i had the weirdest dream last night. and i am also quite sure that i've had a similar dream before. i.e. having to catch a flight to SF (i.e. go back to stanford) and having not packed in advance. maybe it's a phobia of packing now, after that crazy night before coming home for summer.
anyway.. so i think i was thinking about it before i fell asleep and realized that i conveniently forget the times when i felt unutterably lonely during the year (i.e. missing my girl friends). and then i was wondering why that happened there but not here, even though i don't see my friends all the time although i'm in spore too. so i decided that it's cos here i can still randomly msg pple and they'll reply. or something like that. maybe i need more better friends at stanford hm.
which leads me to my next point. i think i'm falling into the trap that i've tried so hard to avoid. i've always made it a point to mean what i say, instead of just saying something that sounds nice and accepted and blah.. but then when people keep asking me "how's stanford?" it's so easy to just smile and say it's fun, it's great, ... the formulaic answer that i trot out whenever the same question comes. but then again it's also kinda ridiculous to go into great detail about how some parts are good and some aren't. or maybe that's called making conversation. i don't know. i guess i'm just too lazy to say so much.
but it also tells me that i haven't really thought properly about my year. i am really glad for the month before i go back. work really leaves you with no time to do anything. at least if u go to school (i.e. college) u can arrange ur classe so u have free days or days which start at 11 or something. but man, i'm almost halfway thru my internship.. need to stop slacking. but there is a limit as to how much one can read at once.
so, i think today marks the first time for a lot of things. the first time i'm early for work (imagine that! that is seriously amazing, especially given the time i got back home last night). the first time i spent SO much time slacking at work (okay it's just the 2nd week but still). the first time i came home for dinner (also in two weeks). sigh i miss my 20inch screen.
anyway. yeah. while on the bus home i was a very hungry and angry pig. 15mins to wait for a stupid bus! 171 is the bane of my life. and then like 1h journey to get home cos its peak hour and etc! unbelievably torturous sitting in a slow-moving, crowded bus while getting rather hungry. at least i did have a seat though, if not i'd be in an even worse mood.
but then today was one of the very rare times my mom cooked. and she cooked stuff i like so i guess it was sort of worth it. oh and it was so funny, i wearily (due to the lack of food and a very long and boring day at work) plodded up the stairs to the carpark and then saw this car trying to park. and then i decided it looked like our car (my brother was driving today, thus the necessity for us all to take the bus back) so i stood and watched. hehe. that silly pig.
this is what we spent 1 hour doing last friday after lunch.. 
guys at the back (left to right): weiye (Imperial), beng kheng (nus), eng kheng (nus), samrat (upenn), anand (LSE)
girls: shamantha (nus), jiunwen (jh's sis! going northwestern for phd), xinying (Imperial), tianai (coming to stanford for masters!), liyuan (nus), me, zhijia (LSE)
right actually now i can't remember if they're all from LSE or just from UK.. oops. [ah, I realized that weiye n xinying are frm Imperial:] but yeah, i'm the youngest. leetle clarissa. all of them are either going on to 3rd/4th year. and why everyone thinks i look like a lost puppy is a mystery to me. but then if i can gain sympathy with that i guess it's not necessarily a bad thing either huh? hah.
yay i finally have my jacket.. and i think it looks good! i wonder wat jason has been up to in thailand.. my partner in crime. haha. yf n jh were really nice about taking 171 home w me yesterday! heh. poor yf took like twice the normal time to get home i think. n jh had to change bus. actually it was quite funny, so he had to get off at the stop before 6th ave and it was pretty dark and he was like i'm scared (or something to that effect) and yf said he didn't have the looks or the body (i think, and in chinese), no need to worry. haha how comforting. the two of them are hilarious la.. pair of clowns. interesting how i wouldn't have gotten to know them as well otherwise.
they decided to buy me this ice cream called a panda smiley at black canyon coffee at platinum shopping center. on the condition that i take a photo with it. and here it is:
yay! i went shopping today. and found some quite nice things. so i'm happy:)
i was, however, very very late in meeting poor lijia. apparently we woke up at the same time though haha. i think i probably woke up when she msged me, but i'm not so sure cos i don't clearly remember hearing my phone's msg tone. but anyway. she bought something frm zara while waiting for me so i guess that makes up for it, kind of:)
and nydc jazz brownie is SO good.. man. and i should really stop eating so much dessert all the time.. but it's so tempting. i also need to go to max brenners before going back to school heh.
