ahhh! stupid PWR has destroyed my ability to write a proper paper. after writing my script for the past two weeks now i keep wanting to write informally and that is so not going to work! -tears hair out- okay. shh. it'll be okay. just a bit frustrating..
Something I just randomly remembered while thinking of church. Last night, Leng was speaking (he's one of the professionals who helped to found SEALNet) and he told us to remember 3 things when we were on our projects this summer: commitment to faith, commitment to hope, commitment to love.
Ididn't realize it at first, but when he repeated them at the end of his speech, I recognized it.
1 Cor 13:13 "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
the universal truth.
SUCH a long day.. of akpsi and in-house draw and sealnet. and feeling very drained and feeling like i didn't want to be places. i'm glad i came back and caught sean online! improved my mood by a lot, definitely. googletalk is quite phenomenal. haha. althought really, it's because of sealnet pple that i'm using it that much now. the new IM...
anyway in house draw was so dramatic.. but i thank God for his blessings because we got a TERRIBLE in-house draw number so we were one of the last few rising juniors to draw. so the way in-house draw works is this: you're assigned to a house, right. then there's in-house draw to determine which room you get. and it's another lottery thing (ie the equivalent of picking a random number out of a hat) and the lowest number gets to choose first. but usually in-house draw goes by seniority then by draw number (i.e. rising seniors with the lowest numbers get to pick first and so on..)
yup so there're like 8 doubles in this house for us to pick from right. and i think 6 pairs went before us.. and dayoung (my nxt yr roommate) was totally freaking out about us getting a horrible room. and i'm like seriously, it's not like you can do anything about it at the moment.. plus i'd been praying for a good room so i was pretty sure God would give us the best, and He did give us our 1st choice!
it was pretty crazy.. cos we had quite a lot of criteria -
* 2nd floor (cos 3rd floor is too hot)
* on the non-frat side of the house (there's a rather loud frat next to my house so if we'd ended up on that side.. the music would be that much louder)
* decent-sized room (although i think we may have been slightly deceived about the room size because of the way the current occupants utilized the space)
and we got the room we wanted! really praise God for his faithfulness. it was rather interesting cos i was sitting there staring at the floor plan thing "seeing" our names written into the room we wanted and hoping that other people would choose other rooms, and they did! very amazing. and dayoung was so relieved. haha.
anyway yeah, that's my amazing story for the day. but also rather nerve-wrecking. cos even while i'm sure God will always give us the best, sometimes what He thinks best isn't what we think is best so i didn't know what the deal was.. but yay! haha.
at this point i just received my TA's comments on my psych paper due monday which i have not really started on. a bit freaked out. but i have faith.
The Tale of Three Vaden Visits (Thurs, May 31)
(vaden's the name of our health center, which is notoriously unhelpful to poor sick students)
background info: last thurs my right thigh started hurting mysteriously, followed by a long bruise stretching till my knee. and then i started limping. (reminiscent of when i hurt my left hip during winter cos of snowboarding...)
and this is the detailed timetable that i sent to my mom, updating her on my adventures for thursday. it was definitely too eventful for my liking, even though i got my wish of not going for 2 classes (be careful what you wish for!)
11am went to see doc about my leg. She says probably trauma, like lunging during tennis or something.. So take ibuprofen and ice my knee (to reduce swelling/pain)
So I got the ibuprofen from the pharmacy and took the tablets during lunch and then iced my knee after
1pm went for psych section, everyth’s fine, leg’s feeling a little better
2pm go to library, sitting around checking email and stuff..
