ponder somemore-.. okayyy. haha. it was fun. i was telling her my theory about actors/actresses (good looks are necessary) and she was like roomie, the truth comes out. but we agreed that it is how the movie industry works. even though there are people who aren't that good looking.

hyperhyperhyper.

okay, so just to clarify: i did cross into my frat, no i did not get cut. heh. realized it wasn't clear after hk was like so u weren't affected by the cut? oops. anyhow. just spent like 2+hrs leading RJ kids on a tour. (heh i've also gotten into the habit of calling pple kids, it's so weird though). it's been a long time since i've seen so many asians. or singaporeans. or people of that age. watever.

it was kinda fun though, being a tour guide. and it was so funny.. we were next to the econ building and a marguerite was passing by so I decided to point it out. and another one came and they were like can we take the bus? so i was like.. oh.. okay sure! haha. and chuan sheng was like it's going to palo alto transit center u noe! but come on, if it's coming down towards the econ building we'll eventually end up back at tresidder.

and then they were clamoring to see my room. i think my roommate would've killed me if i'd let them in haha. but it was still fun.. brought them thru one of the floors of alondra. pity memchu was closed by the time we got there.

um. chi alpha was kind of a farewell. rather depressing. i thought we were done with farewells for a while. actually i don't even remember when was the last time.. maybe when i first came to stanford. or when i was at my brother's graduation. but wow, it's been a year. next year is going to be so different. it's like how devin amol and ed (dormmates) are off in paris/london this quarter. the 3rd floor is different without them. i mean i'm kinda used to it but it definitely isn't as fun as it was. not that i hung out with them that much, but still.

and so, wat it'll be like next year without sean and joel and ruixiong and kevin and wenzheng i don't know. not that i see the last 2 very often, but still.

we just had our last dorm meeting, sort of. they were giving everyone superlative-awards. and mine was "most likely to die by not waking up in an earthquake". cos apparently one time i managed to sleep thru my roommate's alarm clock (i -really- don't know when this was, i must go and ask my PHE). i was like no! the problem is that i can't! but apparently my PHE saw me happily curled up in bed. so i guess i must've been really knocked out.

i've had a pretty crazy week. okay, friday and saturday at any rate. but i'm so glad it's over. and i didn't manage to keep my cool this time, but watever. i still don't really know why i cried but well. and then i had to sit around alone for like 3 hours. thankfully pledge parents were around for a bit, but still. got rather lonely. and then later they transferred me to another room where one of my pledge brothers was, but then said we were still under a vow of silence (and my pledge bro was busy doing something) and i had no work with me so that was kind of bad too. and there were no windows in that room!

okay i don't think that was very coherent. but anyway. so finally we were done (and i must admit to watching mrbrown podcasts while being bored). i think i need a laptop or something man.. but i don't really like using laptops either. dunno. anyhow. um. yeah, then i had to run to the SEALNet thing and then for dinner w akpsi pple. oh it was so symbolic cos they accepted us in the same room where we had our pledge initiation. and everything was pretty similar (except for the missing people) and that 7 weeks have passed since. kind of sentimental.

and the party that night. man, it's the last time i'm doing anything like that.. i had so much trouble finding sosmething (i.e. borrowing from dormmates) something that would match "AKPsin city". ahh. i'm really thankful i managed to escape the drinking-a-shot-with-my-hpac thing, but then i felt like i had to dance instead, which was definitely not a good idea. something my mom is never going to hear about cos i think she'll flip. but i mean i think it was kind of the lesser of two evils since dancing at least i can control, if i'm drunk i wouldn't know wat's going on.

partway i had to go out and walk alone.. one of the sophomores drank so much she was crying and feeling awful and vomitting. i think i saw it before in my dormmate, and i'm just like, why do you want to do things like that to yourself? esp if you know it's going to happen.. and my hpac was so drunk it was scary. apparently took 15 shots in like 5-10mins. which is also why partly i was avoiding him. while some pple are hilarious when drunk (e.g. daniel, pledge bro, who kept hugging each pledge everytime he saw one of us) others are just plain freaky cos you dunno wat they're capable of.

anyway.. enough of that. i slept so much today. actually not really. 4 - 7:30am (had to stay back to clean up partly cos i came late n didn't help set up) and then 10:30 - 11:50am and then 3:45 - 5:45pm. i guess it all adds up to a decent amount of sleep haha. i had a hard decision to make when ruixiong called and said sean was coming to get us for lunch soon. friends n food or sleep? ah well. time to do IHUM paper.

i suddenly decided to read other ppl's blogs. after this crazy quarter.. not that it's ended, but it's definitely winding down (in terms of pledge anyway) and i have a little more time to do my own stuff (i suspect i should be doing pledge stuff but i really need my own time for a while).

and then wat daryl was saying to sean on sunday came back to me. and when i saw hk's blog entry (quite some time ago actually) abt his experience. everyone's journey is so different. daryl was saying he was so uptight about grades and things, related to parents' expectations which actually aren't there. and i was thinking mine was so different, i don't have a problem with working but with getting involved in other stuff (i.e. extracurricular - yup, here they don't call it co-curricular haha). but actually i did still have some of the i-can't-go-out-and-do-fun-stuff-if-not-i-can't-do-my-work mentality.. largely in RGS, then less so in RJ after i got into choir, and then less so in fall quarter, and so it progresses.

i guess we'll have to see for my grades this quarter.. pray that god helps me to prepare well for watever i have left to do.. to salvage my psych, particularly. and ihum. augh. this quarter has been the craziest, yet when i thought about depledging i realized i'll probably stay in my room and not do anything if i didn't have all that stuff to do. we shall see wat happens on saturday though. i have no idea wat i'm going to wear to that party, augh.

yay! i'm in a happy mood today:) let me now think about why i'm happy.. :):):)

1. I got 8 hours of sleep! yippeee~~~
2. I can go to apple HQ next fri! cos we worked out the replacement class! yay!
3. I got my SSN!
4. I hung out with Karen and it was fun!
5. I ate a banana-nutella crepe for "lunch"!
6. I hung out with Jenny too!
7. Visited Daryl! (I'm never visiting him again though, I had to knock 5000000 times before he opened the door and i KNEW he was in there cos there was guitar music)
8. Sold some cards!
9. my econ midterm is over and i think (hope and pray anyway) that i did okay!
10. it's holiday on monday!
11. I got into Lantana, and my dormmates from this year are going there too! (they're such a crazy bunch and half of them are off oversaes this quarter so i'm glad i'll get to see them next year!)
12. i forgot what else. but i'm happy today! yay!!!:):):)

yeah.. the funny thing about Lantana is that when I came here, I was pretty much set on going to Manz next year, then I kinda changed my mind cos I heard it was quiet and anti-social and wat not.. but I think God has given me good things, as always:) it's a nice place, dormmates and chuan sheng are going there, yf'll be in kimball, jon phua in castano, dunno who else.. but it's gonna rock! and i won't be tempted to go to late night and get fat. and it's near all the exercise places so hopefully I'll be more prone to exercising! ahaha. oh but if i go for dance classes it'll be kinda far.. oh well. i know it's gonna be great:)

ohh! and there were fireworks just now! everyone said it's cos the baseball pple did well.. san jose or sth?? have no idea. but it was SO pretty:) so i'm happy!!

well, so that went better than i expected. i guess i wasn't really caring either way (whether i get cut or not) so i was less stressed than most of the rest. so i think. or maybe they just gave me a relatively easier time cos i wasn't head of anything and stuff like that. anyhow. it's so funny, in a way. go in there, apologize for everything, acknowledge mistakes, make fantastic promises. i mean they weren't exactly that fantastic but the way I was making them, it certainly sounded like. heh. everything, yeah, i'll do that. yeah, i'll do that too. in 2 weeks? yeah. okay, if you don't do that by high courts, you'll have to answer for it. okay. fine.

anyway.. i'm on probation. which i suppose, is the least which could have happened. oh well. they keep telling me my hpac (who's the master of rituals and therefore in charge of our pledge class) really likes me/has a high opinion of me. i really don't know why, cos i hardly talked to him to begin with, and the only thing i vaguely remember is him seeing my colourful econ notes and saying he should take classes w me so i can give him my notes. oh and of cos, he thinks all singaporeans are crazily smart (of which i'm not an example, sadly). anyhow, i don't know if i'm hearing correct things or not but it's all rather puzzling. i guess it's nice that other people believe in me given that half the time i don't think about what i can or can't do. alright that doesn't make too much sense. sometimes i wonder if he told me to rush because he was the MOR. blah. sadistic.

on second thoughts, that was so ironic cos we just learnt about social cognition in psych lecture today. attributions, people try to determine why other people (or themselves) do certain things. and psych lecture is a pretty reflective time, i think. somehow. i suppose cos everything that's learnt has been experienced by oneself at one time or other.

