blah. its 4:30am and somehow i can't get back to sleep.. maybe i shouldn't have taken a nap in the afternoon:| which also, incidentally, caused me to miss dinner. and then i suddenly started worrying about all sorts of things, like how i'm going to get to church and whether i really like this whole investing business because it doesn't really mean anything to me at the moment.
i have a single! hehe. quite fun.. just that it does allow me to be even more solitary which may not be such a good idea.. i have no idea where the other people disappear to, either they're off at their friends' dorms or they're in their rooms with the door closed. class is just from 10 - 12 and after that we're mostly free.. so need to figure out what to do. yay tmr stacey's feeding ponies so i can tag along!:) whee.
yeah i was also thinking about the people i hang out with on a regular basis (at sch) and decided there're really very few of them. but whether it's just me being unsociable or it being a normal state of things in general is something i still wonder about sometimes. i suppose i assume everyone here is really outgoing and spends their time hanging out and getting to know more people.
alright i shall attempt to get back to sleep.. hopefully will be able to finish skimming my books for tmr's lesson. augh. i really should've read the books.
i think my mom's right. i should've cut my hair earlier. i have a huge tendency to procrastinate and therefore now its a crazy rush (okay, i'm not rushing yet but i will be soon) to get everything done.. anyway the slanted fringe thing didn't turn out too well cos i only decided on a slanted fringe after she trimmed it straight so its kind of short. oh wells. and the red does tend to look quite bright in some sorts of lights. but it's still fun to have different coloured hair haha.
oh dear. i think i shouldn't have read selene's blog. or maybe i'm just blaming that cos its convenient. but anyway i suddenly feel rather melancholic! cos there're 3 days left. or less, actually. more like 2.. at least i did most of the things on my to-do list today.. alright i really should go and pack. more like, -start- packing. :|
at least we have the house to ourselves until after i leave. heh. ms jap girl is now at my uncle's house. but then my parents got into an argument (actually i guess it isn't all that rare) so they aren't speaking at the moment. so silly. i'm sure they'll be fine soon, but still.
actually i think i'll be fine once i'm back in school. it's just the thinking about the in-between that isn't very fun. blah alright time to go do something productive (like eat durians, :D)
heh been so busy. kind of. so let's see.. tuesday was meeting up with so3c girls.. and we met jm and amanda by chance! so funny.. so sarah sj chelsea (whom i haven't seen since results, i'm sure) fiona n candice n me had lunch at nana thai at far east.. pretty good price - student discounts! and then fried mars bars.. i tell u candice is hooked on that..
so since i promised rachel i'd visit learning lab i decided to get a lift from candice back to united square.. first time being chauffeured by candice!! haha. she has a cool style of driving man.. and a nice new car. heh. i told her she needed a convertible to complete her image:)
silly rachel didn't realize it was me.. thought i was a student [grr]. oh i saw chernise at the ben & jerry's downstairs but she was quite busy so didn't stay for long. so after entertaining rachel for a bit while she was doing her paris duty [which consists of sitting on a stool outside this sliding door place to ensure that students don't get hurt by the sliding door which is so cleverly concealed u don't realize it's a door until it opens and then if you're playing around there's a possibility of your hand getting chopped off] i went in to look for christine.. who as usual shrieked when she saw me and went on and on about how i'm still so small and cute. apparently i [surprise surprise] look even younger! she claims its the fringe and the mid-length hair.
then i met ms jap girl (her name is yumiko). i think her eyes might possibly be bigger than mine. or maybe its cos of the eyeliner/mascara. anyway her english isn't fantastic.. i'm not even sure how much of wat i'm saying she understands. oh well. we had dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin.. lots and lots of food. actually since she came i've been eating a LOT. augh.
it's funny how when guests come, life becomes so much better. so since she's here, we get to use the car (instead of my bro) and get good food all the time, basically. i guess it sort of makes sense, yet it's ironic at the same time. i just had durians (the best, according to my dad, who doesn't want to admit how much he paid for them cos i think my mom'll scold him for spending so much. haha).