now, to watch pirates. hmm. maybe i should drag someone to watch it with me on tues night or something.. -ponders-
oh and yesterday i was reading over some of my old autograph thingies.. i can't remember wat i was like! i'm quite sure i'm not the same though. descriptions include cheerful, smiley, patient (this, i suspect, only bcos of serene), nice to everyone (ditto).
yayyy phew yf just saved me from having to do the jc talk on stanford presentation from scratch.. anyway need to sleep soon. heh it was so weird, at 11 plus i was thinking hm maybe i should sleep now, gotta wake up at 7:30 tmr. and then i realized i'm home and i don't have to:p
so today rachel made my day.. we were having dinner at novena square (which i was, sadly, late for cos i was reading memoirs of a geisha at kino at liang court) and then after that were walking around. there were so many annoying california fitness promoters and they kept shoving flyers at us and asking if we wanted to join.
after the 3rd one, rachel told me "i'm fat and i'm happy!" and it sounded so funny.. so i was like really, you should tell them that. 2 more tried to flyer us (including this older lady who had already tried TWICE before.. man). after which we almost reached the escalator and this younger lady tried to talk to us and rachel really said "i'm fat and i'm happy!" and i started laughing cos i didn't expect her to do it.. so rachel turned towards me after saying it and i glanced at the promoter and she was SO stunned.. just stood there with the flyer in her hand and gaping after us. hahahaha. i haven't laughed that hard in a while.
after that rachel was still like, it's not that i didn't dare, i just didn't want to be mean. while i was still laughing away. i don't think it's mean though, i just think it's funny.. hopefully someone agrees with me. but anyway, yeah i have crazy times with rachel.. the only reason i would miss interning at the learning lab is when i annoy her in the library. should go back to those blog entries hm.
and i was also thinking about how to be a good intern at work today. besides the fact that i'm chronically late. i need new clothes too. but anyway, uh. yah! i feel like a hermit. and then my supervisor's leaving soon to go to MINDEF. and the bigger boss doesn't really know about my project, i think. so ridiculous.
i'm quite sure i had something to blog about. at any rate i think i felt that way at work but i hardly think blogging at work is a good idea. surprisingly i do draw the line at that. haha. even though my msn is on all the time ahaha. anyway.. aughh i'm soo tired. and sometimes i don't think i'm doing a very good job of being a leader. i guess i need to remember what ser said about it being what i define it to be..
and it's the same feeling in the morning when i really don't want to get up and go to work. such a sinking depressing feeling. even though i do tell myself to (quote someone) "psyche up" and do justice to myself and my background. sometimes it's hard though. i mean i can try and be happy/bubbly and things but if people just look at me like i'm being dumb then i do feel dumb.
but there're good things, i'm glad there're quite a few fellow interns so we can hang out together (i.e. slack together) and chat and all. kinda sad that a few of them are leaving pretty soon. i'm also glad i only have 4 weeks, i really don't like being cooped up in an office. four walls, stuffy aircon, huge lack of windows (and a view), it's so quiet and sleep inducing. ... okay i have a lot of complaints.
ahh. back from first day of work and class outing. really didn't turn out the way i expected.. i didn't know there were only 2 other interns besides me (but there're already 11 at MOF) and we were sitting in awkward silence while waiting for the HR person to come. it was kinda weird cos the 2 of them knew each other (and i was a bit late, thanks to my unwillingness to get up:p) and i just popped out from nowhere.
but on a slightly related note, i think that's partly why i hit it off with jackie, when we met at int'l orientation i was kinda sian of doing the -smile- "hi! i'm clarissa, i'm from singapore" routine and i said something to that effect to her and she was like YEAH.. it's nice when pple respond. maybe that's wat yf meant when he said it takes two to talk crap and it's hard to do that with his colleagues. dunno la. maybe i'm just being oversensitive. it happens.
