so, it's been a year. actually not really a year, like.. 8 months. yeah it is shorter than a school year in singapore. i had to stop and count. cos it seems like everything went by so quickly. isn't it always the case. actually i think i'm going to do my end-of-freshman-year reflections later. have more pressing concerns.
i think i spent at least 4 hours not doing any studying yesterday! alright i think i sound deranged at this point. but because my finals are bunched up i need to prepare earlier but it's so easy to slack! augh.
how mildly disturbing. i'm so unmotivated:| and yet i know if i don't get my stuff done i'll crash and burn on tues/wed! aahh. :( at least i managed to stop myself from overeating during lunch today. haha i sound like i have a serious problem.
last night my roommate was like "let's watch a movie!" and i'm like -ponder-. uhhhh.... -ponder somemore-.. okayyy. haha. it was fun. i was telling her my theory about actors/actresses (good looks are necessary) and she was like roomie, the truth comes out. but we agreed that it is how the movie industry works. even though there are people who aren't that good looking.
hyperhyperhyper.
okay, so just to clarify: i did cross into my frat, no i did not get cut. heh. realized it wasn't clear after hk was like so u weren't affected by the cut? oops. anyhow. just spent like 2+hrs leading RJ kids on a tour. (heh i've also gotten into the habit of calling pple kids, it's so weird though). it's been a long time since i've seen so many asians. or singaporeans. or people of that age. watever.
it was kinda fun though, being a tour guide. and it was so funny.. we were next to the econ building and a marguerite was passing by so I decided to point it out. and another one came and they were like can we take the bus? so i was like.. oh.. okay sure! haha. and chuan sheng was like it's going to palo alto transit center u noe! but come on, if it's coming down towards the econ building we'll eventually end up back at tresidder.
and then they were clamoring to see my room. i think my roommate would've killed me if i'd let them in haha. but it was still fun.. brought them thru one of the floors of alondra. pity memchu was closed by the time we got there.
um. chi alpha was kind of a farewell. rather depressing. i thought we were done with farewells for a while. actually i don't even remember when was the last time.. maybe when i first came to stanford. or when i was at my brother's graduation. but wow, it's been a year. next year is going to be so different. it's like how devin amol and ed (dormmates) are off in paris/london this quarter. the 3rd floor is different without them. i mean i'm kinda used to it but it definitely isn't as fun as it was. not that i hung out with them that much, but still.
and so, wat it'll be like next year without sean and joel and ruixiong and kevin and wenzheng i don't know. not that i see the last 2 very often, but still.
we just had our last dorm meeting, sort of. they were giving everyone superlative-awards. and mine was "most likely to die by not waking up in an earthquake". cos apparently one time i managed to sleep thru my roommate's alarm clock (i -really- don't know when this was, i must go and ask my PHE). i was like no! the problem is that i can't! but apparently my PHE saw me happily curled up in bed. so i guess i must've been really knocked out.
i've had a pretty crazy week. okay, friday and saturday at any rate. but i'm so glad it's over. and i didn't manage to keep my cool this time, but watever. i still don't really know why i cried but well. and then i had to sit around alone for like 3 hours. thankfully pledge parents were around for a bit, but still. got rather lonely. and then later they transferred me to another room where one of my pledge brothers was, but then said we were still under a vow of silence (and my pledge bro was busy doing something) and i had no work with me so that was kind of bad too. and there were no windows in that room!
okay i don't think that was very coherent. but anyway. so finally we were done (and i must admit to watching mrbrown podcasts while being bored). i think i need a laptop or something man.. but i don't really like using laptops either. dunno. anyhow. um. yeah, then i had to run to the SEALNet thing and then for dinner w akpsi pple. oh it was so symbolic cos they accepted us in the same room where we had our pledge initiation. and everything was pretty similar (except for the missing people) and that 7 weeks have passed since. kind of sentimental.