yesterday was spring fun un sun! cs decided that we shouldn't call it "un sun" cos un-sun = rain. and yes, rain it did. and our backup plan was like the night before sort of thing.. just switch venue. and had no agenda at all.. i was quite at a loss at to what to do.. thankfully daryl suggested taboo, which was really fun:) and kiat told me we ought to do an intro when enough people come, which was an awfully good idea.. thanks guys! ah. just remembered to send out my thank you email. and i'm so glad the grad students came, must thank all the pple i know whom i believe rallied them to come and all:) sean n xianyi n zhihui n guoming for forwarding the emails.

alright. lazy to write somemore. and i need to do my work. i think i prefer being a student and doing hw than doing all these business things.

alright. i decided i'm going to just accept whatever happens on saturday.. if i get cut i guess i just wasn't meant to be in a frat and it's God's way of telling me that. if i stay i'll have to be more outspoken and whatever.. am trying anyhow. so, we shall see.

i am so tired of waking up and feeling like i have so much akpsi stuff to do. well actually i didn't really feel like that today cos i just wasn't thinking about it too much, thankfully. and i just want to get enough sleep for once, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon. at least not until after i finish pledging or get cut. haha.

it's kind of weird, apparently some of my bros don't like this active (girl) who used to be jesley's roommate. cos she says mean things sometimes. i dunno la. sometimes i wonder if i misinterpret things/am over-sensitive. and i really need to sleep. and i havent' done my psych reading for tmr. so so busy. i hope sunday's spring fun un sun thing goes well man.. need to pray hard.

and my IHUM paper grade was the suckiest i've had since fall quarter, which is amazing. i don't believe this paper was worse than the first one i wrote. i should've changed TF while i had the chance. but it's always easy to blame everyone/everything other than yrself. so i dunno. and i did feel more bo-chap about this paper. but still. and his comments were most unconstructive.

alright i guess i'm starting to sound/feel a little hateful so i had better go to bed. gnite. oh and i don't know what to do about my summer now, i guess it was pretty nicely planned out at first but now cos of the thailand thing.. dunno. augh.

as usual, this is not my ideal sleeping time. maybe i'm just not cut out for this man.. i feel like just saying that's my nature, i should just give up. but i can't. or should i? today's meeting was like mid-quarter evaluation. and i'm one of the weaker pledges. well given that 1/2 the pledge class is under that category i guess that's not that such a huge deal but it still is. and my problems are that 1. i don't talk enough (surprise surprise) 2. i don't initiate enough times/am not loud enough about them.

and then given that everyone just got evaluated, everyone's going to be rushing to do stuff and watever. how is that going to work? ahh.. i dunno. about individual and about the group. very confusing and very conflicting sometimes. reminds me of last quarter's ihum prof.. his favourite phrase : dialectical tension between X and Y. how true.

interestingly enough last night i was sort of like (for a little moment) observing myself from outside of myself. seeing bubbly people around chatting can induce me to put on that "skin" and imitate them. sort of. at least i think that's what i was doing during part of formal anyhow. but normally i'm lazy to do that. or am not inspired. wat kind of lousy excuse is that right..

i find that's something i've struggled with all my life though. my mom kept telling me that i must speak up & blah blah blah in primary sch so much so that i dreaded those progress reports cos they'd inevitably contain "quiet" and "passive", which ironically, still did come up just now. looks like some things never change. and then when i took mbti tests i'd be putting all the "correct" answers to convince myself i was extroverted. i suppose i did feel excited about meeting people in like sec 1 and all, but things changed.

don't know if i'm supposed to be trying to change myself (after all, that is what my parents are paying good money for) or if i should be figuring out that i'm not cut out for this and therefore should stop wasting my time.

anyway.. i guess i'll have to figure out wat to do quick cos midcourts is on saturday. apparently it's pretty hellish. and people get cut after that. so wish me luck.

i'm so tired of waking up and feeling like i have so much stuff to do. i.e. i wake up with a sinking feeling. actually i guess it was most acute today. and it usually wears off. but still. i also think this actually happens at some point every year (or quarter? or every term while still in spore). maybe it's just because of pledge stuff though, it's never ending. like dennis (my dormmate, also pledging) said, you think you've reached a milestone and you can relax, but no. something else comes up. i think this is why pure-school is simpler, you just learn ur stuff and do ur homework (and you normally still have time to slack).

right, i probably should be catching up on my lost sleep. but my mom just talked to me and told me about "ground-breaking news" at church. hehe. anyhow, now that I'm here, it all seems so silly and pointless. they're arguing about holy spirit doctrine and whether to persecute the guy who taught something contrary to the church's beliefs. i'm like, you allowed him to teach in the first place, wat is the problem? and anyway i think our church has more of a problem with other stuff rather than doctrines of the holy spirit. seriously. unless it was just me not totally assimilating into church.

honestly, church back home is quite devoid of emotion. which i now believe makes a difference, to say the least. our worship is forever so solemn and wat not. i'm still not very comfortable with the idea of worship as being similar to a pop concert but worship doesn't have to be all hymns. i guess that's also a rather superficial complaint, since we're supposed to worship in spirit and in truth no matter the song. anyhow. yeah. i think i agree with my dad now, that they're getting bothered over tiny things when there're problems with the bigger things (i.e. seeking God).

although I think while I stayed in Singapore I would never have gone to other churches, I was too indoctrinated by my church that I was convinced that going to other churches was wrong. oh and apparently one of the sisters back home came to SF for holiday and went to the Airport Church of Christ (which is doctrinally closer to church back home, as compared to Campbell COC which is the one that me n sean go to [when sean's around]). and then the preacher told her to persuade me to go back to the airport one.. hah.

oh and my mom was complaining, it was mother's day and they held this meeting about the holy spirit thing right, and only men were allowed in the meeting (they stick very closely to the "women should not speak in church"-thing). honestly, that's just so silly. i guess i didn't feel so strongly about it when i was still at home. but after i've seen how equality plays out here, it's kind of different.

anyhow. on a separate note. i think daryl's right. one always needs time to reflect. i think i also partially understand why tapiwa wanted us to keep a journal of the pledge process. cos before starting he told me i'd find out a lot about myself. another guy depledged before formal. man, i really hope people don't get cut. and it's so annoying they keep saying you know who you are (in trouble) and we all start getting paranoid.

i guess i need to sleep now, will blog more tmr maybe

my roommate just told me that someone in sleep and dreams (famous class taught by dr william dement) last quarter told her that after three days of sleep deprivation, you're legally drunk. well then, i must be falling into that category cos i slept from 12 - 5am today, from 6 - 9:30am yesterday, and 5 - 9:30am the day before. although i still feel quite sane. i think. definitely need sanity for psych midterm later, can't afford another crappy grade.

so, i slept at 5am on tues night (more like wed morning) doing the fundraising card design. photoshop can be so annoying. actually, anything can.

6am on wed night doing video for formal tonight. honestly, you don't know how long it takes to edit videos until you actually do it. i was wondering why my pledge bro was taking so long with it, then when i actually got to doing it, i'm like. OH.

last night, i decided at midnight that i was too zoned out to be reading anything and went to bed. only to receive a call from one of my pledge bros at 2:12am asking me who was doing the editing, saying that the other pple who were supposed to do editing were doing psets/drunk(?!)/asleep. i was like.. u can't be serious. and half an hour later the supposedly-drunk guy was asking me if I knew how to contact the asleep-guy cos apparently he had the laptop and he wasn't answering his phone. right.. so wat do you expect me to do.. i wonder how sane any of us were, actually. guess i'll find out later.

also i spent 2 hours trying to transfer 6.25GB of iMovie from my mac to a laptop. I need to take some comp classes man.. augh. until my RCC came and saved me. cos I thought the laptop couldn't do filesharing or something. ah well. at least now I know. yay for steve, he's saved me so many times I don't know what to say~

aughh. i really shouldn't have scheduled THREE psych expts for today.. i must've been mad. the 2 hour one was so tiring.. i actually got quite a shock when i walked in and saw her fiddling around with so many wires/electrodes/sensors. and it took an awfully long time to set up everyth and then actually do the expt, which consisted of me watching silly video clips and regulating my amusement level, which in itself is also taxing. i mean, if you're watching things which aren't funny but you've to somehow find them funny.. man. and i thought i would be getting some amusement out of it.. i need to go watch "kids say the darndest things". ah. maybe i should d/l an episode to improve my mood. but after that i'll realize i'd have wasted time on that. aughhh. ooh i just found a website with silly quotes. yay:)

i really don't know what i spent my last week doing, given that i didn't have anything else much. the load of psych and ihum reading i have right now is amazing. i think i need like ten replicas of myself to be able to finish everything... and the worst of it is that when i'm stressed (and in my room), i eat. and then if i eat, i get fat. and then if i get fat, i get angry w myself. and so the cycle goes.. i should do something else instead of eat actually. like go play tennis and whack balls against the wall.. hm.

