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.