anyway. wed.. city tour and then ended up at chinatown. in which it started raining! so i was sloshing around in wet slippers.. reminded me of bangkok as i was telling jh.. and then i ended up buying this bamboo poster thingy. i was rather amused, she's the tourist supposed to be the one buying things and i'm the one who ends up spending $. but in the end she got something too. bargaining there was ridiculously easy, i was surprised.
shopping at marina square after that - i decided it was silly to try and walk around outside in the rain.. i saw this $10 dress, quite crazy. but then i also don't think i have anything to wear it to.. oh well. wish there was more occasion to wear my sec 4 prom gown, i really like it:) although i wonder if i can still fit into it -frowns-
today was sentosa.. was quite a bad day actually, kept raining and raining. my mom says i'll be expert at sliding when i'm done with this pair of slippers.. i think i'm quite pro already haha. but we got to see dolphins! although the las vegas show was better i think. or maybe i'm biased:p oh well.
and the musical fountain! it looked quite promising but turned out to be half good half bad. they had this ridiculously silly-looking emcee who was really quite a clown.. the only impressive thing was his cartwheel-plus-somersaults at the end of the show.. other impressive things include how he managed ot make a fool of himself. okay i'm really critical.. oh well. but his presence really detracted from the enjoyment of the performance, as did the presence of kiki the retarded giggling green monkey and his fantastic fish friends which were fantastic in their ugliness than anything else.
but i have to say the techniques of the laser show were pretty cool.. the 3d creatures looked very real. quite amazing. unfortunately.. there's the lack of style. i think they were trying to cater for kids.. thus the advent of kiki and his silly friends. bellagio fountains! ahh i wanna go to vegas. so it reminded me of wenzheng's flying to vegas (and grand canyon too i think?) maybe i should go get myself a pilot's license too! lala.
today's been such a long day. i don't know why i'm still at the comp.. trying to figure out if i should buy birkenstocks. haha. sigh. anyway, it was good meeting everyone.. haven't seen some people in such a long time! i doubt if i've seen lou since sec 4 man.. haha. maybe from time to time but still.
so ms jap girl is coming tmr.. i better clean up my room somemore. i think it's gonna be a pretty mad rush. it's so funny, she wants to go spa! and i haven't even been to one.. luckily lyd gave me some recommendations heh:)
i am so full. watching kahli and shan cook was quite interesting.. makes me wish i could too. but it does really take quite a lot of time i think. and yingling's so funny! heh. sometimes i really forget that she n kahli n i used to be in the same class/pri sch. seems like sec 3-4 was most memorable.
darryl never fails to amuse me.. maybe cos i have it permanently stuck in my head that he's silly.. so he'll always be silly to me whether he's grown up or not:p but again like i was saying, friends are to [in yf's words, sort of] talk nonsense to.
come to think of it daryl also never fails to amuse me. also another silly one. and both of them are so involved in church stuff. interesting.
i finally have my land before time dvd:) and it came with stickers!! haha. i think i'll bring it back to stanford to watch. hm. and that silly buddy! too lazy to write me a letter to go with it. grumbles. oh well.
aiyah i think i need to sleep. wonder how i'm gonna pack and all.. i think it's just easier not to think about things sometimes. cos the more you think about it the worse it gets.. taking things as they come and appreciating/revelling in wat u have at the moment is so much less painful. cos if i keep thinking about how i'll miss being home i'll just be miserable. whereas if i'm just happy while i'm home then i'm happy and that's good. and then when i go back to school i'll be happy at school (hopefully) and there you are.
so random, mrs kwan called me up while i was in the bus on the way to orchard (to meet wangning and his roommates and cs for dinner) to ask for chim's email to ask about emilyn. it was nice talking to her though half the conversation revolved around how US-spore communications work (skype and handphones and wat not). i think the tchers are kinda worried about us. wonder if they feel responsible since they taught us (and we're geps, so much $ spent on us and everything). i'm sure they really care about us, relationships built and all, but still wondering if a sort of duty sense comes into play.
