sigh. so I slept at 3am and woke up at 6.20am. and was unable to return to dreamland. someone tell me I won't fall asleep in church later.. I think I'm going to be a walking zombie.
augh. there is something severely wrong with me. i'm tired yet i can't sleep. okay i managed to after quite a long while, but still. so i ended up sleeping frm 3 - 9.30am then 3 - 8pm. really really weird huh.. it so does not help that i have 14 forms to fill online by tmr (sorry to those i've been whining to) and being as indecisive as I am, you get the idea. Plus I've to write one essay to get into the dorm I want to stay in, and another one so that they can assign me a nice roommate. and answer the advisor's questionnaire which has questions like "please write a brief statement telling us how/when/under what circumstances you feel you came of age, intellectually." now isn't that fantastic?
i'm halfway through the dorm essay, hardly started the roommate/advisor ones and i have to finish all this stuff by tomorrow plus i have to pack for church camp. ugh. i think my holiday wasn't at a very good timing? or maybe i've just been wasting too much time as usual.. feeling very impatient at the moment grr.
oh my whole family has been sleeping at weird times. yesterday they all fell asleep by 9pm and I was the only one awake until ~3am then they all woke up and I went to sleep. crazy huh. okay brother has woken up haha it's time for dinner.
touched down at 5.30am.. i think i slept maybe 3 hours at most haha. watched 6 shows. okay watched 2 of them halfway cos i didn't like them.. robots is actually quite good! bigweld is so cute and round haha. and the express train is crazy.. throwing the passengers all over the place. but the whole concept is quite cool. watched million dollar baby which was quite tragic.. didn't really expect the ending. but can see why it's an oscar winner, even though i hated hilary swank's accent. and i didn't really like hitch/wedding date, their plots are rather unbelievable and undevelopped.
right. oh i visited yale n princeton! so i've seen all the powerhouse unis haha. anyway, i think princeton is really pretty! a lot of greenery and it's separate from the city/town area unlike yale/mit/harvard. but it has some ugly buildings too. yale has an old-world charm. the architecture. i must go find out which period the architecture was from.
i can't remember what else i wanted to say. oh i came back n slept 7 hours, not enough. i must go fill up my numerous forms. can you believe i have to write 2 more essays.. okay the roommate one isn't really but still. and find 7 photos! argh.
hijacked my bro's comp while he's off delivering presents/cards. hmm. imagine living in spore for 18 years, pulling up your roots (not totally, but in a sense) going to usa for 4 years (and putting down new roots) and then plucking them out again to return to spore. a little unsettling maybe? i have no idea. and lousy dbs has just sent me their rejection email after dunno how long.. totally wu liao.
i think i'm going mad. while i was in j1/j2 i couldn't see myself attending college anywhere but in US, and now that i'm going i don't want to go anymore. this is like reverse psychology. and my bro told me i'd better learn to embrace everything different (cos i said i didn't like mexican food/eating sandwiches for lunch all the time). okay this is really disjointed. random thoughts. it must be because i haven't fillen out those approaching stanford forms and will have to immediately get down to it when i get back. fedex package! argh.
anyway we're watching a boston pops concert tonight! should be good:) the weather is quite hot now.. albeit kinda windy esp towards evening. it's practically singapore temperature thanks to the sun.. (and no clouds)
somehow i don't think i'm enjoying this holiday as much as i should be. kinda weird. maybe it's cos i know i'm leaving in sept so i want to make the most of the time at home. maybe it's cos we didn't really plan for this hol so it's rather aimless sometimes. yet i don't think i'm going to enjoy going back to work haha:p or searching for work, for that matter. church camp should be fun though.. nonsense-talking time:)
all sorts of mixed feelings.
am leaving for lake george/saratoga in a few minutes i think. haha. anyway, i'm so sad! i checked the cirque du soleil website the night before leaving and still didnt realise corteo was showing here.. it's their newest show. i guess cos i intended to watch it in san francisco in nov or dec.. ah well. so didn't get to watch it here. tragic:(
weather's improving! yay. there was this little girl who tried to shoot me with a balloon-gun.. was quite funny. and another one was holding her little dog out of the window so its head stuck out at all the pple who walked by.