oh sean n joel were so sweet. bought me the koala version of hello panda (which actually, at first, i was convinced wasn't as gd, but now am persuaded otherwise.) sigh wat will we do without them next year.. as it is they're hardly around at the same time anymore heh.. senioritis-ed seniors.. -shakes head-

on a saturday night, when i know i should be doing work but don't feel like it, this is what i end up doing. haha. am so confused. maybe not confused. more like my head is so full of things i wish i could be like dumbledore and use a pensieve. it would definitely make things easier, that's wat magic is for. haha.

still wondering if i fit into this pledge thing. everyone else seems to be so creative and etc and i'm just like ooh that sounds great, however did you come up with that. maybe i'm meant to learn though. hopefully. i also feel like i'm not doing enough, which means i'm going to be getting into trouble during midcourts. hmm. better go do some video-editing or something i guess. if i can get the films to begin with.

nowadays i'm so lazy to write a proper diary. get annoyed with my slow writing. isn't that sad.. ooh adium has nice backgrounds! i like adium:) hehe

heh. i was doing this career assessment tool kit just now as part of the pledge process. and there were these questions like "what would you go out and do if you knew you would not fail?" and i was writing things like "join cirque du soleil". haha. i really hope my hpac (i.e. the master of rituals, i/c of our pledge process) isn't going to look at my folder, i was writing the most fantastic things. oh.. and another page with "if you had 5 lives, what would you do with your time?" i'm still wondering why one would need 5 lives, but i only filled up two. one of which was "work (play) with dolphins" and another was "create movies of silly animals" (the animation sort). okay i guess those were the only two crazy pages, but well.

anyway, so one of the actives was telling us it's a little hard to be conservative and be in the frat cos they have this image they want to maintain, sort of. the cool yet competent image. and they aren't sure if they can see us in that position. cos a lot of us are conservative (or so says our pledge class president). i guess i should really get to know the rest better. anyway so formal's coming up and apparentlly we will have to dance. not something i particularly look forward to, given that i hate going to parties in the first place, as jackie can no doubt tell you. somehow i do see a difference btwn social dance n party dancing. and then apparently the formal ticket is like $40 - when i saw the email my eyes nearly bugged out of my head, i can assure you. so our MOR was ilke yeah, that gives you incentive to raise more funds. frankly, i don't even know what they're raising funds for, why would people want to pay for our pledge process? maybe that's what business is though. ponders. but i suppose if you provide people with valuable services they would pay for it. hmm.

so obviously now we're even more in need of funds, and this junior transfer suggested going to a casino and gambling to get the $$. i'm like !! i mean people did suggest going to do psych/GSB experiments to get more funds, which is definitely more legitimate. i guess they see it as a good and fun way of getting $$. cos a few of them are avid gamblers, sort of. man.. i really don't know. if i want to back out i should probably do so before paying pledge fees haha. but like i told ser, i thought i was over that when i resolved to start this. anyhow i'm glad i got to talk to ser. hehe you know somehow when we first met in sec 1 i never envisioned such a future. very interesting.

sigh.. where are people when i need to talk to them. feeling a little blue now. "just a shade of azure blue", so i remember reading from some book or other. but blue nonetheless. of course i definitely have stuff to do but i still don't feel like doing it. actually i spent last night slacking so i really should be doing my work now.. but well.

oh!! i got lilke 2 marks above the mean for my first psych midterm.. bah. got to buck up there. i don't even know how i managed to get so many questions wrong! man. evidently their mcqs were quite tricky. and i'd only barely started pledging then so i can't blame that:p hope econ was better.. augh. not that econ was terribly difficult either, just that i silly-ly didn't write something down which i ought to have known to do so.

and it was SO awkward talking to my IHUM TF just now. i guess partly cos i also hadn't really thought of what to write about. but really, TFs are supposed to be nice and encouraging and stimulate thought and he was just like, i don't see what's the relation there and i'm like i don't know either?! it was just a thought? bleah. and then i was thinking about writing about one of last quarter's texts (cos they repeated it this quarter) and he's like "don't you want to move on? try something new?" (or something to that effect) i like that text, wat's ur problem? ok i shouldn't be so mean. but he is kind of awkward/weird sometimes somehow

now they're talking about grievances against us. i wonder what midcourts is going to be like. hope i stay strong. this sounds so ridiculous, like it's such a huge ordeal when it obviously isn't like a huge life crisis or anything. but still. and then we had dinner/S@S meeting, in which i didn't even realize i was supposed to have a vision and goals and stuff. wow. and everyone was late. i guess it was dinner after all so it's not such a big deal, and i've been late the past two times so i also shouldn't be complaining. anyhow, i wonder, how to plan something such that people come?

so many things which would be good for me (i think) i always feel averse to doing. such as homework. haha. i just need to talk to my girlfriends now but none of them are around:( non-stanford, non-akpsi people. maybe i miss them cos i haven't had much time to talk to them lately. hm. and pam's never online. grumbles. alright i should stop moping around and do some work. haha wat a depressing post.

ohh sailing yesterday was quite hilarious.. i wanted to go back to the dock halfway cos the boat kept tipping all over the place and i was like oh noo! we're gonna capsize! nooooo! i didn't bring a towel today! haha. it was really quite freaky. when turning, and the sails are no longer countering the wind pressure and our weight is too little... quite a bit of water got into the boat. haha. so much so that i was like nooo i want to go back onto land. haha. our instructor's really nice/amusing though.

this pledging thing is driving me nuts. not only do i have to spend time doing silly things (well in my opinion anyway) by silly deadlines, i also have to constantly send emails apologizing for things i've done/not done. as usual, anotther ranting post. i also need to figure out how to do a self intro concisely and effectively/socialize. sometimes it's so awkward meeting actives, i don't know what to talk about. maybe it's just me though. remember, says mr psych lecturer, correlation does not necessarily mean causation! and we're not supposed to tell other people about wat's happening, which i guess makes sense to preserve the secrecy and wat not. but of course that makes it all the harder. unless i go whine to my fellow pledges, who're probably as stressed (or even more so) than i am. it's interesting how two of us are like contacting the same people, doing the same stuff. i wonder.

and all this should probably go into my journal. and i really must study for econ.

i think i must be in a really bad mood. so so annoyed. my roommate really annoys me sometimes, and the thing is that it doesn't happen only with her.. but it's so easy to just push everyth onto her i guess. ahhh. driving me nuts. maybe it was the psych expts too. i really should've done more work during the weekend.. now i'm dying again.

so, occasionally, i get annoyed the way my roommate's forever on the phone. that's number one. and she talks inside most of the time. and she calls her family SO often. like. grow up and get a life. okay i'm really being mean but at this point in time i need to get my frustration out. and whining at her mom that "my chem advisor is asleep! i'm so mad" (or something to that effect). her chem advisor being a sophomore who's majoring in chem engine who lives down the hall. i guess she doesn't really mean these things but honestly.. i'm probably being the self-centred one right now though sigh. when i think about it.

i realized i have like 40pgs of ihum to read by tmr, my psych outline expt thingy to do by tmr, a lot of pledge stuff to do also by tmr, econ midterm coming up, definitely don't feel very prepared. and to top it off, yf and sufen and shineik invited me over to a grp chat and ladida! sas committee has to plan something! and the actives were telling us, we've hardly started the pledge projects.. i'm like.. okay.. yay..

alright i feel a bit better. need to manage my time better.. okay i'm repeating myself. but i guess that time schedule thing is good. i can't remember wat i've been doing w my time:(

wow my last post was like a week ago. goes to show. when i'm busy i have no time to blog. or maybe i was just lazy, come to think of it. was trying to clear out my mailbox cos i'm convinced thunderbird (and webmail) slows down when i have more mail. anyhow. brief summary of how frats work:
1. they have rush events, where you go and find out about the frat and see if you like it/the pple/...
2. if you attend enough events/the pple u've met like u (i dunno wat other criteria there are), you get invited to a rush interview.
3. if you're successful in the rush interview, you get a bid to pledge. you can choose to accept the bid/not
4. if you accept, pledging begins.

you're not in the frat yet, as all the active members (aka actives) emphasized, but you're going to learn about yourself/your pledge brothers/the frat in the process. and they can cut you/you can depledge during that pledging process. so, i'm pledging. apparently the crazy work hasn't started, i guess it died down for a bit since we just went for pledge retreat. i'm still walking around in mortal fear that i see actives i don't recognize and don't greet and i'll get into trouble. anyhow, am not supposed to talk about pledge process.

why i am taking psych 1 is such a mystery to me. the lectures are actually interesting, something that is lacking in most of the other classes i've done. but the reading is oh so painful. i mean, like, 35pgs of reading (txtbk!!) for each lecture is more than i can take.. seriously. augh.

and i stilll need to bother about driving. i think i need to set out better schedules for myself or i'll never get stuff done.. guess my hpac (who happens to be the frat's master of rituals i.e. person in charge of being strict with pledges) 's request for the weekly schedule thing is good.

oh but i met two actives today, it was pretty cool to find out about them/other people doing crazy things.. they're definitely people i wouldn't have met had it not been for this whole pledging thing.