oh and i saw jacelyn tay at kino after dinner. again very random cos i was trying to find some book and waiting at the information counter and this female was in front of me (all i could see was a curtain of hair) and i idly glanced down at the form she was filling up - i was wondering if that was a form to help the pple find the book or something but i guess it was probably an order form or something? and i saw "jacelyn tay" in caps and was wondering if that was really her or someone else with the same name. but yeah it was her.
i'm so frustrated/moody and i don't think blogging this is going to help but i'm blogging anyway. haha that sounds so silly. i sort of think it comes with having just one week left here. i don't know what to do, what to buy, augh! don't know what's the matter. it's so hard to have a family meal at all and even then it'll be a hassle deciding where to go, how much food is enough or not. right that sounds even dumber but whatever..
just need to snap out of it... maybe i need to hang out in my bro's room and hear him talk some nonsense:)
yay for staying at home. although sometimes i don't get tired enough and can't fall asleep immediately. but then last night i was so tired but still took sometime to sleep. oh well. soco books! it is time to launch a desperate campaign.
anyway, yesterday was pretty fun despite all the walking/standing i was subjected to. haha. went back to rg w ser cos she was giving a talk on mit (to rg girls! !! the mit alum guy is super onz man.. apparently he wants more girls to apply). we were standing outside the staffroom (actually, HOD room) and the list of phone numbers thing was at the staffroom so i was like aiyah call her hp la. so serene, after complaining, fished out her phone (and decided to take a photo of me, now that i think of it) and then called her.. i just happened to be twirling around and then saw ms tan walking out of the staffroom! haha. how fun.
the only problem being that the first thing she said upon seeing me was that i'd gained weight. -sigh- oh well. but no way am i going to subject myself to the way serene's losing weight. it is SO painful to eat with her. here is what happened when i went to her house for lunch:
clar starts eating normal food (packet rice n stuff)
ser examines the nutrition facts on the yoghurt in front of her and nods in satisfaction, "okay, 215 (or something) calories.. plus 90 (from a quakers bar). good."
and today.. "clar.. i'm still hungry (she had a 135cal yoghurt for lunch).. let's go eat" <-- vaguely reminiscent of sec sch/JC days actually.
so we went down to the canteent. in which she ate two more yoghurts and some snacks and still felt hungry (i kept telling her "u ran 10km! i'm sure u can afford to eat some carbs") but felt guilty cos of the snacks and decided she'd only have veges for dinner.
so, i think one ought to enjoy eating (to an extent, i've obviously been overenjoying:p) but this is quite a sad state. but i suppose there's satisfaction to be had in losing weight from restricting wat you eat.
anyway, enough about dieting. ms tan's hilarious.. she kept calling her two sec 3 classes "stupid".. i felt so sorry for them. but apparently they're really quite bad, esp given that they're gep classes. kinda sad cases hm. and then she was giving ser relationship advice.. haha chris n ting, she thinks u guys are very steady and sensible pple, dun need to worry about u:)
yeah it was nice seeing everyone again.. pity we didn't catch ms hoo and poor chen lao shi broke her arm! hm. maybe i should go visit her or something huh. but i doubt i can carry on a decent conversation in chinese:| oh dear. and ms yeo and mrs lee-lim chyn, both of whom thought i was very familiar but i think they forgot my name. ms yeo was regaling me with tales of how ms tan (as head of research) strikes fear into the heart of any teacher cos she's v fierce when pple ask her silly questions about the research study stuff. haha.
oh and teoch and ms ning teach the same "stupid" classes (teoch is the form tcher for one of the classes), but i think they were trying to tone down ms tan's criticisms haha.
i finally got to see the inside of rg staffrooms/hod rooms! haha. after.. 4 years after graduating. wow it has been that long huh. yeah the sec 4s have black nametags too.. sigh.
somehow i ended up waiting for silly ser to finish her talk (which took twice the time!!) and ms tan said she really gave us face cos she never has time to talk to poor puee, and she also intended to go home at 2 today (in the end she ended up going back at like 5 or something oops:|). oh ya so she decided ser should go talk to deborah tan as a polite gesture and she herself didn't wanna see dtan cos she hadn't prepared some presentation so she scurried off and took me with her.. hahaha.
anyway. i think it was almost 6 when ser finished buying her stuff n went home. so i went to buy stationery from popular (yay for jap-brand stationery heh) then i was trying to figure out where optic point was but gave up, met jh n yf n went to borders where they didn't have my books! bah. amazon rocks. and then went to kino cos jh was looking for some fantasy book or other.