um. anyway. oh.. so the morning was so slack cos they were setting up our computers (which are SO slow, man.. get macs! haa). and it took super long. oh i have my own MOF email add, very cool:) but then in the afternoon i had a information overload. 1.5hrs briefing on the "MOF Mission, Vision and Way". and i was asking all the questions too. whether they were intelligent or not is another thing. haha. and since there were only 3 of us we couldn't exactly fall asleep.. and after that i had a 1hr briefing by my supervisors.. woah. headache man.
class outing also turned out to be very unlike wat I thought it would be.. it wasn't the normal crowd anyway. but i must admit i'm kind of guilty of not inviting people half the time.. poor chim as the class chair (a loong time ago) ended up being blamed actually. but hey, i did all the organizing.
i felt so much more liberated with them though. at least i can be myself and not have to work my poor brain so hard thinking about policies and blah.. i mean i definitely appreciate that the briefings today gave me a glimpse into government that i would never get without this internship. but it's also tiring that i somehow or other have to be this motivated driven intern and etc. yeah, i'm just lazy. reminds me of lou.. too lazy to chew but still want to enjoy good food.
anyway, interestingly enough i think now i'm more able to appreciate opportunities. like, before, i'd have just been like augh, this is so boring, i don't like this, blah. but now even though it may not be the most interesting/inspiring thing to me, i still realize there's value. i was thinking about it and i decided that my attitude changed because of pledging. when i had to do so many things that were foreign to me (e.g. socializing on an extended scale, selling stuff for fundraising, ...) and possibly SEALNet, when we had to reflect on stuff every day.
alright. need to sleep. you'll probably see me online during the day, haha.
just back from blading! okay not really just. but anyway. weather was so nice.. it's wonderful to feel the wind/sea breeze/... i think that's why i like snowboarding so much too.. the thrill of the wind rushing past! and sailing. okay i think i just like to go fast. drifting eh? too fast too furious: tokyo drift. it's not like it was such a great movie but it's just funny to talk about it with sealnet people. the context matters.
but man, i set my alarm for 8 and when it went off i was like noooo.. haha. totally spoilt by college. remember the good old days when we had to get to school by 7ish? that's so unthinkable now. but when work starts it'll be back to that i believe.. and then i was so zoned out.. it's time for a nap! hehe i love sleeping.
suddenly I don't feel a need to reflect on freshman year anymore. But maybe I should anyway.. It's always good to reflect. It's kind of weird to lead two lives, sort of. One in Stanford, one in Singapore. And then while at SEALNet I was just thinking if I hadn't gone to Stanford I wouldn't have such an experience. But again I had my share of travel experiences with French Immersion and choir Italy trip.
Anyway. reflections will have to wait again, I'm having a very entertaining 4 way conversation with 3 of my RG classmates. I wish Chris was coming back. grumbles. As much as I want to believe I can, I think it's going to be harder and harder to keep in touch.. What if I don't come back next summer? augh.
so.. I'm back from 2 weeks in Thailand! I think Kevin will be very glad to hear that I got a lot more out of it than I ever expected. And definitely what he said about it being about the people you work with is very true.. Sharing their enthusiasm and liking them. Although sometimes I suspect I was more focused on having fun than about the community service hmm.. I guess it's all about balance
And I have no idea why all the Singaporeans decided I'm the quintessential little sister, but so I am and I now have 3 more big bros:) who all take turns bullying me. -sigh- YF's logic is "only I can bully you" (but no one else can). but anyway, I'm really glad we stayed on for a while after we finished SEALNet stuff cos it was so much more relaxed and all.
Staying at different people's places was also lots of fun.. We moved from an apartment to a house to a mansion! Although really, the logistical problems in Bangkok are phenomenal. Having a car doesn't help cos traffic is so bad half the time.. We took more time to get from soi 5 to soi 11 (which is like a 5 minute walk) than from Bangkok to Saraburi (which is pretty pretty far away)
But now it's so weird to be in my own house! Actually as it was, after JH n YF n Jason left it started getting rather depressing. Everyone's left! so quiet. ohhh yeah and Jason pestering Suki to do drifting and donuts (too fast too furious: tokyo drift!) it was pretty crazy for a bit though, all the guys were yelling at suki to do some crazy driving on the way back to her house. ooh and I'm so glad Suki likes dessert so much, we got to go nice places.