humm. so here i am, wondering how i'm going to finish doing my work by tuesday.. i guess i'll just work like crazy tomorrow.. hope tonight's pledge event doesn't take too long. i envision myself freezing already actually. haha. anyway, pple probably thinks i'm nuts but i rushed for akpsi (business co-ed frat) and the first pledge event is tonight. i wonder if i just constructed a very idealistic image of it (as i am wont to do). as i realised after dayoung was like are you sure? it's gonna take a lot of time! so now, i'm conflicted (as usual). seems to be the human condition. of course i might be just sounding grandiose for the sake of it.

anyway, interesting story of the day: on the way back from church (which started late for once! haha. cos we had a combined easter service.) i was talking to sean about things like miracles/speaking in tongues/... and then suddenly the car started making weird noises and the check engine light came on. pulled over, sean got out to check. dunno wat's wrong, called AAA. then called wenzheng to bring me back to campus first. sat around while the rain came down.

wenzheng had a flying class at 1! and flying a cessna 172. apparently cessna is a famous brand of aircraft like boeing and stuff, so my mom says. anyway i decided to tag along (and do my work tmr, hopefully that works;p) and it was sooo cool. somewhat like a rollercoaster, although apparently that was because of the not-so-good weather today. so while we were going thru those bumps i was wondering how he could think of having lunch before flying, but since that doesn't happen very often.. i guess i was just "lucky". haha. anyway yeah.. could see stanford from the plane! hoover tower is the most distinctive structure since it's the tallest. haha. and the bay looks rather dirty from that height but wenzheng claims that if you go higher it looks bluer -- this coming from a B.S. in physics, find it hard to believe:p

his instructor was cool too.. french guy. i think i may be improving at identifying french-english accents! hahaha. anyhow. it was so funny though, at the end of the class i was thanking him for having me along and he was like no problem! as long as wz's okay with it.. cos u noe, some pple have big egos, they don't like other pple to see their learning progress.. and then started listing: oh, u must get enough sleep, food, be emotionally at peace (sth to that effect anyway) and etc in order to fly the plane properly.. i was laughing cos i thought he didn't get enough sleep (he says he did, 4 to 12 - i guess that's pretty good) and he definitely didn't have lunch.

anyway yay, i'll get to go for another flight when the weather's good! whee~

ah. and tonight's pledge event. now i understand why baoyi said the things she did. definitely interesting though, it's, as chuansheng said, like army. regimented. to cultivate discipline for the (in this case) business world. i have to call my hpac "mr mabaye". can you imagine.. i'm just glad i don't live on the same floor as him like my poor dormmate who's pledging too

blah. now i'm feeling so conflicted. everything. i guess i need to pray about it.

anyway, just finished like a 1hr conversation with my mom. poor ears are hurting from the headphones. and i need to sleep. i think my full-day-for-tues-wed-thurs schedule may not be such a great idea.. am out of my room for like 12 hours. i guess that's good and bad, i eat less snacks. haha.

but yeah, i had a mini-discussion with my mom about the things that were bothering me, which was good. and about church, which i don't think i would have had (such a conversation) had i stayed in spore. i know for a fact that i wouldn't be visiting new churches; i had this super fixed mindset that it is an awful thing to go to other non-biblical churches. so i've definitely learnt a lot spiritually. praise God for that!

and then i was considering dropping my genome introsem cos the first class w the prof yesterday (he was off at a conference last week) was oh SO boring. man. it also doesn't help that i'd have had 1h50 worth of econ 51 (which always makes me feel stupid/zombified) before that. so i was thinking of doing human behavioral bio (biosci150) cos 1. it fulfills the same GER 2. if i can't take too many outside-my-major courses it would make more sense to do biosci150 cos he's reputedly such a great lecturer. BUT i wouldn't be able to go for his wed class cos of sailing (which was pretty cool today, the teacher's hilarious, just that i feel like all the other pple there are grad students)

i am so tired now. and i just realized it's almost 2. this is awful. okay i think i'm just exacerbating the situation. shall sleep.

it's been a slack week.. i'm glad i settled my classes faster than last quarter. i guess i learn from these things, which is good. anyway i was so tempted to go snowboarding today (subsidized rental!) and i don't think i'll get to go any other time. but then i decided i couldn't square with myself if i went snowboarding instead of going to church. so i went w ruixiong n daryl n jon to church.. it was good though, and it was such a coincidence that i went when pastor paul came back from his sabbatical.. that was cool. his message is really powerful. i mean, i was quite sleepy (yup, my fault, should've gone to bed earlier), but his humour and everything woke me up. made me wonder if I should stay in campbell (haha sean is going to have something to say about this i bet). while i like their music, i'm not very comfortable with that as a worship style.

i also decided that God had a message for me in today's sermon and glen's prayer on wed. that there're things that I can't do on my own. even though while writing my spring break journal i recognised that i didn't like relying on people too much and everything.. i guess it took their telling me as well, to realise that i need help. it's so easy to forget God when one's busy. humans have this ability to not think about unpleasant things/forget them pretty fast. at first i thought it might be just me but on second thoughts, i think everyone does it. anyway, hopefully i get to talk to glen and sort out some stuff. i need to thank ser though, without her i wouldn't have realised many things.

anyway, my mom just called and wow, apparently my dad wanted me to graduate in 3 years with a masters and a bachelors! that is not even possible.. some problems never go away. my mom thinks 4 years is better cos that gives me one more year to play (instead of starting work).. am thankful for that. but then she said my dad wants me to finish (cos i'm spending his $$). and where do i want to work? should i go and apply for a psc scholarship? ladida.. more examples of things i prefer not to think about.

maybe that's why i like music/dance/artforms so much. you listen/move/look at it, you enjoy it for what it is, you're happy. pure and simple. but, like algernon in oscar wilde's importance of being earnest said, truth is rarely pure and never simple. disregarding my attempts being literary, it's so nice to lose myself in my favourite songs and forget about everything. at least, i still felt the same joy when listening to the drumbeat in "be prepared" by lion king.

this has been a really weird post but after taking all the time to type it i'm just going to publish it anyway.

quote of the day.. was feeling bored and asked daryl to entertain me.. then i decided to ask him about what happens during psych 1 section (he took it in fall quarter)

Daryl:

Psych Section?

Well, you get to play around with a brain.

And Spinal Cord.

Section zhuo bo.

then he decided to give more details after i informed him that "playing around with a brain, spinal cord and zhuo bo-ing" sounded hilarious:

Well, one of the sections you get to attach the brain back onto the spinal cord using just a couple of synapses. Then they bring you out to the Main Quad, and form a line with your section mates, you hold the spinal cord on one end with the brain attached on the other end, and start swinging,then the TA will give the signal, and you release, and see how far you can fling the brain across the Quad

hope everyone laughs as much as I did.. really classic

man i haven't even really started econ51 and already i'm sort of regretting taking it. the prof is really crazy (and in my opinion, spoonfeeding us). to ensure that we do our readings, he assigns us questions to complete before class. to make sure we go for class (and listen, and review) we have mini-essays due after class. beginning to wonder if i made the correct decision after all! and dayoung won't be taking it with me somemore:|

i think i need to sleep. shall finish this another time haha. really need to finish my spring break journal too hm

ah. i'm holding off thinking about classes cos as usual, it's driving me nuts. actually it's not so bad this quarter cos i know last quarter i spent the entire week getting a headache (and no sleep) so this quarter i've learnt from that. haha. but still, have to make a choice. hope God helps me to make the correct decision.

i just watched the MIT (and other colleges) ABSK Christian Fellowship (aka Songfest, I believe) for last year! i.e. my brother was in it. haha. seng passed the dvd to chuansheng to bring back for me:) anyhow it was so entertaining.. but then I ended up missing my bro n all of them. sigh. always mixed feelings. and the Christian messages were good.. I also finally got down to reading some pamphlet about "does human suffering disprove the existence of a benevolent God?" which I koped from airport coc but hadn't made time to read. it kind of complements the sunday class series by nick last quarter at campbell coc. realized I should really have more discipline.

and chuansheng brought over the snacks tt ser passed to him yay! haha. and somehow i think i ended up talking to him for like 2hours. really interesting. it was mostly about my class-choosing woes. and how my mom was just talking to me and asking me why i didn't plan properly, why i didn't talk to seniors about double majors and coterms, ... cos i told her it was nigh impossible to graduate in 3 years with a double degree. and was trying to pacify her saying that i'll talk to sean after he comes back. but then cs alerted me to the fact that math n philo have fewer units than econ n psych. sigh.

sometimes it isn't easier not being on a scholarship. i don't know. there're just things which make me very depressed when i think about them. when i know it is my fault that they're this way, really, but it's easier to let them be and not think about them. goes for everything mildly disturbing really: (not in order of importance) work-wise, personality-wise, religion-wise, ... for me anyway.