& tu n her fren phong were late! grr. it was so funny though, almost didn't see them walking past us in wisma. this is so random, i suddenly feel like seeing lyd again. i think i was thinking about how its different hanging out with stanford pple vs non. i guess the former group reminds me that i have another life back there. how interesting.
james came later. and shihua & weisiang the latest! hehe me n shihua were extolling the comfort of pedalworks shoes:) even though now i think i should've gotten a not-so-high pair, sigh. oh well. live and learn.
when we walked tu back to her hotel she realized her phone was missing! augh. poor thing. i hope she finds it, but then i kinda doubt that's gonna happen too. sigh. but anyway so after that jh was squawking about wanting to take a cab whereas i was adamant about not doing so cos it wasn't that late and i don't take cabs when i don't absolutely have to. and yf didn't want to either, i forgot why. so we were walking towards the 171 bus stop and having this little argument until i gave up and was like fine, take cab. in which we discovered there's a long line at raffles city for cabs! and it's kind hard to flag along busy roads.
to top it off, both jh's n yf's buses came (respectively, in order) before we decided to walk back to the hotel and get a cab there. haha somehow going home with those two is always so ridiculous.. the last time they were being wishy washy about which bus stop to go to and how to get to it.. anyhow we finally got a cab:) i still wonder if it was any faster actually haha but oh well.
and oh! my brother's so silly. so after i got home and bathed and my dad finished using the computer.. i got online and then my bro IMed me and asked "u back ah? gg out tomorrow?" and as you can imagine i had the wat's-wrong-with-you look on my face and i walked over and opened the door and gave him a withering look. haha. i was in the living room and he was in his room (with the door closed) but really!
sigh. axess opened for enrollment and as usual i don't know what to do! kinda detracts from my reading my soco books. of course i'm just finding a convenient excuse, but still. and i need to buy stuff. but i'm out of that buying mode... i don't know why i'm more in a shopping mood when i'm working. how interesting.
yesterday met hwying n selene at holland v.. i really haven't kept in touch with them much in jc, i realized. actually i was quite distanced frm sec sch pple in jc, now that i think about it. i guess i was quite involved in choir after all, haha. and now i hardly even talk to them.. kinda pathetic. but i guess those of them who were closer probably do.
but anyway, so when i come back the people i meet are my sec 4 classmates mostly. and fiona n candice. haha. i guess this sort of thing does make you realize who's important to you.
then after then went to whampoa to make cushion covers.. really random. and parents dropped me off at glass house, stanford gathering! sort of. haha. tracy (asian american) was here for holiday so wang ning organized a dinner.. she's so tall la! i think she's taller than joon.. -shakes head- ridiculous! haha. anyway it was nice meeting her.. and the twins n daryl n cs. silly jon was/is in msia. but anyway it was so weird though, for a moment it was kind of like being back in stanford again. i guess cos of the things we talk about. but then the twins aren't coming till nxt year, kind of a pity.
and the karaoke-ing at night reminded me of thailand. which is, sadly, the one and only other time i've gone. haha. tracy knows a crazy lot of chinese songs! i decided i need to go find more songs/learn more lyrics.
today went to this toastmaster's club meeting thing upon yz's invitation. oh yeah yesterday i was telling the twins about it and they heard "ghostbusters" or something, i couldn't stop laughing. anyway toastmasters is this public speaking practice-making-speeches thing, pretty interesting. i'm sure it's very helpful too.. but i can't join the stanford one cos it meets on wednesdays. unless chi alpha changes its meeting time, which i doubt.