2:30pm right eye suddenly starts itching
2:40pm itching increases, can feel some swelling
2:50pm swelling is getting QUITE bad (and at this point I was emailing jackie about being bored etc and she was replying pretty instantly so she was like go to vaden now, wat if it’s conjunctivitis! - but I said I must wait till my introsem starts so I can go tell the prof exactly why I can’t go to class)
3:10pm look for prof, he stares at my eye and says yes, I should go check it up
3:20pm ask for emergency appointment at vaden (at this point right eye is rather rather puffed up n I’m looking like a freak)
3:30pm nurse gives me benadril (sp??) and says it’s probably an allergic reaction, take the medicine and come back later to check up.. The antihistamine will make me a lil drowsy (and I’m thinking that’s just fine, I’m not going to class anyway)
3:40pm ice the eye, take the pill, fall asleep (leg’s feeling better but now my left eye starts itching a bit)
5:55pm get up (I don’t know how come I didn’t hear my alarm at 5:45 but oh well) go to vaden, see doctor, who says they don’t know what’s the cause but for now I’m allergic to ibuprofen.. Prescribes me some antihistamine which is non-drowsy and recommends that I go to longs drugs and get it asap (cos the vaden pharmacy is closed)
7:00pm reach town & country (where longs drugs is – took the marguerite shuttle) and go get the prescription.. They say it’ll take 10-20mins so I go get dinner
7:30pm the pharmacist tells me my insurance card is insufficient cos they dunno who to charge the medicine to.. And I have no idea what’s happening. And then she says they can only call them up tmr (since you know, it’s after office hours). And that it’s $88!!! When I see that I’m like okay.. I really don’t think I need the medicine that badly. And if I really need it I can just get it from Vaden tmr.. So I took back the prescription and skipped getting the drug. (and the pharmacist said claritine is ok too but I couldn’t be bothered..)
anyway, end of long story: eyes are pretty much back to normal (yay), leg still hurts a bit, been icing it, that should help. i should've taken chuansheng's advice n not taken ibuprofen -_- oh well. and colin asked me something interesting - 'do you not like to be taken care of/dependent on someone else?' (because i didn't want to ask anyone to drive me to longs to get the drug) i guess that's kind of true though, i probably have more to say about that but later.. too tired...
so anyhow, i had to blog about this before i forgot. SPEED DEMONS!!!! yesterday night, i was out with akpsi pple at a rather unearthly hour (in my opinion, on a schoolday night), and we were driving at 80mph down el camino real (which is really a 40-45mph road). haha. it was CRAZYYYYY. i also need to tell jackie about this later.
little explanation: my co-sib is chun kai - who happens to be from philippines/taiwan and is currently a senior who's taking very slack classes cos it's his last quarter. he drives RIDICULOUSLY. he hurtles around everywhere (in a manual car, no less) but still, surprisingly, manages to be quite safe.
oh, one of his ways to cut down driving time - when the light turns red and there's an intersecting road, turn right, do a quick U-turn and turn right again and you get out onto the road! this has to be seen to be believed.. he did this last night and my lil sib sabrina was like "u totally just wiggled!" (like off the main road and on again).
i still remember when we went to get gelato for our lil sib and he was eating with one hand while driving (A MANUAL CAR!!!) with one hand. man. and apparently last night he drove from castro to stanford in like 9 mins (the journey normally takes maybe 20mins at a normal speed i.e. keeping to the speed limit).
anyway, so his roommate jon chang (the two of them are really cute & funny) has this really powerful sports cars (its a subaru something or other with a turbocharger and dunno wat else haha reminds me somewhat of jon goh & his eclipse) anyway... so jon was driving last night as well and they decided to race along el camino!
apparently chun kai's car is quite lousy as compared to jon's car but we were racing anyway.. super thrilling. but of course, really not a very good thing to do. and i think they kept slowing down to check for cops. haha. it was ridiculously crazy though..
yeah so last night we had this akpsi big sib-lil sib thing, which i was at first really reluctant to go for cos i really have lots of work to do and all, but i went cos i felt it was my duty to. but it ended up a LOT of fun, we definitely need more social events like that. and so i'm happy:)
daryl's talent is amazing. http://www.upok.net/triskaidekaphobe/TheHeartbeatOfGod/
i really don't know how he managed to come up with the entire song - vocals, backup, the 16+ instruments (or even more? haha). well given it did take a few months to complete.. but still.
actually through fellowship i really see how amazing people's musical talents are.. christina, sicheng, colin, lindsey. i guess it just got brought back to me at chi alpha on wed nights and praise night and yesterday at adelene's house.