right i think i'm supposed to go eat breakfast
haha i'm finally here in my bro's room. it's a rather queer shape. and he has 2 huge dogs! so cute:) but he's going to throw them away:( tragic. so i took a photo of them first heh. anyway, flight was alright, was attempting to "sleep" for around 6 hours. watched 4 movies - coach carter, racing stripes, spanglish, monsters inc, didn't finish the last one i watched which was some french show. the plane is really quite spacious, wish all flights could be like that. but somehow i still can't sleep. what to do. unfortunately the kris world entertainment kept having problems, was really quite annoying, esp when it's SIA. tsktsk. oh met my buddy at airport cos he ponned sch to study there haha wat a coincidence;)
right it's like 2am n i should probably go sleep.. took like 4 hours to drive here frm newark airport. and we stopped at the same mcdonalds as the last time we came to visit my bro! funky.
okay.. 8 hours to flying off.. non-stop flight! haha. i hope i don't get bored. which is why i'm still awake at this unearthly hour: the plane seats had better be more comfortable than average.. and i still haven't figured out which broadway show to watch. shall go there and see what happens:p
i watched the american idol finals just now! wonder who'll win. i like carrie though. partly cos she's sort of the underdog. n of cos she's a girl:) and it was nice not having commercials for once:p
right i think i need to finish packing my bag.. the luggage is done i think. wow i can't believe my brother is actually coming back.. 4 years have seemingly passed so quickly yet so slowly at the same time. wait i'm not even sure if that makes sense.. and i'll be gone for the same period of time. like lydia says, not much time to spend with bro (in her case, sis).
whoever didn't see me online.. i'm off to US frm 26th may to 8th june.. coming back in the wee hours of the morning or something like that. if i have the time/connection i may blog! haha. or go online. it depends on availability. and also the cost.. so, people whom i haven't seen in a loong while (e.g. peiying), meet up when i get back!
ah. i am trying to upload photos. anyway, i was most absent-minded today. paused at the door, thought i'd brought everyth along, happily went off to bus stop, boarded the bus. fiddling around with phone when i realised i'd forgotten something! ahh. so annoyed. and ended up late:( well the sequence didn't really go that way but it was an indirect consequence i think? duno. anyway, i stopped at the fire station and saw a monkey!! it really reminded me of the one i saw at the zoo. by the name of cargo. albeit a leaner version, but looked like the same breed.
at first i spotted it on the lower part of the overhead bridge. then it jumped into one of the trees nearby, and after a rustling of the branches, reappeared on the grassy floor (okay this is a terrible description but my brain isn't functioning very well after typing so many quotes and having so many more to go) and started eating a mango! so fascinating. i wish i had a camera with me. come to think of it i need a digicam. which can store lots of videos. time to go shopping again.. haha:p
just watched chocolat. i love the music! and johnny depp! haha. my all-time favourite actor. actually more like the only one. anyway, the town reminded me of italy! the basilica and the statue outside. i can see loreto in my mind. was that the townsquare? ah just checked the postcard. it's called virgin square. why, i can't imagine. but i remember me n candice sitting at the fountain eating pizza:) although it started getting kind of cold in the evening. ohhh i totally remember freezing on the first night we went to perform! (and falling asleep in the basilica thanks to jet lag) rofl. ahh. where are all my choirmates? suddenly miss them. okay i think i'm very capricious sometimes.
anyway the town reminded me of italy. because of the ancient architecture and what not. and then also of french/france. i wish it had been in french though haha. i'm so so rusty it's terrible. and my chinese is in a worse state i think. esp cos i haven't written in chinese for so long. ugh. i keep intending to go read some book to stem the decline but haven't gotten round to it. as usual.
and today i saw caneles! at bakerzin. (as lyd says, what a poseurish name) anyway, reminded me of immersion too. i think cheukka agrees with me that it's horrible:p although it's supposed to be an acquired taste. which i evidently have not acquired. oh it's a bordeaux speciality. ohh ser if you read this, do you remember the almond-shaped thing monsieur yong let us try? i think it was almond paste with some marzipan/icing on top. so yummy. i forgot the name though:(
alright. very reminiscient-ish time tonight. okay and i also need to go sleep soon
one of my other favourite quotes:
Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.)