so since ser was telling me tonight she wished she were like me with an unbroken heart, something suddenly came to mind. somehow with a lot of pple i've met up with, a sizeable part of the conversation was devoted to relationships (or gossip, whichever u want to see it as). i forgot who said it, but i guess it kind of goes with age. i think it was pam. but anyway, so after we graduate it'll be who's getting married/who's working where.. then who has kids.. and then after that talking about the kids..
ah. it's time to sleep. i need to make better use of my time at home.
yay for cuteoverload.com (and to my phe for introducing me to the website:))
alright so i was in a very grumpy mood. didn't want to get up, when my mom poked me (okay she didn't really, but nevermind)awake i felt like someone just whacked me on the head with a frying pan. don't ask why. so i really really didn't want to get up and tried to catch a few more winks and finally got up at 8:30 very unwilingly but with the feeling of inevitability.
after trying to decide wat to wear and changing into it i suddenly felt like i didn't want to go anymore. and so i went to whine at my mom who was like why! wat're you gonna do at home! it's the first (of its kind), everyone will be there! so i grumbled somemore and said okay i'll go.. blah. so anyway it did turn out rather a waste of time, except for the souvenirs. US career fairs are definitely more worth it.
confluence 2006. and the reception's at 4pm! ah watever, and i was in no mood to stand around talking and pretending i'm interested in companies and wat not. okay i guess i could've snapped out of it but.. temperamental la.
oh yes, so yesterday we were at rj. which, unfortunately, i thought was rather a waste of time as well. but at least we got to see math mr chan.. wish we had longer to talk then he can entertain us with his deadpan humour! it was quite funny though, me and serene were walking then suddenly this car was next to us and the window was rolling down and it was mr chan! [we were walking frm rj to ri atrium to wait for him cos he was going to ri to fetch his wife] photo's on siewjin's blog..
and it wasn't a waste of time in that i got to meet aud n sj n sarah n andrew. serene isn't mentioned cos i've seen her more than during the last break already. haha. yah.. and it seems like sj's n ser's lives at michigan/mit are very complicated. i guess if there's anything going on at stanford i'm just blissfully ignorant:) funny how i look at other people and wonder how come my life seems deceptively less complicated. probably i'm in denial about any problems there might be.
to be happyy and freeee.. haha. like the bear in the pic! yay for foreverfriends websites
ooh. i'm feeling warm and fuzzy. no one online to gush at, so time for this blog to serve its purpose. part of it, anyway.
i wore pam's earrings today! and ser took a photo of me shying away from [rather dirty] eeyore and the earring was quite visible so i decided to send it to pam and say hello. and it's so random cos she replied - really fast, i must say, it was like 10 mins! that's ridiculous, considering how she can take up to a month to reply to my emails. and said that it was freaky cos she was just thinking of me before my email came in! (and its 2:20am) aww. i miss pam.
crashed ser's house today [and harrassed poor seng online haha] and then had dinner w 413 girls plus jane. i wish chris was back! chris where are you, thou hath abandoned me:( anyway.. i think we need another class gathering! i so love my sec 4 class. and the other rg geps of my year. somehow 4 years together in one way or other really created great bonding. nothing in rj comes close. for me, anyway. i wonder wat it'll be like for uni. as in which group holds the strongest bonds. oh well.
alright hopefully i can convince myself to go run tomorrow.. before my mom starts nagging me about my unacceptable weight. and esp after she knows ser is on a diet.. i knew it la.. which is why i didn't want to tell her. now it's "she's on a diet! so should you!" so i was just like i don't care lor. actually i guess i was kind of being perverse. i would try to lose the 2+kg i put on but then i can't be bothered to go and research on calorie values and wat not like our dear ser. so. haha.
sigh i'm so oddly restless now. and out of sorts. where are people when i want to talk to them! grouches. alright i just disturbed a random couple of people to entertain me haha. thankfully tomorrow i'll be out of the house and hopefully less grumpy.
riverdance just played on my itunes! reminded me of the fireworks finale.