anyhow, very glad i got to meet silly ser today.. she definitely says a lot more silly things than i do. >< wish our school was over and i can chill! sigh. really i'm so slack it's shameful.. ser was like "it it were 2 weeks to finals i'd be freaking out already!" and i'm like nyah.. two weeks.. hm. well. they are on semester.. -shrug- i will survive. :p
yay for watching pirates yesterday! although i realized it is a VERY bad idea to have 3 groups of friends there cos obviously i won't get to talk to all of them. anyhow. i didn't even know it was 2h45! that was quite crazy.. stuffed so much into it. but yay for jack sparrow:) and the maelstrom scene was cool:p
my cultural psych class has destroyed the way i look at things now. everytime i see ads/listen to songs/something and it reflects the concept of individualism/believing in yourself/american dream-ish stuff, my mind automatically tells me that's the european-american cultural model playing out right there and i'm like ugh! no! i don't WANT to think about it! eek. right now it's christina aguilera's "voice within" and it says "when there's no one else, look inside yourself". anyway. yes, i feel like it has destroyed my worldview. ignorance is bliss sometimes, really.
anyway my housing for next year is going to be rather interesting. so since we got a pretty good number, we wanted to stay in a row house (better location, food, community feel, but coed bathrooms and less singles/2-room doubles unless you pick the correct places). to summarize: we ended up in this row house which has a GREAT location and great food and everything.. but has 1 room doubles only. sigh! haha. and we thought we weren't going to get in cos this is a bio-themed dorm, meaning a lot of pple can apply to be priority residents (and participaate in the bio-themed events) and most of the priority pple were girls.
I really think I forgot just how heavy a 20-unit courseload is. seriously. after last quarter. I mean I was recruiting and CS106A (java programming) was driving me nuts, but I think I had much less class time and quite a bit of time to slack around and read books. now it's a struggle to finish my work on time and juggle SEALNet stuff and be able to sleep enough and celebrate pple's bdays (i only mention the last cos the past two nights i've been over at wilbur to watch pple get thrown in the shower. haha.)
and I don't even know how come SEALNet takes up so much time. how do other people handle so many clubs n stuff? man. oh well. it's not other people we're talking about anyway, it's you. and i guess everything in SEALNet is a challenge. coming up with curriculums, getting people involved, evaluation matrices, ..... ahhh. anyhow I am so looking forward to this weekend.. long weekend and ser'll be here! haha i want her to meet so many people it's crazy. probably not going to happen but i guess we'll see..
stupid 9am classes. seriously, i think i'm going to pick classes such that i NEVER EVER AGAIN have to get up so frickin early to go to class.. hope that's possible. so much for being naive and idealistic and thinking yay! spring = nice weather so it won't be so hard to get up! somehow 9am class just gives very little leeway for doing last min work. haha. as bad as it sounds. though technically it shouldn't.. oh i don't know. weird. ok back to silly pwr. i really need a better attitude towards my classes, but 3 weeks ago i was already a little bored with them!
i really should go to bed cos i have to get up to go to church tomorrow. but i feel oddly pensive. maybe cos it's been a slightly crazy weekend so far and ...
i did NO work today. seriously, like, NO work AT ALL. ah well. got up at 930 cos i had to return the DVD for psych class (we had to watch this movie about native americans and it was on reserve at the library but they let me check it out overnight cos i checked it out 1.5hrs before closing and usually the limit is 3 hrs). and then i met grace & co and hannah & bf and gave them a tour (w wangning).
lunch at cheesecake - sooo full! i must really learn to eat less. and the apple crisp was too nutty for my liking, i thought it was going to be more ilke the crumbly stuff. ah well. and the two guys.. manjun (sp??) and timothy.. eat so much! pretty unbelievable.. they just kept on clearing plates. like stuff i/other pple couldn't finish, they'd just polish it off without much problem.
after lunch i decided i was too full and went to bed. and then i got up in time to prepare for jerry's special dinner which dayoung invited me to and had good food again.
