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.