alright it's 1:42am, i don't know why i've been depriving myself of sleep unnecessarily. at least i'm seeing my advisor tmr, can figure out some stuff.. although i can already see him agape with horror at the thought of two bachelors in three years (which is scarcely possible, really). oh yeah and my mom was like, of cos it's different for americans, they're not paying for sch.. which is true too i guess. cos i was telling her tt sporeans are known for being crazy and doing max 20 units all the time. and she's like, u noe how much each class costs! ... which reminds me of why i'm here in the first place, i was supposed to change, but i don't really think that's happening.

anyhow. yeah. so i need to go fix an appointment at CDC, and i also think i need to go find a counselor for my welfare. rofl. since they're paid (or maybe volunteer?) to listen to people's problems. haha. actually i think i wanted to do that fall quarter but i conveniently pushed it aside. we shall see.

i felt that i had to blog about my afternoon/evening. i went to tea with my RA (resident assistant, she's the 2nd floor one i.e. in charge of the 2nd floor pple, sort of) and her sis and her mom. so this happens cos i'm super bored (and there's no food on campus today, pretty much) and yesterday i asked her if she was doing anything fun today (she lives in palo alto) after calling up wenqi n emily n finding that they were both busy. and when she first told me going to tea i thought it was just, you know, an afternoon meal or something of that sort.

and then she gives me this website today, www.lisastea.com, and it's like a fairytale straight out of a storybook! okay possibly not fairytale but storybook, at least. i looked at the website and my jaw dropped. really sounds like something out of enid blyton. a step further, even. anyhow, i wanted to take pics but it didn't seem very right somehow so here're pics from the website.

the first pic i saw when i went to the website


i solemnly promise that this is exactly what the place looks like when you enter


another angle of the entrance (i.e. from inside); the place where i sat was behind the wall with the black shelves on the right


exactly where i sat! the decor on the walls was kind of different, but still.


it was rather enchanting, esp when this woman and a little girl (i'm not sure if she was her daughter/ward/wat) came in and sat behind us.. you know its like when u're a little girl and u play at having tea parties and stuff.. this little girl was having her dream realized on the spot. i had this queer feeling when i saw the girl (who was dressed in the same patterned material as her doll) envious maybe? i dunno. more like wow, she's living her dream. whereas, for me it's like more than a decade after imagining this stuff then i get to see the real thing. not that i imagined tea parties that often, and not exactly in this style, but i certainly read about some of them.

so anyway, i don't know if it was my lack of social skills, but it was rather awkward meeting my RA's mom n sis. right maybe i'll continue this tmr cos i feel like i'm somehow preventing my roommate from falling asleep or sth, she keeps making so much noise. (and yes! she got back at 3pm today yay not so lonely anymore, but weirdly enough when she's around i end up doing my own stuff.) to be continued

alright. daylight saving hours are on. back to my lack of social skills. so when i got there, i shook hands with her sister (she didn't seem very predisposed to do so but since she's younger than me i introduced myself anyway) and then her mom just said "i'm tammie" and didn't seem particularly welcoming or anything. but there, why'm i complaining, she gave me a treat! that was really nice of her heh especially when considering how expensive (in my opinion anyway) the tea was. it was just the first impression which was so odd. i suppose it was some sort of a first-meeting-awkwardness.

so, the only other time i had tea poured into my cup with a strainer and everything was when i had my princeton interview at shangri-la hotel back in spore. luckily it wasn't so foreign yesterday haha. and the teapot had a tea cosy! so quaint. yeah, quaint is the word (that actually came to me last night just before i fell asleep). and then our food (tea sandwiches and things of that sort) came, in this many-storeyed-wooden thingy. don't even know what it's called, i'm sure it has a name though.

i ordered a "duchess' delight" which is apparently afternoon tea in england. it was very yummy! actually it's just normal egg salad & cucumber sandwiches. and a spinach quiche (it was originally broccoli cheese and potato pot pie, which sounds better, but i guess they ran out or sth) and a devonshire scone. i know i always wondered what a scone was after reading storybooks when i was a kid, and i always imagined something that looked like a bigger version of a fortune cookie. dunno. just the sound of the word i guess.

oh. and dessert! yay. had a brown sugar berry pie. i love desserts! but oh so fat. anyhow. oh!! there were these purple-sugar-coated violet petals in a little basket. SO cute. but my RA's sister said it made her tea taste weird the last time she tried. so when you put these sugar-covered petals in the tea, the sugar dissolves off (with vigorous stirring) and you're left with a violet petal! super cool. haha.

now to finish my spring break journal. sigh. i used to be more assiduous in bringing a book while on holiday and writing every night but now i think typing is faster and less tiring. haha. oh well.

i forgot to add some of daryl's quotes:

yesterday, when i told him i was watching triple x to cheer myself up:

Daryl Yap says:? (9:28:42 PM)
What movie?

clar:] says:? (9:35:35 PM)
wat! oh. xXx

Daryl Yap says:? (9:48:00 PM)
Sounds kinky.

Daryl Yap says:? (9:48:08 PM)
You're underaged.


Today:

clar:] says:? (10:35:29 AM)
wah how come u got so much time to come online one ah

Daryl Yap says:? (10:44:24 AM)
Cuz I'm on holiday.

Daryl Yap says:? (10:44:29 AM)
Isn't it?

clar:] says:? (10:45:52 AM)
haha.. u not on holiday also online anyways..

Daryl Yap says:? (10:47:36 AM)
Online is way of life. You don't stop eating when you're on holiday. Similarly, you don't stop chatting just cuz you're on holiday either.

Daryl Yap says:? (10:48:14 AM)
The logic is irrational. But the analogy is perfect.


and then every time he talks to me it happens to be meal time so i'm like i hafta go find food! so he scolded me for eating so much. haha.

a couple more quotes, (not from daryl)

driving back from SF on wed night, serene says "the speed limit is 55" and laughs. cos guoming's going at 70. so he says "plus minus 10miles/h. and then got human error somemore" (not exact words cos i forgot, but well)

and later he's telling us about his memorable 110miles/h drive. on 280 when there weren't any cars.
guoming "that was my top speed not average speed.. i don't go around bends at 110!"
jianlong "yeah, at 120 right"

will post these first

watched triple x last night.. pretty cool!! haha. and the funniest thing was that there was this secret agent in the show who was in charge of making gagdets and was complaining he served six years in the force yet didn't get promoted to doing the big stuff. and the guy was like " i have a degree.. i have a degree from mit!" rofl. we really should've watched that instead of sin city yesterday.. i think it had more of a plot. or at any rate, less complicated one. although not exactly very original. and vin diesel snowboarding down crazily steep mountains after causing a huge avalanche.. man.. that was awesome. i wanna go snowboarding but nobody to drive!:( boohoo. maybe i'll call pearline later. but then nobody much else is around leh.

anyhow. got up around 10, lazed around. started uploading photos/labelling them. labelled ones are on shutterfly/facebook. shutterfly: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZtXDdk0buHKQ¬ag=1
non-labelled photos and videos are on www.stanford.edu/~clar
there's one hilarious one of ser playing with my bday bear whom she christened "puffy" (not even very apt, i feel)

returned dvds from yesterday, got another one. i think the book was better. oh it was pride n prejudice. even though keira knightley is pretty. the guy playing darcy didn't look that great. haha. i waant to watch korean movies! but they don't have here:( and downloading takes forever.

yeah. had an acute attack of loneliness in the evening. it is weird hanging around with 6 people for 5 days and then suddenly ending up alone. yeah there're some people around in the dorm but they, like me, hole themselves up in their rooms/play comp games/sth. so when these 6 pple suddenly disappear from ur life after having been there for practically all the time for the past 5 days it's kinda strange. and especially so because nobody much else is around. i kind of actually wished sch had already started again so i wouldn't feel like that.

but anyway i met dolly for dinner, which was cool. although it was SO COLD. grr. rained again. very miserable. the weather is probably compounding this whole sad business. cos if it weren't so cold/rainy i'd bike over to frosoco to visit tu. whom i haven't talked to in ages!

arrh. got waitlisted #5 for introsem, probably have to find another class. oh and praise god, got an A- for ihum even with that terribly lousy last paper. i really should have worked harder and gotten an A but well. some things just have to be accepted and i hafta learn from them. breaks are so much pleasanter, don't have to think about the academic/job-related future (unless you're serene and worrying about amgen internships constantly), just enjoy the present. although that definitely isn't the smartest thing to do since the bible says we must always be prepared. sigh.

um. yeah. will probably go write my spring break journal which probably is going to take a really long time. nowadays i'm too lazy to write in a book anymore, tsk. and then figure out my classes/summer/...

sigh this is so awfully depressing. just back from sending ser n co off at the airport and i'm so lonely/already missing them. i could go over to frosoco but it's raining. boohoo. i guess i'll watch the other dvd we loaned out from green heh. luckily i borrowed dvds the saturday they came if not i'll be so clueless haha.