preparing was fun though, jackie had this fantastic idea of getting me to bring a cardboard dog along (we were supposed to dress for the theme and the theme was fairytale so i was dorothy fr wizard of oz). but we didn't have cardboard so we printed out a pic of toto (the dog) from wikipedia and tied it onto jackie's stuffed moose/reindeer toy. it was hilarious:p had a lot of fun.. oh and i borrowed jackie's red shoes. sigh. wat will i do without jackie next year! -makes note to sleepover very often-
anyway after dinner (and i had this ice cream-cookie crumb dessert thing, fat fat fat) dayoung suggested going to the testimony show and i was like ok! (Testimony = christian a cappella grp). they were okay but talisman is so much better still.. i'm so biased. ah well.
and then we went straight to watch shrek. which was okay, i think the parodies weren't as funny. or maybe cos i heard beforehand that it wasn't that good so my perception was tainted (similarly for spiderman, but i never really cared for spiderman so that's probably not too valid). i hope pirates 3 is MUCH better. baaa.
ok now i think i shall sleep.
get up, bum around, walk around, eat, sleep, eat, watch acappella show, watch movie. such a bad example, please never do this.
man. yay for staying up to do PWR, at least i have company online. haha. just now cs was up, kiat's up too (cos we're pretty much in the same boat, except that i'm not really rewriting my entire paper, which is nice). and also I really thank God for Jackie, she's probably saved my ass countless times (with regard to having to wake up to do work and not waking up cos I'm too tired/have no more willpower). haha. I can't remember if Tomi did that for me last year, if she didn't it's probably cos I had less trouble getting up I think. but I know I had to go over and poke her sometimes cos she'd have to get up to study and such. us poor college kids!
anyway i suddenly crave fishball noodles. the ones that we used to have wayy back in pri school. yellow noodles and fishball/fishcake! yum. sigh. anyway here's a pic, doesn't really look the same but it's the closest i guess. 
oh and zhixiu the silly giraffe is here! how fun. i think i should be able to get to see him on wed.. hopefully. tmr (or today, really) is ridiculously busy. after pwr i have to come back and work on my music introsem presentation, then my art midterm proj (i'm drawing llamas! haha)
okok my goal is to finish this at 7 (i.e. in 3.5 hrs time) so i can get another 2 hrs of sleep, we'll see. blaaah.
i don't really know what induced me to take on this happy mode of oh-i'm-not-going-to-sleep-on-mon-night-and-write-my-pwr-draft, but it was definitely a BAD idea. man. it was so torturous to sit in class on Tuesday I really wanted to die. Thankfully I came back after introsem and took a nap (which extended past what it was supposed to). My alarm rang at 6pm but I turned it off and only awoke when Jackie asked me "Aren't you supposed to be in class?" and it was 7:40pm. ah well. (my art class is from 7 to 9 pm). and then I was like crap! My longstanding fear of sleeping thru my phone alarm and missing class has come true! eek. but then I figured my body just wouldn't take it (and I really felt very weak, hence the 'flopping around like a jellyfish' part of my nickname on msn/googletalk.
so i gave up and slept 9 hrs last night. yay! but today somehow still kinda tired. and it's going to be a long night. well i guess not THAT bad but given that it's already 1am and I need to put together a decent introsem presentation in case I -do- have to present tomorrow, a peer review (which shouldn't be TOO bad since I've already read Janet's paper), figure out leadership curriculum stuff, response to my Psych reading. oh great. that's the list.
anyway I screwed up my econ midterm. but at least my draw number was good! 338! yayy! maybe we can go on a row house or something.. not sure yet. anyway the housing draw is like a lottery.