I prefer the french version. anyway, it's by Antoine de St. Exupery. from The Little Prince.
suddenly, i'm very scared. after talking to one of my seniors just now about courses and rooming and blah, the enormity of it has just dawned on me. and it's overwhelming. i'll definitely have a roommate. not that it's a bad thing exactly but it's just different. like i was telling serene it's so different from everything we've gone through so far.. it's like everything has been planned out, just follow the system without thinking - the "default" path (like they said during my med interview)
and then now i have to plan 4 years' worth of courses (which don't even stay constant, which makes it even harder) and i have no friends going with me. actually, i suppose most people don't, but still.. i like solitude sometimes but it still seems rather daunting to be alone to face so much new stuff. i know seniors who're already there and some of the people who'll be matriculating this year but.. okay i have a lot of "buts" today. fitting in alone may or may not be easier. and how americans are all so confident. (and loud). stereotypically.
and then arranging with my bro to get some of his stuff n etc.. i'll probably have to go and buy a bike if not i'll never get to classes on time. and make sure it doesn't get stolen haha.
i guess it's just a very huge transition. luckily i leave later than most people.. still have time heh.
well well well.. looks like the decision has been made for me anyway. rather relieved in a sense although there's this sneaking feeling of laziness. i mean, if they'd accepted me i probably wouldn't have stayed, but i would still have to spend a little more time deliberating. so, stanford here i come! haha. woohoo~ finally i can concentrate.
anyway star wars was quite cool.. although i really cannot remember what the first episode was about (it was the only one i watched, way back in sec 1 or sth.. with yingling n chris i think?) and it's so tragic that anakin became so ugly (as darth vader). totally gross.
i wonder if my parents/brother are unhappy with what happened. oh well.
ah, i suddenly remembered i forgot to talk about class outing haha. saw pple i haven't seen in quite some time.. and mrs kwan came! yay. i was telling her how we missed her in jc cos there was nobody to care about us haha. she doesn't look any different actually. oh yes agree with chris that the calamari rings were v nice. so was the ice cream haha. audry horrified at shiqin's green fingernails and berating jiahui for her taste in food was funny.
and i'm so tired. oh wait something lijia said is so true, when you stay at home all day you feel even more lethargic. day is filled with eating and sleeping. haha. and i kinda wish i didn't buy the quidam dvd cos now i don't think i want to spend extra $$ watching it live but still!! aahh.
yesterday my brother told me i ought to be thinking about the nus-stanford thing every day, and i was like "wat?? do you want me to go mad?" and he said "no you won't.. and you need to uless you're going to make the decision in a day". which is true i suppose. but of course if i don't get in here there's nothing to think about haha. anyway, that's why my description has been changed to "currently very confused clar". alliteration!
i think i'm a little out of sorts today.
right i never posted about my last day. oh well. i spent the afternoon+evening reading gerald durrell bks in the library:p didn't manage to finish the last one though! (i.e. i only finished one and half of the other one) wat to do, couldn't read fast enough .haha.
played taboo with b10, one of them was like "satay is ___" and another one said "fried". i was trying to mark this essay which was handed up late and choked when i heard that.
oh and i met one of my students at cine today! haha. fiona was v amused. and said i'm shorter than them -grr- not my fault lah.. aiyah. anyway usually they're sitting down and i'm standing up so there..
oh yes i bought a v nice shirt yesterday at a gd price so i'm v happy:) think heartlands are better for shopping.. and i have a new pair of shoes! they feel a bit funny though somehow.. even though they're nice and comfortable. hmm.
tomorrow i have nothing to do. mom wants me to find a job until next thurs.. how possible is that? aiyah. i don't know what i want to do also. everything has its gd n bad points.
so tired. heh today was last lesson with arts class.. one of them asked "will you miss us?" and i said "of course" and another one said "she's lying". anyhow, i'll miss the nonsense the front row ppl spouted.. they're so funny.. and at least they talked during lessons, made my life easier in a way. very likeable crowd in any case. although i don't think they learnt very much from me somehow.
and i realised i still have essays to mark. oops. i think i get very distracted sometimes. it's really painful reading the not-so-good ones sometimes, i can't even figure out whether they answered the question or not. or maybe that's cos i read too many essays. dunno lah, and those i have left are mostly tmr's 1st class.. means i have to finish them fast! aah!