ended up reading pple's blogs. better go and find something useful to do. like watching movies. haha. and their plane should have taken off. i wish it wouldn't keep raining sigh. it's supposed to be spring! ooh on a random note i just remembered my dormmate saying that on 80% of the flights he's taken, he's been drunk. cos it's the only way to fall asleep. quite random. but anyway. time to watch movie haha.

just got back from yosemite. okay not just, but well. anyway i'm glad i stayed after all, though it was rather depressing on saturday when no one else was around and i ended up doing laundry/cleaning my room/watching dvds. and i wasn't feeling too well, but i drank lots n lots n lots of water and on the way back from borrowing dvds decided to get jamba juice, thankfully the next day i was feeling better.

oh so yeah, i'm glad i stayed cos i got to meet different people. instead of hanging out with people i already know (ie stanford sporeans or sth). although i could've gone w dayoung to miami or to UK to visit pple or sth, it was (is) good to talk to ser again since i didn't get to talk to her properly in dec/online/... and it's really interesting to see their group dynamics (jianlong, kah keng, kah seng n ser). ooh. alphabetical order. anyway. uh. yeah. and it's also been a really long time since i've heard conversations sprinkled with so many sexual innuendos. i'm tempted to believe this is ser's fault, but that might be a hasty conclusion. i must admit it was rather shocking at first cos it's been so long since i've heard things like that.. now i remember how she always traumatised poor dasheng about his legs.. it really has been quite some time. more than a year. hm.

anyhow. yosemite was cool, although somehow i think what i heard from people about how beautiful it is made me imagine something out of the world. i mean the mountains + waterfalls were breathtaking but it wasn't like it was that unbelievably pretty or anything. ohhhh but the stars at night were absolutely fabulous! i've never seen SO many stars.. now that was unbelievable. like ser said, it seemed a little too artificial to be true. like something you see in the omnimax theatre. haha. am still wondering how real it was. but that was really awesome.

and i also didn't realise how much walking it entailed (or hiking/trekking as they call it), luckily i went walking around the dish on friday haha. although the dish was definitely less tiring, maybe cos i was in shorts/it wasn't so steep or rocky/we were really taking our time (or i was taking my time and therefore wang ning didn't get much of a workout). but at least i've gone on these let's-go-look-for-waterfall thingies with my family before so it wasn't so shocking as it might have been.

ooh. couple of quotes from the trip. i realised if i don't write them down, i really won't remember. so. scribbled a couple down:

ser: what song is this?
seng/jianlong/keng: yeah
ser: what?
they repeat. she still doesn't get it
conclusion: ser has no ears
later on ser wants dried mangoes, but they don't want to pass her the bag. but seng has two pieces and asks her to take one.
ser whines (she didn't realise/see tt seng had 2 pieces) until seng points it out
me, amused: wah.. no ears AND no eyes..
seng: only got mouth
jianlong (driving) agrees
ser wails (as usual)

k i'm too lazy to type the rest now so some photos. most of them are on the twins' camera though, i couldn't be bothered to take so many plus my memory card is tiny heh

leah, ser, me


guoming, jianlong, seng, keng (angle's a bit weird i realised, hm.. too bad)

blah. this has to be the most awful set of finals i've ever had. okay given that this is just the second set, i guess i can't say that. esp when math was so disastrous last quarter. ahh. i felt so awful i decided i would go eat more ice cream to make myself happier. haha. but it was sorbet so hopefully not so fattening eh.

so econ. there were things i knew i ought to have known but didn't know/wasn't sure of. and i don't really want to know what i got wrong at the moment. and then my ihum paper. so so disastrous. i could make excuses and say that i didn't like the prompts. but that would be what it is, an excuse. and 3 pgs! i don't know. i felt like i ended up describing a lot. and didn't really link stuff very well. and it was like sort of an hour late. just awful awful awful. pwr was late, ihum also late. and i was just telling sean on sunday that i didn't really think about handing in stuff late. this is so bad. normally when i'm late it's like maybe 15mins plus.

and this was supposed to be my slack quarter so if i don't do well it'll be even worse:| crap. and i realized last night that if i change my msn nickname my mom can see it too and she'll start asking me. anyway. the only thing that makes me slightly happier is lion king's be prepared! it's such a nice song. actually i just like the drumbeats that come in at 2:52. i think i like drumbeats in general, esp the african-jungle-watever other description type. interesting. i think after rj chorale/acappella/listening to mingze talk about it i'm more aware of harmonies and bass notes/rhythms/watever.

okay my roomie just got back from math 51 final and she was on the phone w her dad going "it was HORRIBLE.. some of the questions were okay but the rest, there was so much nonsense u couldn't even make any sense of the nonsense.. i literally just made up an answer.. i was like, jesus, help me." and she went on to describe how she (in her desperation) just manipulated her equation (multiplied it by 3) to get the equation she was supposed to have. rofl. i couldn't help laughing cos she sounded so hilarious. but i definitely feel her pain, last quarter's memories are more than enough. makes me feel a bit better about pwr anyhow, math was definitely worse than that.

sigh i'm so sad, i handed in my pwr paper 1.5 hrs late (part of that was, i maintain, cos he made us go for extra pwr class cos not everyone finished presenting last week and we didn't do the evaluations) and it wasn't very well done either. like i was writing and getting very desperate so the last few paragraphs were getting shorter and shorter. although i don't know what i should have done about it. i just took a really long time to get started on revising my paper cos i didn't know what to do about it. maybe that's just a convenient excuse though. i don't know what i spent my last week doing hm. i just hope he doesn't give me a b:(

and it also doesn't help that i'm rather zoned out cos of the 3-hr ihum final. i've never written so much nonsense in my life, although i think i seem to have said that before at some time or other hm. and i forgot a couple of things. i don't know if i should have just taken it on thursday like most other people are, but i probably wouldn't get to eat dinner cos econ's frm 3:30 to 6:30 and i'll probably need all the time, i think. i'm glad that's over though, hope it went alright.

i need to sleep. oh! but i shall post the picture of the event that sort of made my day yesterday haha. at five-ish i looked out of my window and was idly glancing around when lo and behold, i discerned a girl in one of the trees outside my dorm! hmm. haha. it was rather intriguing. i think i stood there in amazement for quite a while watching her and thinking to myself, what a rather curious occurrence. like alice and the white rabbit, you know? and then i decided it was picture worthy and got my camera from my drawer. unfortunately, by the time i took one photo and looked at it to see how it turned out, the girl was climbing down so i couldn't take another one. so here it is, the one and only photo of the most memorable event yesterday:

ooh. i really think i slacked off a lot this quarter. instead of doing my work i went for jammix! haha. and spent much more time there than i expected to. although that was partly cos i wasn't dancing the whole time. must maximize time hmm. anyway. irish polka kerry sets are fun fun fun! very energetic actually heh.. and to riverdance music! awesome.. and i met pearline there which was cool.. and wenzheng.. who has a 24hr final due tmr at 5 but he couldn't do the 1st 3 questions n decided he needed motivation. haha.

anyway happy feet! sooo cute.



too bad it only comes out in november. the trailer sounds quite funny.. i think its the spanish accented english. sounds like it's imitated. which is always amusing. man i feel so movie-deprived here. definitely as compared to back home, when any weekend/weekday afternoon or night or watever one can just hop on a bus and go down to orchard/wherever to catch a show.

oh and yesterday (i was about to say thursday, but realized today is (was) friday) when i came back from office hours, i saw my dormmates out in the grassy patch whacking pinatas! look! haha.



so garish. and i didn't expect them to be four-legged (supposedly) donkeys. cos normally the ones i've seen in books or something are turtles or something or other. and chuan sheng was doing finger painting today! haha. reminds me of kindergarten. i think so anyway. ahh. i wish i were a kid again. so fun.

much as my roommate really annoys me sometimes (with regard to sleep, or lack of it) i'm still really glad we are roommates. heh. she's definitely taught me a lot of things. black culture is so different. and they're so expressive. musically anyway. and just her in general. she's so funny she can get so distracted sometimes, and my dormmate was like "other pple gesture when they talk, tomi sings". haha. or something like that.

oh! which reminds me, we had our own IHUM section on thurs cos our TF is in puerto rico or sth.. funky stuff. anyway so one of my section mates was wondering if she should listen to our IHUM professor's lecture on itunes.. yeah they record it cos he talks so fast, so its for pple who either don't go for lecture [a large majority of pple, whom i doubt bother listening but i mite be wrong] or go for lecture but can't write down everyth he says fast enough. and we were like, no, we don't think so. and another section mate was saying, "can you imagine? friend "what're you listening to (on your ipod)?" you "professor berman's lectures!"" this was all said complete with the section mate pretending to groove to the "music" and pretending to look cool. rofl. and we were grumbling about this prof's penchant for creating words that nobody has ever heard of. it was so funny.