1. you form a group (of people you wanna live/room with)
2. you submit your application online
3. they assign you a number
4. according to your number you choose where you want to live
5. they assign you your residence
6. you go for in-house draw (to pick exactly which room you get)
you have 2 preferred years - meaning that you get lower numbers and hence better housing preferences. the numbers for draw range from 1 to 3000. 1 to 1999 = preferred, 2000 - 3000 = un-preferred. and if you get '1' you pretty much can choose to live anywhere.. of course there're more desirable residences depending on wat u're looking for. row houses are the party places but they have better food (but also smaller windows for mealtimes) other places are less social/more quiet (ie my current dorm) etc
anyway we got 338! which is pretty good:) and i was very happy cos i was praying that we'd get a good number, couldn't face having to live in horrible places. and comparing that with my lousy econ (which was really my fault anyway), i think God was trying to teach me that some things I still can make up for (i.e. i NEED to work on that financial econ class, the irony) and sometimes i need a wake-up call, but other things he'll bless me as he sees fit. like draw numbers which i have no power over! yay. well i suppose that might be stretching it a little but given the range of emotions i went thru (angry/annoyed/sad/despondent abt my econ to ecstatic about housing) it just came to mind.
okay. work. work work work.
why is it that i always feel bad after home calls. or certain sealnet meetings. i guess they remind me of things i want to forget but shouldn't be forgetting. hm. and then after that i'm rather unhappy with the state of things but i don't want to be. man this is complicated. nevermind.. go and study.
hmm. this is rather sad. just now jon was asking me whether i'd decided when i'm going home and that i should go home earlier. besides the obvious fact that i still have school, i suddenly had no inclination to go home! which is a little peculiar cos i think usually at least the food will be some sort of an incentive. or seeing my family or friends. (and you see how food comes first, i'm such a bad person). i wonder. if this is a start of being distanced from home. i was like right now 17 hr flights don't seem particularly desirable.
haha. i'm in another one of my crazy moods. i just told jackie i want to bring some piglets to pwr class tmr instead of my 2 written responses to my research sources. then i'd throw them around and people will scream! haha. man. i think next year dayoung is going to think i'm nuts if i do that to her.. we'll see.
quote of the day. i slept from 11:30ish to 4am cos i was too tired but i still had pset + paper to write. (and it also doesn't help that jon called me up at like 11:40 and i was so puzzled and, as usual, wondering if it was time to get up already) so i was online at 6:30am and my brother IMed me and asked "why're you up so early? trying to beat the breakfast line?" haha. i love my bro. he's such a silly pig.
augh! i'm so bad at making decisions. like, seriously. :( even the simplest things.. so many things to consider. first housing.. rooming w jackie has been really fun, but it would be nice to try rooming w dayoung too.. and then off campus vs on campus and whether we'll get a good number.. okay that part is really out of my hands. but then i realized how bad unpreferred is... heh.
and then now both akpsi and sealnet have spiderman3 outings. i think i ought to go for the akpsi one just because.. but it's on friday and i know i'll be really tired out on fri by windsurfing heh. and sealnet's is free!! haha. and i kind of already know it'll be more fun, but it IS on sun and i have a 9am midterm on mon. i guess precisely because i know i should get to know my akpsi pple better this is somewhat of a problem. and the timing. aaahh. see! simple things!
maybe it'll be easier if i think in the indian cultural model - dharma! moral obligation. hahaha. yay for cultural psych.
alright i really need to do my pwr paper. it's so hard to find books on cirque du soleil though. hm.
i am so tired!!! i don't even know why, i think it's psychological or something. i've had 5 hours of sleep and it isn't really that bad, so that's why i say it's psychological!! bah. so tired.
it seemed almost prophetic that bible study was about servant leadership and my meeting later was about leadership. not that it really helped though, i was still trying to figure out draw cos i don't think i'm going to go to oxford anymore. i'm kind of glad i know, although i was a little bummed about it cos it would've been nice to go. but i think #15 on the waitlist isn't particularly hopeful, so i'll just get on with my life:)
psych pretty much screwed me over, i think i suck at psych exams >.< i don't want another A- for psych! grumbles. last year it was cos i was pledging but this quarter... can't be. okay sleep. and get up early to do pwr.