how funny. i was just looking for the colorgenics test (cos somehow the original website doesn't work) and this came out after i finished clicking the cubes:
"Whatever it was that has made you so bitterly disappointed has left a nasty taste in your mouth and you feel that 'enough is enough'. You are sick of it all. Wouldn't it just be wonderful if you could retire to a desert island and turn your back on the past?" and the whole escaping thing reminds me of wat i used to (sometimes still do) say in jc and last year when i felt so cooped up.
anyway. oh i just remembered yh's story about darryl and "my senior".. hahaha. that boy will never grow up. so much for calling me a two year old. at least that brought some mirth into my life.. wed will be hilarious i think. and i'll finally get to watch land before time.. i'm so deprived!
how? should i go to paris? and if so, when? there aren't really that many classes to take there.. augh. i need to talk to ruixiong. which means i've to wait till tmr, if i manage to catch him online before i go off and wreck ser's house. haha.
ahhh my pooor feet! actually we didn't walk around that much.. just the latter part of the night. but that was quite enough. heh. i should sleep soon. but anyway.. wat a full day!
got up at like 8:30 (rather unwillingly, i must add - i didn't sleep too well somehow) and then was trying to figure out how to get to NUS on my own, cos my bro took the car to go to work (work! on sat! oh well). but thankfully fiona told me the medicine item started later so could wait for him to get back and my mom gave me a lift.
and when i got to NUS rag.. wow. first time in a long time that i've seen such spirit.. in cheering and stuff. i guess it's been some time since rg house prac. and the dancing was good.. and the music! the floats were pretty cool too really. the hall ones were really pretty.
i am suddenly too tired to blog about the rest of my day. reminiscing sec sch days w anna n yingling were hilariously fun:) and hanging around waiting for fireworks! thanks yh:) i actually wouldn't have stayed and seen them otherwise. and i think i felt less of a restriction talking. i THINK. sometimes i'm so confused. like last night i was thinking about like pri sch and everything and realized that sometimes i dream so vividly and i remember those dreams.. that i can't distinguish between true memories and dream memories. i am such a weird person.
am kinda tired. but oh well yay i finished typing my historian stuff! now to organize it and what not.. tomorrow. days pass so fast. i guess it only takes determination to do watever i want to do. although it doesn't come by all that easily. and discipline!
so i'm ploughing through (okay, it's not that much of a chore, it's kinda interesting but it really shows you how i waste my time) my past blog entries and finding really funny things! and how my writing style has changed. i don't know if i can still write the deadpan sort of way.. I don't even know if that's the correct description. but. ahh. i miss chris. and pam. at least i get to see lyd pretty often for now.
colin reminded me of the madagascar penguins just now (in ref to my msn pic) and i remember enjoying their antics on madagascar so decided to check out quotes on imdb! haha. so cute. i feel like watching madagascar just for the penguins.. shall see if youtube offers anything.
i seem to have nothing to say nowadays. maybe it's the mood. or maybe i think too much.
how queer. i was taking tickle tests for fun and then was taking this one about subconscious mind. and it said my subconscious worries were financial! uncannily spot-on, i think. financial in terms of the amount of $$ spent for today's gathering.. i really should've sent out that email like i intended to. and in terms of not-being-on-scholarship.
[okay that was yesterday and i was too lazy to post]
so i thought today's dinner would be fun. but, somehow, [this i still have trouble believing] i didn't send james the msg [or was unclear in it] and he thought dinner was tmr! super screwed up, after all the trouble to find a common time for 5 pple. ahh watever i should just forget about it. i need to learn to appreciate the present more.
so after that phone call i was like. crap. and then one of them said that i looked so sad already, nevermind. then yf n jh decided i was hard to read. i wonder if that's true/that's good.
wonder if i should go out tomorrow just to watch harvard din n tonics at hilton. too lazy to arrange to meet pple. i should really get off my butt n get stuff done. and that's not just meeting people.
ooh i just found a video file from dischordant's taiwan competition.. clean forgot how fabulous val's voice is.. ahh. -melts- hehe. she should go cut an album. and reggie and krishna too! sigh it's been so long.