500th post! -celebration-

haha. just happened to notice my counter. anyway it's really interesting to read back entries of blogs (although thankfully i haven't been doing that lately, it'll mean that i'm really procrastinating). like darryl said. the process of growing up huh.

anyway. i decided to get my ihum file out and look for literary terms (there're gonna be 25 of them on the final! !!! i only came up with 5 on tuesday!) but i guess it includes things like german-specific terms or watever. anyway. so the first lecture, my lecture notes read as such "Russell Berman. blah blah blah. talking about picture. sigh. the amount of crap he just spouted is phenomenal" (he was waxing lyrical on this painting by Caspar David Friedrich; the picture is used as the symbol for our IHUM)

oh.. sunday was so funny. sean's pri sch classmate kenneth was here.. so he and jon phua came to church with us on sunday.. and while deciding where to go to for lunch sean decided that jon should decide where to go cos he doesn't eat off campus that often. but jon didn't really say anything so sean (ever the opportunist) jumped in and suggested korean house! man, you could see his face light up immediately. rofl. so funny.
oh and my favourite quote from sunday lunch:
me : when're you leaving? (for their self-declared 2 week spring break)
sean : saturday
kenneth : really? me too!
sean has a =look= on his face. words fail to describe it. (kenneth is leaving this sat, sean next sat). he claims that every sunday someone says something that inspires the look. (the someone usually being daryl; but i said daryl is a different case la haha) anyway it was hilarious

uh. okay. anyway. and tonight at chi alpha kenneth was saying i'm so slack! (what basis he has for that i also dunno, just cos i was early to help set up lights, hmph) and then when i decided it was time to go back he was like "good! go and study!"
well i suppose i am slack but grr. i think the sense of urgency this quarter is less cos it's two papers and two finals. hm. i was telling joel that i'm not feeling stressed, which is not necessarily a good thing cos it just means i am going to procrastinate (which i'm achieving quite well at present, i feel)

oh! my writing center appointment.. somehow they mixed up the appointment schedule cos i ended up talking to a tutor i'd talked to before (i try to try someone new just to see how effective/not pple are). but it was cool cos she's really nice and encouraging. i think one of my problems is that i tend to be guarded about strongly expressing my views. like i always try to temper it. maybe that's the libra thing. balance. but well balance can be achieved even if i feel strongly about something. and she really focuses on thesis statements, tying paragraphs back to it and etc.

today my pwr teacher supplied lunch for us. falafels, pitas, some sort of vegetable (not lettuce/spinach, i forgot wat it's called) and some other stuff. he told us "my friend jennifer is giving her class pizza and coke, be thankful that you've something healthy" (i think i actually prefer coke and pizza. it probably would have been less trouble for him too. but oh well.)

for french we were watching this classic movie.. it's so hilarious. and it's so french. or anyway i think it's only the french who're capable of such crazy things, which shows up in most of their movies. i mean i guess it's kind of slapstick, but either i'm biased or somehow it's just not as bad as how some american movies can get. it's called the adventures of rabbi jacob! the lead actor is really talented at making crazy faces/animal noises. good study break, sort of. my french teacher said it's like a family favourite, pple sit around and watch it on sunday afternoons. anyway this bigoted guy called pivert somehow embroils himself in this plot involving assassins and an arab rebel leader (called slimane, who's infatuated with redheads) and they get into all sorts of adventures, culminating in them impersonating two famous rabbis (and pivert hates jews somemore). augh the story is too long to tell and i better do my work. kenneth is nagging me using sean's msn somemore. -shakes head-

back from laserquest! haha that was quite fun:) although it was quite a workout, something I didn't expect. and the packs were rather heavy. wished we could have more games, i'm rather lousy at shooting pple/hiding as for now. i bet all those guys perfected their skills through playing computer games.

anyway i've been feeling so lackadaisical about doing work this weekend. i really haven't accomplished much. i think i spent most of my time sleeping. it was so weird cos i woke up at 5pm today (fell asleep at 3 or so) and i was like wait. i think i was supposed to do something in the course of the afternoon. but actually i didn't. oh well. so disoriented. i wonder why hm. interesting.

and so i feel out of sorts again. i think it's cos i feel like i have a lot of stuff to figure out and therefore i'm even less motivated to even start. i have to think about spring break, about spring courses (actually i think this should come before the break hm), what i'm gonna do during the summer and then my work due for this quarter. come to think of it i think my priorities are all mixed up (seeing from the order my list is in). man. why do we have to plan for anyth? i hate planning! let me rephrase that. day to day planning is fine, but long term isn't. that's going to get me into trouble one day though augh.

alright, am not in a terribly good mood evidently. but as for classes, when i see how other pple have to do homework during spring break (HAHA) i'm very thankful for quarter systems:) (and we get to take more classes)

man. i need good food. just now i was craving yesterday's oasis burgers. they were really good though.. aahh. maybe i'm experiencing snack withdrawal symptom haha. cos i have all my snacks but i'm determined not too eat so many (esp since i have an ulcer, grr)

yay! i decided i had to blog before my happy mood runs away. let's see.. for the first time this quarter, i slept at 3am. very bad idea. but anyway, i wanted to finish reading ihum (not that it did much good since i didn't say much during section hm)

anyway, had to force my poor sleepy self out of bed.. yay for dance! haha. cha cha is fun but mambo is more fun! although sometimes i have some misgivings about latin dances hm. ihum wasn't exactly very fun but i didn't fall asleep! and i didn't fall asleep during econ either! although that was like a repetition of econ 1 about monopoly, dunno why i was copying stuff down in the end. darn after doing econ pset not so happy liao.

we ended early so i got to go back for lunch! yippee. and ate a cream puff and brownie (oh dear. fat!) and then voice class.. i think i still sound a bit weird, maybe i need to practise. haha. notice there's no "more" cos i haven't been doing so, oops.

and ihum section.. was normal. my tf makes very crazy comments. we were talking about society in effi briest. and there was this thing about how going on a vacation requires a lot of procedures, esp if u're middle-class. and he was like "never go on a cruise! you'll be on a ship with 50 other people who're just like you! may as well jump off the ship". rofl. and he was remarking on how his prompts never get chosen for papers. haha he's quite cool la. just that our sections aren't exactly the most interesting things. okay maybe i'm just biased cos he gave me good marks for my ihum paper! the one due the day after snowboarding! oohh. really praise God:) although i have to admit that wasn't the first thing that came to mind, something i have to work on there. anyway, yeah, it kinda justifies my going snowboarding, so i was telling chuansheng. yippee~

came back from econ office hours and it was raining:( and i had no raincoat:( oh well. time to peer review PWR papers!

ladida. i seriously think i'm too slack this quarter for my own good, am going to have a terrible time next quarter, with ihum psych1 cs106a and (undecided) and maybe golf. hm. and it's time for rushing too. hope i survive hm. i think i'm actually glad for the quarter system, i already get bored of my classes halfway thru the quarter, wonder how i'd cope with a 14 week semester haha.

i guess God did plan it for me. or maybe i'm appreciating what i have. like. the weather. if i'd ended up on east coast i think i'd be really quite miserable. unless i get to go snowboarding more often haha but that also costs $$. and then the quarter vs semester system. oh well. it's good anyhow. and zhihui was telling me the other day when i was talking to her about rg, that chicago is more like bi4 men2 zao4 che1 while here pple go out and do things.. so i should take advantage of that. hopefully something works out later on cos i don't feel like i'm doing anything much right now hm. although i probably should start.

ooh. i just spent like 45mins sitting in my dormmate's room talking to her. i should do that more often. but it was so funny cos it felt like i was in a psychologist's chair (and she is a psych major). so interesting. i didn't know she went to german school in DC. anyway.

ohh i got killed for assassins just now, ahaha. i sort of had the idea that either ryan or devin would be after me before long but i couldn't be bothered to bring my gun along when i went to get water. so well. oh. assassins = game played in the dorm with water guns. you get assigned a target, whom you're supposed to kill within 24 hours. kill the target by squirting a water gun at him/her. targets can't get killed in their own room/in the toilets/in the servery. uh. and dormmates can't see you shooting ur target. i think that was about it. oh after 24 hrs u're in danger of termination by the staff (they come after you with buckets of water/super soakers and take you out of the game). i was in danger of termination on friday and today. hehe. but i don't think the staff really cared cos they wanted pple to stay in the game. and half the pple were killed already.

one day my PHE sent us this video of kittens in this mini world.. and so i dropped over by her room and she showed me the website and we were just squealing at the screen together.
cute pic!:) i now have this guinea pig on my wall.. ahaha. so cute and fat and furry. cuteoverload.com



ah i just remembered something else. daryl bought $14 worth of pocky from ranch99 today. and we got vip cards for savings purposes in future. anyway, the looks on sean's n joel's faces were priceless when they saw the amount of pocky daryl had in his hands. so hilarious. but again daryl never fails to amaze when he buys stuff from ranch99. and i was rather upset they didn't have the big hello pandas! not that i really wanted it but i think my roomie could've done with it, she has a LOT of work to do this week. oh well. we got to eat mochi courtesy of our two fav housemates. i think the guy who invented that is up there with the guy who invented beds (and pillows and bolsters) now i feel like eating tangyuan. boo.