i am frazzled. haha. that is the word of the day. and last night. and probably tonight. and tomorrow night. there you go. i did think i did work this weekend! i need to learn to skim my psych articles more efficiently. or actually, take notes WHILE reading them. bah. after 1 2/3 yrs of stanford education, i still haven't mastered that. -shakes head-
and when i'm stressed i EAT. how horrible. at least i have tennis plus windsurfing to keep me in shape (or give me a shape, haha). although i skipped today cos as i proclaimed to jackie last night, i decided studying is more impt than going for tennis! -triumphant- haha.
i really don't think the midterm can be that bad (or so i hope), but after that lousy first paper grade i feel like i NEED to do something about it. so i sat down on my bed and prayed. for strength, for understanding, for wisdom, for guidance in studying, for support to survive and manage everything. yay bible study tonight! :) although actually yesterday while in church i was still thinking about whether i should just borrow cars and drive to my own church when my ride's not around. as much as it's really nice to go to church w the sporean bunch, i don't really like the worship there. too rock-ish for my comfort i think.
okay it's been more than 5mins. last stretch of studying! haha and this when other people have finished their semester/are having finals/will be having finals. the irony.
okay i really should be reading my econ now but i'll get back to it later. cos this was something i wanted to blog about for a while but i kept forgetting!
i can't believe the (sch) year's almost over! :( it doesn't even seem like i accomplished what i wanted to. although i don't really think i had new year's resolutions. and 07 pple are graduating and 08 people are going to be seniors and we're gonna be juniors:| i'm not all that close to 07 pple so doesn't really matter to me as much. but then realizing that the a*star scholars of my batch (cs & jon) are gonna be leaving after next year and the juniors too (yf, jh, shineik, cat, steph, ...) so tragic! well at least ser should be coming so that will be fun:) and there'll still be 09ers around.. although i think more than half the people are going to be abroad at one point or another, not that i see them that often anyway.
and it still doesn't seem like i've found my niche/i've that much of a better idea of what i wanna do. sighh. how perplexing. oh and this random sporean added me on facebook and i had no idea why he'd added me until i realized he's stanford '11. haha. oops. aw little freshmen coming in, but we're all getting old!!! aaah.
a little out of sorts and don't feel like doing any work. it's been a long week. but i say that every week huh... heh. it's an awful feeling to go to class and not want to be there.. but somehow my initial excitement-about-classes has died off as the quarter progresses. which is really really sad!
i really hope that God shows me what it is that He has planned for me for next fall. well, actually, summer is kind of more important in a way. yup, summer would be nice. and then fall too. :| ahhh. anyway yes, what i'm going to end up doing during summer???! that dbs test thing was disconcerting. ugh. and fall, was I meant to go to oxford after all or stay back here? both ways I'm sure I'll still have a good time.. but then if I don't go I need to think about draw and that's always a tricky thing. augh. also given that it's nonpriority and nonpreferred. unless I staff next year? hmm. anyway if I need to draw I don't know who I should room/draw with.
weekend! more and more meetings and midterms coming up. oh i think i just need to sleep.. haha. the panacea to all ills. all MY ills, so it seems anyway. yay for borrowing pearline's wetsuit so I won't freeze in the water tmr! :)
albeit my lousy grade for my 2pg written-in-2-hrs-the-day-it-was-due psych paper, this class is really very interesting. so while the prof was lecturing on chinese cultural models today (i fell asleep for a while, but that's besides the point) and it suddenly dawned on me that it isn't necessarily wrong to be collectivist. it seems (to me, at least) that singapore is busy trying to get us all to be more unique and to stand out and be different, complaining that we're all coming out of one mould at the moment and that's bad. but maybe that's cos of the cultural context we come from, that harmony is important and being part of a whole, rather than standing out by doing your own thing, as they call it.
anyhow, i don't even know if that makes sense but i know i always feel the pressure to be different from other people, to find something that distinguishes me. and i suppose that might help me form my identity but really, sometimes it's just stressful. i think in general i've always been very afraid of doing something 'wrong', whether it's not-speaking-up, or speaking-up-and-saying-something-stupid, or not being able to define myself for interviews, or even now during art class, when i don't really know what the teacher's asking for but you can't really be WRONG in art cos it's whatever you want it to be/make out of it. which is kind of nice i guess. the freedom.