and the party that night. man, it's the last time i'm doing anything like that.. i had so much trouble finding sosmething (i.e. borrowing from dormmates) something that would match "AKPsin city". ahh. i'm really thankful i managed to escape the drinking-a-shot-with-my-hpac thing, but then i felt like i had to dance instead, which was definitely not a good idea. something my mom is never going to hear about cos i think she'll flip. but i mean i think it was kind of the lesser of two evils since dancing at least i can control, if i'm drunk i wouldn't know wat's going on.
partway i had to go out and walk alone.. one of the sophomores drank so much she was crying and feeling awful and vomitting. i think i saw it before in my dormmate, and i'm just like, why do you want to do things like that to yourself? esp if you know it's going to happen.. and my hpac was so drunk it was scary. apparently took 15 shots in like 5-10mins. which is also why partly i was avoiding him. while some pple are hilarious when drunk (e.g. daniel, pledge bro, who kept hugging each pledge everytime he saw one of us) others are just plain freaky cos you dunno wat they're capable of.
anyway.. enough of that. i slept so much today. actually not really. 4 - 7:30am (had to stay back to clean up partly cos i came late n didn't help set up) and then 10:30 - 11:50am and then 3:45 - 5:45pm. i guess it all adds up to a decent amount of sleep haha. i had a hard decision to make when ruixiong called and said sean was coming to get us for lunch soon. friends n food or sleep? ah well. time to do IHUM paper.
i suddenly decided to read other ppl's blogs. after this crazy quarter.. not that it's ended, but it's definitely winding down (in terms of pledge anyway) and i have a little more time to do my own stuff (i suspect i should be doing pledge stuff but i really need my own time for a while).
and then wat daryl was saying to sean on sunday came back to me. and when i saw hk's blog entry (quite some time ago actually) abt his experience. everyone's journey is so different. daryl was saying he was so uptight about grades and things, related to parents' expectations which actually aren't there. and i was thinking mine was so different, i don't have a problem with working but with getting involved in other stuff (i.e. extracurricular - yup, here they don't call it co-curricular haha). but actually i did still have some of the i-can't-go-out-and-do-fun-stuff-if-not-i-can't-do-my-work mentality.. largely in RGS, then less so in RJ after i got into choir, and then less so in fall quarter, and so it progresses.
i guess we'll have to see for my grades this quarter.. pray that god helps me to prepare well for watever i have left to do.. to salvage my psych, particularly. and ihum. augh. this quarter has been the craziest, yet when i thought about depledging i realized i'll probably stay in my room and not do anything if i didn't have all that stuff to do. we shall see wat happens on saturday though. i have no idea wat i'm going to wear to that party, augh.
yay! i'm in a happy mood today:) let me now think about why i'm happy.. :):):)
1. I got 8 hours of sleep! yippeee~~~
2. I can go to apple HQ next fri! cos we worked out the replacement class! yay!
3. I got my SSN!
4. I hung out with Karen and it was fun!
5. I ate a banana-nutella crepe for "lunch"!
6. I hung out with Jenny too!
7. Visited Daryl! (I'm never visiting him again though, I had to knock 5000000 times before he opened the door and i KNEW he was in there cos there was guitar music)
8. Sold some cards!
9. my econ midterm is over and i think (hope and pray anyway) that i did okay!
10. it's holiday on monday!
11. I got into Lantana, and my dormmates from this year are going there too! (they're such a crazy bunch and half of them are off oversaes this quarter so i'm glad i'll get to see them next year!)