um. okay. derailed train of thought.. I guess after this morning's lack of sleep I'm not very coherent anymore. so time for bed!
i never knew packing was so difficult. at first i thought it was going to be fun, you know, fitting things into boxes and i like being neat (sometimes, yeah, i know the state of my room doesn't show that). until it was like 5am and i'm like oh dear, i really won't get to sleep tonight.
so thurs night i slept a grand total of 1/2h frm 5:30 - 6:00am (or so) and got up and took a shower and ploughed on packing. alright i don't even know if that makes sense, but well. sooo tired. still had to move my boxes down 3 floors. thankfully chuansheng helped me move my 30.3kg luggage down if not i would've collapse out of physical exhaustion. heh. and it was so hot! augh.
anyhow, there were 5 of us on the same flight, which was cool:) me n cs n jesley (whose luggage was 12kg + 44kg! crazy..) n jiunhaur n dexian. we didn't sit together but hanging out b4 boarding and during stopover was fun..
it's such a weird feeling to come home and find that it's been six months. everything is sort of the same, yet sort of not the same. don't know how to say also. but anyway i haven't been doing anything other than sleeping (haha) since i'm going off to thailand on wed. hope the trip will be good!
disorientating to sleep so much.
came back on sunday at about 1:45am.
slept frm 3:45 to 8:45am. went for church. amazingly i wasn't that zoned out, maybe i'm used to functioning with severe lack of sleep heh. then lunch, came back,
slept from 3:30 to 11:30pm. ate dinner (rofl, i know)
went back to sleep again frm 2:00am to 6:30am. got up, ate bfast, hijacked my bro's monitor, keyboard and mouse so i could use my mac mini.
decided i was tired n went back to bed (10:15am - 5:45pm)
and i think i'm going back to bed soon. that's like 25 hrs!
i like my bed too much. it's lower and bigger than my dorm bed anyhow.. haha. but i miss my huge screen and my keyboard and my mouse. crazy right. it's always good to be home though:)
it's so funny though, when i went to church i was in the akpsi-let's-meet-pple mode and then i decided it'd be weird if i started asking the adults how their jobs were going. but again maybe not -shrug- anyhow they had camp meeting so i didn't see that many people.
it's also somewhat tiring repeating myself - touched down at 1am, leaving on wed for thailand, (watever i'm doing at thailand), going back 4th sept for soco, ... but i'm also sort of used to it after having to introduce myself to like 50 pple in the past 3 months.
and i still need to think about my freshman year. maybe when i come back or something. haha. the american school year thing is kind of disorientating too.. "see you next year" (i.e. in sept of the same year). just so weird.
it's 5:30am and I'm still not done packing.. I really underestimated the amount of stuff I have. or the amount of space that my things take up, anyway. or maybe it's just because i'm using small boxes and there're like 6 of them:| Kevin passing me the headphones to carry back is really God's providence, cos I definitely wouldn't have had enough boxes otherwise.
today was so crazy. i finally started packing properly on wed night (after i finished my introsem paper at like 11:30pm:|) and then slept at 3, got up at 10. went to lunch at google! courtesy of seng.. it was so cool!!! i think while apple was sleek and everything, google is just cool. heh. they had huge whiteboards with mindmappy sort of things.. kitchenettes within 100 feet of each other (!!! ridiculous.. and with so much food).. sort-of-playhouse-looking offices.. a bunch of smileyface balloons at every intern's desk.. and then stuff that seng was telling me about: a treadmill-swimming pool (actually a wave pool but you swim against it or something like that), a waterfall-decoration thing created by one of the employees, ...
i totally forgot i'd read about google's interesting company culture. but their office is so funky.. i don't think any office in spore is like that. such a pity. it doesn't even seem like an office! heh. well okay it does, it has the normal tables and stuff.. but other than that! ooh. i was telling seng i was tempted to do CS instead and go work at google too. ahaha. but anyway. again, i'm just looking at it from an outsider's point of view.. work politics is another thing. if there is such a thing there? hehe.