i wonder if what i read defines me, or i define what i read. okay that probably doesn't make sense. cos i was reading stuff about my zodiac (somehow i find it quite fun) and i agree with some things but not others. right i don't think i'm making much sense, should probably get off and go sleep/mark essays if possible:
augh. i'm feeling so guilty. there're supposed to be 2 sm2 scholars in one of my gp classes and i kept forgetting to go and ask the cts why they didn't turn up. and now it's like 2 more weeks and the teacher is coming back.. die.. but aiyah this is jc after all shouldn't they be responsible for themselves.. okay i'm just pushing the blame to them. ugh.
haha it's the last 2 days of school and i already don't feel like going. and why do they have to leave tmr as thurs timetable?? i planned for the original monday timetable lah!! ahh. now i have no idea how to entertain my arts class for 1h40. groan.
ow. i hope i don't get bruises tomorrow. anyway, today, in the morning, i had a huge shock when someone called "clarissa" while i was walking to class. first reaction: hmm, i don't think any of my students remember my name. anyway, turned around to see HOD. right, so what could he possibly have to say to me? the teacher whom i'm replacing is coming back this sat! (okay either i wasn't thinking straight or his phrasing was really weird cos i was quite puzzled at first)
and i wonder when he was going to tell me if he hadn't met me in the corridor today. hmm. anyway, i'm glad i don't have to plan somemore lessons, but of course i'll be stoning around for the nxt 1.5 weeks. (without pay). haha. i'll be glad not to wake up at 7+ though.. out of habit i actually did that on saturday.. was so annoyed with myself!:(
anyway today was a 1/3 day! haha. reward for gd syf results. ended at 11.40 but lyd came over to get something frm me so i ended up staying till 3.30 to mark/plan lessons. it was really gd to see lyd anyhow, she's so cute n amusing heh. whined about how long it took to walk to nj main gate (i totally empathise) and then later complained that the ice kachang didn't have enough red beans. and took forever to decide what to eat.. and came into the staffroom and laughed at my students' essays. that's one thing i'll kind of miss, actually. while marking is rather tedious sometimes there are the highlights of the day.
latest quote from student's essay (i must add that i was quite, quite aghast): A television has a hidden function which is quite similar to the general function of a vacuum cleaner, except that vacuum cleaners suck up the dirty stuffs while televisions "suck" out the "soul and spirit" of many people, changing them into couch potatoes. (at this point, i wrote "they have no soul/spirit?? oh dear")
haha this is SO funny i had to blog it.. quote from my student's essay:
"there were incidents whereby young children, misguided by the idea of supernaturality, jumped off buildings in an attempt to fly like their childhood heroes, to eventually end up with a death worse than that of most birds that fly in the Birdpark"
(of course i corrected all the grammar and etc already)
so i wrote at the side "do they die a very horrible death most of the time?"
hahaha. i wonder what she was thinking.. maybe that the birds get chopped up and sent to the zoo for food. although it's probably just the association with flying things.
from the far side:
cow-seeking-advice consults cow guru, who dispenses the following advice: "And, as you travel life's highway, don't forget to stop and eat the roses."
haha. i like deadpan humour.
anyway, mom was showing me stuff me/my bro wrote last time.. which just proves my point that guys are more amusing than girls mostly. i remember all the stories i wrote were about fairies/goblins/horses/dogs etc.. the fairytale wonderland. i think i must've read too much enid blyton. or maybe fairies just appealed to me because of their perfection. and of course my stories always had the requisite happy endings. i realised watever i wrote about reflected my idea of a happy life i.e. one horse and one dog per person and having a huge field to keep the animals in and playing with them every day.
i just remembered something i thought about last year. how i'm afraid i'll forget how to see things from a child's point of view. as it is as a teacher i've forgotten how it's like to be a student. until junming reminded me. that was for when i was teaching phys at rj but still..
i'm also afraid i'll lose my sense of humour (if i had much of it to begin with) and grow pokey and stiff and prim and proper as i get older. it's not such a unprobable scenario when you think about it. we've already lost so much innocence/candour so far and it's only been like two decades..
okay now for amusement, here's a gem that i dug up from secondary school days.