12. i forgot what else. but i'm happy today! yay!!!:):):)
yeah.. the funny thing about Lantana is that when I came here, I was pretty much set on going to Manz next year, then I kinda changed my mind cos I heard it was quiet and anti-social and wat not.. but I think God has given me good things, as always:) it's a nice place, dormmates and chuan sheng are going there, yf'll be in kimball, jon phua in castano, dunno who else.. but it's gonna rock! and i won't be tempted to go to late night and get fat. and it's near all the exercise places so hopefully I'll be more prone to exercising! ahaha. oh but if i go for dance classes it'll be kinda far.. oh well. i know it's gonna be great:)
ohh! and there were fireworks just now! everyone said it's cos the baseball pple did well.. san jose or sth?? have no idea. but it was SO pretty:) so i'm happy!!
well, so that went better than i expected. i guess i wasn't really caring either way (whether i get cut or not) so i was less stressed than most of the rest. so i think. or maybe they just gave me a relatively easier time cos i wasn't head of anything and stuff like that. anyhow. it's so funny, in a way. go in there, apologize for everything, acknowledge mistakes, make fantastic promises. i mean they weren't exactly that fantastic but the way I was making them, it certainly sounded like. heh. everything, yeah, i'll do that. yeah, i'll do that too. in 2 weeks? yeah. okay, if you don't do that by high courts, you'll have to answer for it. okay. fine.
anyway.. i'm on probation. which i suppose, is the least which could have happened. oh well. they keep telling me my hpac (who's the master of rituals and therefore in charge of our pledge class) really likes me/has a high opinion of me. i really don't know why, cos i hardly talked to him to begin with, and the only thing i vaguely remember is him seeing my colourful econ notes and saying he should take classes w me so i can give him my notes. oh and of cos, he thinks all singaporeans are crazily smart (of which i'm not an example, sadly). anyhow, i don't know if i'm hearing correct things or not but it's all rather puzzling. i guess it's nice that other people believe in me given that half the time i don't think about what i can or can't do. alright that doesn't make too much sense. sometimes i wonder if he told me to rush because he was the MOR. blah. sadistic.
on second thoughts, that was so ironic cos we just learnt about social cognition in psych lecture today. attributions, people try to determine why other people (or themselves) do certain things. and psych lecture is a pretty reflective time, i think. somehow. i suppose cos everything that's learnt has been experienced by oneself at one time or other.
yesterday was spring fun un sun! cs decided that we shouldn't call it "un sun" cos un-sun = rain. and yes, rain it did. and our backup plan was like the night before sort of thing.. just switch venue. and had no agenda at all.. i was quite at a loss at to what to do.. thankfully daryl suggested taboo, which was really fun:) and kiat told me we ought to do an intro when enough people come, which was an awfully good idea.. thanks guys! ah. just remembered to send out my thank you email. and i'm so glad the grad students came, must thank all the pple i know whom i believe rallied them to come and all:) sean n xianyi n zhihui n guoming for forwarding the emails.
alright. lazy to write somemore. and i need to do my work. i think i prefer being a student and doing hw than doing all these business things.
alright. i decided i'm going to just accept whatever happens on saturday.. if i get cut i guess i just wasn't meant to be in a frat and it's God's way of telling me that. if i stay i'll have to be more outspoken and whatever.. am trying anyhow. so, we shall see.
i am so tired of waking up and feeling like i have so much akpsi stuff to do. well actually i didn't really feel like that today cos i just wasn't thinking about it too much, thankfully. and i just want to get enough sleep for once, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon. at least not until after i finish pledging or get cut. haha.
it's kind of weird, apparently some of my bros don't like this active (girl) who used to be jesley's roommate. cos she says mean things sometimes. i dunno la. sometimes i wonder if i misinterpret things/am over-sensitive. and i really need to sleep. and i havent' done my psych reading for tmr. so so busy. i hope sunday's spring fun un sun thing goes well man.. need to pray hard.
and my IHUM paper grade was the suckiest i've had since fall quarter, which is amazing. i don't believe this paper was worse than the first one i wrote. i should've changed TF while i had the chance. but it's always easy to blame everyone/everything other than yrself. so i dunno. and i did feel more bo-chap about this paper. but still. and his comments were most unconstructive.
alright i guess i'm starting to sound/feel a little hateful so i had better go to bed. gnite. oh and i don't know what to do about my summer now, i guess it was pretty nicely planned out at first but now cos of the thailand thing.. dunno. augh.