i love the quote on sharon's blog. okay, ex-blog? haha.

dance
as though no one is watching you,

love
as though you have never
been hurt before,

sing
as though no one can hear you,

live
as though heaven is on earth.

actually i think i've seen it before. also in amy's room.

anyway. i just remembered something my dormmate and my roommate were discussing the other day. that i'm only mean (i.e. insulting) to pple i like. which is, really, when you think about it, rather odd. anyway i guess it's true. sadly or otherwise. and then they started to wonder if i'm only nice to pple i don't like. hmmm. i think if i don't know you very well i would. i mean, one doesn't go round diaoing ppl they hardly know right. actually i don't think i'm that weird after all, i'm quite sure most people do that.

ooh! it seems like jackie read my blog cos she sent me roti prata pics last night yay:) totally made my (rainy and miserable) day. i must really go and find out what happened to our instant noodle pics hm.



man i think the photos i take are better than those jackie takes. haha. anyway.

the grad students are really crazy la last night one of them sent an email asking if anyone wanted to go skiing this weekend (and there's one planned for next weekend!) i was telling my roomie and she decided that it wasn't fair tt grad students are so free. haha.

oh! i just remembered sth. so i went to airport church of christ on sunday (near SFO). since sean was happily off in vegas. ahem. anyway. then i realized the importance of hospitality. so at home i'm the one who's been in the church since forever, and i'm wondering why visitors would want random pple to go up and say hi to them. but then when i come here and i'm the visitor, i see why. esp since i ended up hanging around for potluck lunch (yum). the weirdest thing was that the couple who fetched me here.. the wife didn't talk to me at all. actually nobody talked during the ride there. maybe cos they were all listening to the gospel recording, but still. i talked to the guy cos he came down on saturday to figure out where to fetch me from. but that's all.

and God really provided, before class started i was thinking about how i was going to do my work (this couple stays in SF the entire day on sunday!) until 6 and then i remembered joel would be fetching daryl from the airport! my saviour.. haha. yeah. it was such a coincidence cos i did call joel on saturday to tell him i'd have to spend the day there and he mentioned he was going to pick daryl up and somehow it didn't make a connection there. but on sunday morning it did. interesting huh.

then joel was saying that he actually has a lot of work to do, contrary to what i may think. but they must give us hope. i'm like wat hope?? so he said bible says faith, hope and love right. love cannot give so give hope lor. rofl. that was singularly one of the most hilarious things i've heard. man. what are we going to do without them next year.. and now ruixiong's going off to princeton too. very tragic.

oh! yessterday kiat didn't wanna go back to frosoco for dinner in case it rained again. so he came over and got dexian to eat dinner too and i met ruixiong in the dining hall and got him to come over too! mini-sporean gathering haha. quite cool. and it was so uncanny cos wenkai was here to visit jennifer. another sort of even more mini-sporean gathering.

today i had one of the most useless pwr classes ever. we sat around reading boothe prize essays and analyzing how their intro/conclusion worked. i'm like okay, i guess it might be helpful, but we have better things to do like writing that 12-15pg draft which is due on monday! at least he let us off early so for once i got to eat lunch. haha. and i was so annoyed on monday, he gave us back the contextual analysis and had quite a number of problems with my paper, most of which were present in the draft, which he didn't think to tell me about earlier! seriously, if you're going to make us hand up drafts, i would appreciate it if you gave us constructive feedback. instead of "oh, it's fine" "you write very well" and etc. and for the first two papers he only gave A-'s A's and A+'s, so that does explain a lot.

just back from a rather full day, although i think i did have a slight intention of getting a nap in the afternoon. anyhow. yay! i finally borrowed scores from music library. and was trying to play chopin's ballade and totally dying. this is why that is LRSM level i think. and boah asked if i wanted to go stanford shopping center with her so i did.. ended up spending the rest of the day out (and sleep deprived, sadly)

rhythms was pretty cool.. actually i wouldn't have gone, except for the fact that my roommate was performing and my dormmate too.. and talisman was singing (they should've sung more songs augh!) but then it turned out pretty good.. i really wasn't expecting to like indian dance/etc but i think i changed my mind. basmati raas n bhangra n hindi film dance were SO energetic. well not all of them, but still. quite amazing. something in common with yesterday's olympic finals. you can tell when someone's enjoying wat he/she's doing. for performance anyway.. they look really really happy.

and i wish they would stop going on and on about the "diversity in stanford" thing. i mean some things aren't meant to be said.. the more you talk about them the more obvious/forced and less natural it becomes. like, it's well and fine that it's so diverse around here but you don't have to keep calling attention to it. i feel like the fact that the show got sold out is a pretty good indication that diversity is appreciated. (of cos, there is the added incentive that westflo's tickets were heavily subsidized, but pple could've still chosen to not go).

decided i never post photos (besides those of sean's n joel's fridge) so here are some.

my roomie, emphasizing her height (i think she's like 30cm taller than me or sth)


monday's ski trip! yay~ as usual i'm the youngest. ok i guess it's not so "as usual", since all the american freshmen are one year younger than me. but well.

i decided i need to take more interesting photos. ohh! i must chase jackie for our roti prata cooking photos.

hmm. i really do think i'm going crazy. i just spent 4 hours sitting in my dorm lounge watching olympics women's figure skating (with some snowboarding and some freestyle skiing thrown in). and pple just started gathering until there were like 10+ pple sitting around. quite cool. maybe i say that cos i hardly go and hang around in the lounge hm.

anyway today was a gd day! somehow i couldn't sleep much, woke up at 7 and at 15min intervals thanks to my roommate's alarm. i guess i don't get so mad nowadays when i get woken up. more tolerance maybe? anyway the other day my ihum tf was saying freud's philosophy is basically that everything wrong with you can be blamed on ur parents. haha. so i think my original wrath at being woken up before it's time to do so comes from how my mom used to wake me up. although actually that isn't really "before it's time to wake up", i just didn't want to get up.

ok digressed. so, went for dance, and was rather lost at first cos they started club two-step on tues (which i didn't go for cos 1. i was finishing my ihum paper and 2. i figured i had enough fun on monday so better do my work 3. i was aching quite a bit). and i thought he'd spend quite some time reviewing steps and wat not, but that didn't happen. so i kinda figured it out along the way, thanks to the poor partners who had to suffer with my cluelessness. anyhow once i got the hang of it it was pretty fun! lalala. very relaxed and comfortable dance. one's partner makes such a difference sometimes.

so i was quite happy after that. didn't really want to go back to doing waltz, but oh well. for other pple to review for viennese ball tmr. then i had ihum, presented by two TFs. the first one was alright, the second one made more sense and was more organized. and then econ, where i got so bored and i wasn't listening properly. bit restless today also. oh i thought maybe it was the iced latte yesterday (first time i decided to try it i think, and i am never drinking coffee again). but i guess since i still don't want to sleep now although i really ought to, there has got to be something else.

uh. lunch w jackie. food wasn't great, they ran out of salmon grr. then voice class! ooh. was pretty satisfied today, i thought i heard some vibrato while i was singing my piece.. so that was pretty good. tcher was quite happy too (although sometimes i don't think she has v high standards since this is just a beginning class) and given that i actually don't actually practise the song, which i really should, but i know the tune and everything anyway. n she decided i could think about trying the cadenza at the end and i'm like . right. i don't really think i could do a high b flat. but we shall see. maybe if i sing properly i can. hehe.

didn't want to go for ihum section, but well. spent 1/2h watching lohengrin so that was more interesting than usual discussion.
was late to see my pwr teacher. i think he's really biased la, he keeps telling me my writing is v good and gave me an A for my rhetorical analysis which i don't even think i concluded properly -- he even wrote "why are the (last few) paragraphs so short?" (well i would think it's a bit obvious i ran out of time and couldn't finish properly right haha oops). -shrug- or maybe chuansheng's right, just high standards. anyhow i'm not complaining. so i was asking him if he got more sleep (esp since we had long weekend). and he said he went clubbing. and i'm like . right. so much for complaining u dont' get enough sleep. n he said when u're having fun it's different.. and he thinks SF clubs should open until at least 6am instead of 2am. -shakes head-

that was quite amusing. then i went for econ office hours. and was, at first, rather appalled that my TA walked in. cos the last time i tried going for his office hours i walked out after 15mins. but it all worked out and i finished my work. came back, had dinner, sat at the table listening to 2 of my dormmates and one of their friends (all black) discuss the black community in US/at stanford. interesting. i think these identity things only surface for minority races or something, like whites wouldn't be sitting around discussing wat other pple think of them or anyth.

alright. really really should sleep. -shakes head-. i think i'll take a nap tmr. or a few naps. haha.

ohh.. this weekend is parents' weekend. it's kinda cool seeing my dormmates' parents come in.. kinda wish my parents could come too. i think they would want to too. weather's been improving