alright i really should get back to packing.. can't believe it's been a year. i think i've said that at least 3 times. and i've never slept past like 3am until coming to college. -shakes head-
man. one final in a day is more than enough for me.. i just finished two almost back to back (thankfully not, i don't know how kiat survived his 3-finals-in-a-day) finals and i'm so drained. still have another one tomorrow morning which i haven't finished studying for. sigh my roommate is packing and watching a movie at the same time.. i'm going to have to ask her to stop when i finish typing this. or maybe i should just go down and read since i don't particularly need to be at my computer/in my room. hm.
anyway. the IHUM TFs were so nice though, I'll miss them, sort of. so when i arrived at my TF's office to take my exam earlier so I could, quote him, get some rest before econ, he wasn't around! bah. luckily I recognized one of the other TFs (hosek) and she gave me the exam and everything. she was kinda strict about us not being rude and packing up in the last few minutes of lecture, but she was really nice about giving me a room and desk to work at, the exam and paper and things.
so i started reading the stuff and everything.. and i thought i was in her office, until my TF from last quarter (crowder) came in and was like hello! so i turned around and was like !! haha. took me a little bit more than a split second to recognize him. but it was cool, he said "how's it going?" and i said okay.. and he said he was going to work in there for a bit. and i said sure, maybe he'll give me inspiration haha:p he wasn't in the office much, which was kinda good cos i get distracted pretty easily.
after that, my this quarter TF popped his head in and i was like hi. n he offered to get me a blue book (and crowder did too) but hosek gave me foolscap already so i said it's okay.. but they were really nice about everyth:) aw.
alright, better study psych. desperately need to pull my grade up. it's so interesting how psych incorporates IHUM stuff (evil in Eichmann in Jerusalem) and econ stuff (prisoner's dilemma).
now I understand why my brother said it's important for my social life to revolve around a church fellowship group more. I was just feeling (as usual) disheartened and weary and wondering how I'm going to get through finals. and whined at cs for a bit. haha that poor guy, I think I whine at him a lot. but anyway he was like god will give you strength. and then I realized, as usual, I'd forgotten Him. it's always so easy to forget. but so comforting when people (e.g. sean) say they'll pray for you and things like that.
which suddenly made me think of how darryl n daryl are both so involved in their church groups. slightly uncanny resemblance there. although they're really very different characters heh. but anyway, yeah. if you stick with christians your spiritual life will be much enriched. and then that day that email came from church at home about marrying in christ. heh. interesting timing there too.
a while ago i suddenly thought about home and really wanted to be back. how peculiar. reading my psych textbook day in day out is getting to my head, methinks. it's also very person-centered, which may or may not be a good thing. people behave differently in different social situations. so acute.
on wednesday/thursday I thought I had a lot of time. now I'm wondering if I can prepare adequately:| I guess I'll have to rely on BS-ing skills for IHUM. which evidently, I'm still not very good at. save for the occasional burst of brilliance. heh. Let's hope it manifests itself on Tues afternoon.
and so, there's just a week left. and it'll be the end of freshman year. next year will be a different dorm, a different roommate (i hope we have less problems with sleep schedules and etc), a different atmosphere (no IHUM!! ahaha), a different batch of Singaporeans coming in. seniors & masters students will be back in Singapore, working for whoever it is they're bonded to. can't imagine not having them around. but i've said that already.
i wonder who'll pledge next fall. that'll be interesting. and i can't decide if i should go abroad next spring. which means i would have to turn down the peer mentoring thing. which i don't really mind, but i feel kinda bad about cos i did talk to my advisor about it and stuff. or should i go abroad on some other program which hopefully costs less? ahh. i think jackie would wanna go to paris too, which would be fun..
on wed during chi alpha glen gave the seniors a book on how to fit in back at home. wat a curious concept. if u've left home for too long u go back and it's all different. kinda sad in a way. but everything's sad in a way. alright i've just worked myself into a melancholic mood
oh!! kaiping told me about rj chorale's performance at czech music festival.. that was so awesome. pamugun. the bird whistles and stuff.. i wish my comp had let me watch the video:( this is when i'd say stupid mac, grr.
i'm in such a confused state of mind and i don't even know why. must be end-of-the-year blues or something heh.
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.