[update at 12:14am] yup, i did send the msg and it said "tmr" but that silly boy assumed it was tues so it's not my fault. phew. i wonder if that really bothered me the whole evening. hmm. if it did, then i think it's bcos i sort of pride myself on organizing things/gatherings properly and i don't think i've ever had friends mistake the day. i THINK. oh well it's all over anyway
so.. i'm done with my internship. it's so weird though, i felt a curious sense of loss (or of finality/of ending/sth?) as i walked out of the treasury towards funan [and conveniently forgot to go in and see if the person could replicate my key]. i guess it's been such a routine that i've just gotten used to going to work and all.. and it was weird to think that i'm done, i won't be coming back. and also cos i didn't really do proper goodbyes, being last minute clar, i was doing work right up till the last minute. but i think it's partly cos of the tea session with the deputy secretary (DS).
on a rather tangential note, the word 'deputy' just confuses me thoroughly. i kept wondering if the "deputy head" or the "head" was more important. i guess i just assumed the title with more words should be the more important one, which is wrong. oh well.
so yes, tea session. that must've been the most awkward tea session i've ever been to. not that i've been to many, but there were like 11 of us (including the DS, the HR manager and the corporate dvpt head) sitting around this table with dishes of chicken pie (with a fork! how in the world do you eat polar puff chicken pies with a fork??) and tea. oh wait, i forgot the most important part. sitting in SILENCE because it was so awkward. a relatively formal setting for something which didn't sound in the least formal. and then he started quizzing us, actually i think tianai and probably zhijia got the hardest qns. but maybe tts cos they've been here for 7-8 weeks.
anyhow. ohh sean's and shihua's bday party tonight.. haha i'm really so extra, dunno wat i was doing there when they were all grad students.. but they were nice la, talked to us (as in me n daryl) and everything. and it was good to see sean n wenzheng after soo long. can't believe i'm only seeing them one month after i've been back (and have one month left).
ah and meeting fiona n candice on thurs for lunch was fun too:) although i think maybe it was a bit weird at first.. but then i was so amused, cos they couldn't figure out where funan was and ended up at chijmes! at least lyd knows where funan is:p we had fun talking nonsense although at the last bit i needed to get back to office to do my work. fiona asked me a very interesting question: do americans look at us in the same way that we look at PRCs?
finally i get to sleep at any time i want and wake up anytime i want.. yeahhh the luxury:) but i need to figure out sunday! ahh. things never end.
i have rediscovered my ability to not-put-a-book-down. sort of, anyway. after i finally redeemed my times voucher from last year's college day haha. blink by malcolm gladwell is interesting. the only problem being that it resembles my psych introsem teacher's book quite a bit - i.e. a mix of self-help and psych research written in prose. which, depending on which way you look at it, may turn out to be quite cheesy because each example is, at its core, is an illustration of the same principle in a different situation. and the author's just drumming into you how important his/her point is. or, you can see it as being really true and taking something from it. i guess the former would be the more cynical viewpoint.
it's still kind of interesting though.. and reminded me of one of my goals. which is to take the improvising class at some point. and the book said something interesting about improvising, that each actor accepts anything (and everything) that his/her fellow actors throw out.. no matter how ridiculous it is. so one of the examples was that a doctor wants to amputate a patient's leg. and the patient can either say no (in which the act can't continue, cos options are limited) or the patient can say yes (in which the example went on with the patient saying "but that's the leg u amputated already!"). okay i'm not even sure if it makes sense out of context but it was quite funny..
and i met joanna today. she's so bubbly! reminds me of christine and vivian actually.. they're ridiculously lively. and somehow i managed to catch onto their enthusiasm and be more so while we were at our social events (while pledging). it really does matter, the pple i hang out with. so i need to find more cheerful pple and christians to hang out with.
sometimes i just feel so tired i don't want to talk to people. cos listening and nodding while listening to them gives me such a headache. i wonder if that's just a really rare thing which i notice cos its such a strong feeling at that time, or that it happens really quite often and i don't remember.
alright i must go figure out wat bday presents to buy..