as usual, this is not my ideal sleeping time. maybe i'm just not cut out for this man.. i feel like just saying that's my nature, i should just give up. but i can't. or should i? today's meeting was like mid-quarter evaluation. and i'm one of the weaker pledges. well given that 1/2 the pledge class is under that category i guess that's not that such a huge deal but it still is. and my problems are that 1. i don't talk enough (surprise surprise) 2. i don't initiate enough times/am not loud enough about them.
and then given that everyone just got evaluated, everyone's going to be rushing to do stuff and watever. how is that going to work? ahh.. i dunno. about individual and about the group. very confusing and very conflicting sometimes. reminds me of last quarter's ihum prof.. his favourite phrase : dialectical tension between X and Y. how true.
interestingly enough last night i was sort of like (for a little moment) observing myself from outside of myself. seeing bubbly people around chatting can induce me to put on that "skin" and imitate them. sort of. at least i think that's what i was doing during part of formal anyhow. but normally i'm lazy to do that. or am not inspired. wat kind of lousy excuse is that right..
i find that's something i've struggled with all my life though. my mom kept telling me that i must speak up & blah blah blah in primary sch so much so that i dreaded those progress reports cos they'd inevitably contain "quiet" and "passive", which ironically, still did come up just now. looks like some things never change. and then when i took mbti tests i'd be putting all the "correct" answers to convince myself i was extroverted. i suppose i did feel excited about meeting people in like sec 1 and all, but things changed.
don't know if i'm supposed to be trying to change myself (after all, that is what my parents are paying good money for) or if i should be figuring out that i'm not cut out for this and therefore should stop wasting my time.
anyway.. i guess i'll have to figure out wat to do quick cos midcourts is on saturday. apparently it's pretty hellish. and people get cut after that. so wish me luck.
i'm so tired of waking up and feeling like i have so much stuff to do. i.e. i wake up with a sinking feeling. actually i guess it was most acute today. and it usually wears off. but still. i also think this actually happens at some point every year (or quarter? or every term while still in spore). maybe it's just because of pledge stuff though, it's never ending. like dennis (my dormmate, also pledging) said, you think you've reached a milestone and you can relax, but no. something else comes up. i think this is why pure-school is simpler, you just learn ur stuff and do ur homework (and you normally still have time to slack).
right, i probably should be catching up on my lost sleep. but my mom just talked to me and told me about "ground-breaking news" at church. hehe. anyhow, now that I'm here, it all seems so silly and pointless. they're arguing about holy spirit doctrine and whether to persecute the guy who taught something contrary to the church's beliefs. i'm like, you allowed him to teach in the first place, wat is the problem? and anyway i think our church has more of a problem with other stuff rather than doctrines of the holy spirit. seriously. unless it was just me not totally assimilating into church.
honestly, church back home is quite devoid of emotion. which i now believe makes a difference, to say the least. our worship is forever so solemn and wat not. i'm still not very comfortable with the idea of worship as being similar to a pop concert but worship doesn't have to be all hymns. i guess that's also a rather superficial complaint, since we're supposed to worship in spirit and in truth no matter the song. anyhow. yeah. i think i agree with my dad now, that they're getting bothered over tiny things when there're problems with the bigger things (i.e. seeking God).
although I think while I stayed in Singapore I would never have gone to other churches, I was too indoctrinated by my church that I was convinced that going to other churches was wrong. oh and apparently one of the sisters back home came to SF for holiday and went to the Airport Church of Christ (which is doctrinally closer to church back home, as compared to Campbell COC which is the one that me n sean go to [when sean's around]). and then the preacher told her to persuade me to go back to the airport one.. hah.
oh and my mom was complaining, it was mother's day and they held this meeting about the holy spirit thing right, and only men were allowed in the meeting (they stick very closely to the "women should not speak in church"-thing). honestly, that's just so silly. i guess i didn't feel so strongly about it when i was still at home. but after i've seen how equality plays out here, it's kind of different.