context: along the road outside rgs there are (or were?) two signboards, on either side of the main gate. parents' cars are not allowed to enter the school, students are supposed to alight either before the 1st signboard or after the 2nd. prefects stand at these signboards making sure everyone alights in the accepted zone.
so, one day my mom stopped her car - part of it was in front of the 2nd signboard and part of it was behind. so i alighted, in front of the 2nd signboard, and promptly got booked.
a booking entitles you to a visit to the RTC. unfortunately, its full name has slipped my mind. ah, chris has just enlightened me - Responsible Thinking Classroom. i totally forgot! anyway, at the RTC, one is supposed to design a plan to avoid committing the same offence.
here is my plan. (and no, i didn't submit this, it was just something done for fun at home, with the help of my brother, mostly. i can't remember if my parents contributed suggestions)
- Next time I’ll crawl to the front seat and get out
- I’ll make the space between the front seat wider so that it’ll be easier to crawl through. Or better still, I’ll hack down the whole front seat! Then I can just walk through
- I’ll sit on the bonnet
- Revamp the car so that the driver’s seat is behind
-- Changing the car will take around 2 to 3 years so you will have to wait - Stretch my leg as far as possible so that it reaches the sign and step out.
-- Getting my legs to be long enough will take around 5 years and by that time I’ll be out of RGS - I’ll train to run fast like Carl Lewis, then I’ll stop in between the 2 signs and sprint to school so that the SLs and PITs and Prefects cannot catch me. It will also train me for my 2.4 km run, so that I will not have to keep re-running till I get a c.
- Open the door before the sign, say ‘oops’ to the prefects, then drive on and get out
- Crawl to the front seat, get out, go to the back seat, and get bag out
- If my car were smaller then I would have gotten out before the sign. Unfortunately, big cars are needed to contain more people so I am afraid it is not my fault.
- My father says that only traffic police can put up signs on the road because it is the main road
- My whole family thinks that I should just throw the slip away and not go for RTC
- Next time, I’ll stop there, and my mother will come out and push the sign back so that I can alight
- When I alight there, I’ll make sure no one is looking
time to complain abt med interview! man, just wanted to think "screw them, i'm going stanford". okay that isn't a very nice way of putting it but they really pissed me off. i think i get worked up too easily. i mean, the 1st interview started late (5-10mins) cos they just came back frm lunch break. and then there was one caucasian guy, one chinese lady, one indian guy. the first two were really annoying. the lady kept grimacing at me, and the guy kept raising an eyebrow at me (maybe there was something wrong with his facial muscles but i doubt it). like looking totally cynical at whatever i said.. i'm like, if you can't even bother to look polite don't come and interview pple.. but again i hear the psc pple sleep, which is even worse/just as bad.
whatever it is i still think it's basic courtesy to accord some respect to the interviewee.
oh and this takes the cake. upon looking thru my resume again the indian guy asked "do you have time to play?" and i'm wondering "play?" and the chinese lady went "yeah, play, don't you know the meaning of the word 'play'?"
lyd said it was amusing but really, when i was in there it wasn't. it was rather rude the way she was so sarcastic. i told them i was rather puzzled by there being zero context.. anyway pple don't normally phrase it in such a weird way. whatever it is, i regret not telling them off. mom reminded me about how i could use sarcasm.. darn. i'm too rusty.. my so-called "caustic wit" (if i had any to start with) has flown! augh.
anyway, i've realised it is definitely not a good idea to write unconventional things in personal statements for spore unis cos they immediately jump on it and attack you. so much for singapore being open and embracing creativity and whatever other crap.. okay i think i'm probably not being very rational at the moment.. it is the job of interviewers to put you in a spot.
watever, i shall go do something else and unwind.. haha.
haha, i was just marking one of my students' essays and the topic was "Travel is an education in itself. Comment." quote from his essay "... Thus, it can clearly be said that travel is an education in itself. (next paragraph) Why so, you ask? What knowledge of any sort can possibly be garnered from travels? If you are guilty of asking these queries, then it is obvious what your idea of education is." so I showed it to jieying and asked her opinion. and she said something along the lines of how it would be a gd idea not to piss off the examiners.. haha.
yay! today's last (okay, 2nd and last) lesson is cancelled cos the j1s are off to visit ocs.. i desperately need the time to prep for interview, methinks.