so i can't remember why but i was thinking about how everything, every sort of organized group with a hierarchy is just a large scale version of any student group aka cca.. ah. i think i know why. cos today i was sitting in a meeting and the deputy secretary (DS) was pretty much the president.. and etc. and then my church too.. there're the leaders.. and then those who're involved in planning stuff but not in the leadership, and then the rest of us.
i think i sound incoherent. but i shall try to make some sense. so when i was in choir comm, i realized how the committee members are definitely most engaged and it's always a problem to try and get the rest of the members to be as engaged. and how that plays out in church too, and now in the ministry when the larger problem is the people ie the rest of spore. so it's like just a larger and larger scale. which reminded me of (blimey! my computer screen just went back to the normal colour, hallelujah. okay i shouldn't use words like that in vain.) okay which reminded me of some econ thing i learnt last quarter. to do with sub-game perfect nash equilibrium. and it doesn't even relate that much.. ah nevermind.. too hard to illustrate here.
i'm glad my sneezing fit has subsided. that was kind of painful. time for bed.
i don't know how to curry favour with my now-supervisor (since mine has left to go on holiday augh) when he doesn't even seem like he wants to talk to me! bleah. and the other guy i work with is pretty much as new as i am (okay he's been there for a couple of months, but still) even though he's so much easier to talk to cos he just graduated. okay maybe that doesn't necessarily go together but you know, less of an age diff i guess.
oh today morning's phone conversation was hilarious though, thanks to jh n james for giving me a fun start to the day. first they were scolding me for being late. then they were instigating me to pon work and go for leng's talk and workshop at SMU. anyway, it was still rather amusing. unfortunately when i got to work a lot of things started going wrong.. sigh.
1. I reached the lift at 9:10am. and then the lift doors opened and out walked my boss and the other guy i work with
2. I got into office and you could hear a pin drop. Why? Cos I forgot that there was this event thingy today which started off with breakfast at 8:30 and a talk-thingy in the auditorium at 9:00. so, of course, i was rather late.
at least after that wasn't so bad. until i fell into my half-asleep state on the bus and got off on the wrong bus stop and decided to walk home (2 bus stops). when i decide to do things like that i should make sure i'm in running gear man.. oh well. got home in one piece at least.
so i'm finally getting down to typing out the SEALNet stuff, since jh has accused me of being unreliable (in getting work done on time). and it's such a curious feeling. like reliving those two weeks. sometimes i still question my own motivations. did i really feel that there was meaning in doing the stuff that we did or did i just take it as a holiday with new friends to be made? hm.
anyway, stanford talk at rj today.. was kind of disappointing somehow. i guess cos i remember the fun yale (ervin yeo! ahaha) talk and generally how q&a was pretty fun.. we didn't leave that much time for questions and then no one was really asking at first either so.. dunno la. and i didn't get to see mr chan! grumbles. i shall have to msg him sometime and figure out when to go back and say hello. although it's such a long walk, i'm not even sure it's worth it. haha.
on another note i think i would want to go back to rg.. at least that's the building i studied in. the building does make a difference. like you walk around and think about stuff that you did there. i think one of my "biggest" wishes is to see the inside of the RG staffroom though, i was just thinking about it and i know i always regarded it with great reverence, wondering wat lay behind.
sigh, i don't think i'm being a very good intern. really. the days when i left early to do talks (i.e. today for rj and last wed for vj) i may as well have NOT gone to work, spent the mornings doing up the presentation.. and then if not i'll get super bored and i'll msn a lot. so so bad. esp cos i have just a month, which is good cos its not too long, but i should really not slack so much. but my reasoning is also that there's a limit to how much i can read/think about with regard to prisons and rehab. sigh.
wow i didn't realize experiences was so tiring. after like 10 mins of talking i realized wat a long day it was going to be. but i'm so thankful that the sophomores came.. if not we'd be seriously overworked i think. or actually i guess just less pple get to ask questions or something.. hm.
my goodness.. i'm so last minute it's terrible.. wat kind of president am i being.. augh. rj presentation is driving me nuts. looks like i won't be doing work at work tomorrow again.. augh.