anyhow. on a separate note. i think daryl's right. one always needs time to reflect. i think i also partially understand why tapiwa wanted us to keep a journal of the pledge process. cos before starting he told me i'd find out a lot about myself. another guy depledged before formal. man, i really hope people don't get cut. and it's so annoying they keep saying you know who you are (in trouble) and we all start getting paranoid.
i guess i need to sleep now, will blog more tmr maybe
my roommate just told me that someone in sleep and dreams (famous class taught by dr william dement) last quarter told her that after three days of sleep deprivation, you're legally drunk. well then, i must be falling into that category cos i slept from 12 - 5am today, from 6 - 9:30am yesterday, and 5 - 9:30am the day before. although i still feel quite sane. i think. definitely need sanity for psych midterm later, can't afford another crappy grade.
so, i slept at 5am on tues night (more like wed morning) doing the fundraising card design. photoshop can be so annoying. actually, anything can.
6am on wed night doing video for formal tonight. honestly, you don't know how long it takes to edit videos until you actually do it. i was wondering why my pledge bro was taking so long with it, then when i actually got to doing it, i'm like. OH.
last night, i decided at midnight that i was too zoned out to be reading anything and went to bed. only to receive a call from one of my pledge bros at 2:12am asking me who was doing the editing, saying that the other pple who were supposed to do editing were doing psets/drunk(?!)/asleep. i was like.. u can't be serious. and half an hour later the supposedly-drunk guy was asking me if I knew how to contact the asleep-guy cos apparently he had the laptop and he wasn't answering his phone. right.. so wat do you expect me to do.. i wonder how sane any of us were, actually. guess i'll find out later.
also i spent 2 hours trying to transfer 6.25GB of iMovie from my mac to a laptop. I need to take some comp classes man.. augh. until my RCC came and saved me. cos I thought the laptop couldn't do filesharing or something. ah well. at least now I know. yay for steve, he's saved me so many times I don't know what to say~
aughh. i really shouldn't have scheduled THREE psych expts for today.. i must've been mad. the 2 hour one was so tiring.. i actually got quite a shock when i walked in and saw her fiddling around with so many wires/electrodes/sensors. and it took an awfully long time to set up everyth and then actually do the expt, which consisted of me watching silly video clips and regulating my amusement level, which in itself is also taxing. i mean, if you're watching things which aren't funny but you've to somehow find them funny.. man. and i thought i would be getting some amusement out of it.. i need to go watch "kids say the darndest things". ah. maybe i should d/l an episode to improve my mood. but after that i'll realize i'd have wasted time on that. aughhh. ooh i just found a website with silly quotes. yay:)
i really don't know what i spent my last week doing, given that i didn't have anything else much. the load of psych and ihum reading i have right now is amazing. i think i need like ten replicas of myself to be able to finish everything... and the worst of it is that when i'm stressed (and in my room), i eat. and then if i eat, i get fat. and then if i get fat, i get angry w myself. and so the cycle goes.. i should do something else instead of eat actually. like go play tennis and whack balls against the wall.. hm.
oh sean n joel were so sweet. bought me the koala version of hello panda (which actually, at first, i was convinced wasn't as gd, but now am persuaded otherwise.) sigh wat will we do without them next year.. as it is they're hardly around at the same time anymore heh.. senioritis-ed seniors.. -shakes head-
on a saturday night, when i know i should be doing work but don't feel like it, this is what i end up doing. haha. am so confused. maybe not confused. more like my head is so full of things i wish i could be like dumbledore and use a pensieve. it would definitely make things easier, that's wat magic is for. haha.
still wondering if i fit into this pledge thing. everyone else seems to be so creative and etc and i'm just like ooh that sounds great, however did you come up with that. maybe i'm meant to learn though. hopefully. i also feel like i'm not doing enough, which means i'm going to be getting into trouble during midcourts. hmm. better go do some video-editing or something i guess. if i can get the films to begin with.
nowadays i'm so lazy to write a proper diary. get annoyed with my slow writing. isn't that sad.. ooh adium has nice backgrounds! i like adium:) hehe
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.