mikrokosmos

Moved!

2011-11-13T12:01:00.001+08:00

...Again.

My life continues at this place.

So, please edit the links on your blogs and favourites and whatever accordingly. I'm narcissistic enough to imagine that people actually follow my blog and favourite it. Hahahaha. (And it annoys me that I get redirected back to this old space whenever I click on my own blog from other blogs. =P)

Sorry for the inconvenience yeah. :)

Still Alive! =D

2011-10-19T11:35:00.002+08:00

Test-Essay-Test crunch is over, and now I have two weeks to the next essay deadline, and four more weeks for the last essay.

Life's pretty good to me, I should say! I was recommended to participate in this research group in the School of Public Policy. I am very well aware that it's just a recommendation, so nothing's confirmed yet. Moreover, I'm sure they will be prioritising their own graduate students. An undergrad like me, who's only there for one course, wouldn't be much use for them. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled by the sheer opportunity that dropped down from the sky. Hahaha.

Anyway, I'd been trying to find a few Chinese novels, the search was futile. I really admire the 阅读风气 in Taiwan. I've never been there before, but from the rate that artistes are producing books and the number of bookstores they have in the city, it's enough to infer how much time the people spend reading books. When we were in Nanjing, mega bookstores (four storeys of books!) were found almost in every shopping district. It would be life-threatening to shop in those stores during weekends. I was elated when I bought a pile of academic books and had to mail that 26kg box back home.

I find the ones here ridiculous. Two-thirds of the stores are filled with assessment books, text books, past year papers and stationery -- only one small section is for novels and other books for leisure. And it's nearly impossible to purchase academic books outside your college. In stores such as Kino and PageOne, they have a good range of books but you don't see many people there.

Well, maybe people go to the libraries more often. We have a lot of that. =D So there isn't really a need to buy books. But some books (like, the Harry Potter series) will never be on the shelves. LOL

Okay, enough words for today. Gonna start preparing for exams! =)

苦其心志，劳其筋骨

2011-10-06T14:15:00.001+08:00

故天将降大任于是人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空伐其身行，行弗乱其所为，所以动心忍性，曾益其所不能。《孟子·告子下》

Erm...... hi! :D

It's been three weeks since I last updated this space. D= There were instances when I stared at the blank column on the "new post" page, not knowing exactly what to write.

Well, now I have.

The previous week was spent in agony, battling with a severe toothache and a stubborn fever. Right after I went to the dentist on Monday last week, the fever came on Wednesday, which sapped my energy for the evening class. I wonder if the professor caught me yawning non-stop in class. It wasn't on purpose! :(

My body temperature hovered from 38degC to around 38.9degC for quite a few days. I had some tablets to keep the fever down, but everytime the medicine wears off the temperature bounces back again. I only got better after drinking the ultra-bitter Chinese medicinal soup that my parents customised and brewed for me. I had like, three bowls of it, before I fully recovered from the fever.

Those few days were... terrible. Other than the fever, the gum around my affected tooth was still swollen, and it had a wound just beside the tooth so all these pain added to the agony.

To make things worse, I had a test on Monday this week, and due to the fever and everything I couldn't freaking study for the mid-terms. The nice professor agreed to let me take a retest next week, so that I could concentrate on getting well. I think there was an incident when my body temperature was down for a moment, but I started getting myself all worried and stressed about the test that my body temperature shot right up to more than 38.5degC. -_-

I'm pretty glad that I didn't lose my appetite even though I felt very weak. I survived on fish porridge, bread and plain water for almost the entire week, I got sick of them when I was recovering, but I still finished them all whenever my mom prepared these for me.

We always hear stories of how people appreciate their life more after they realise they almost shook hands with the death god. Just this fever -- lying there not knowing when my forehead can stop surviving on ice-packs, feeling so tempted to bathe every other hour when I sweated buckets, not being able to muster enough strength to hold the kettle up to pour water -- is more than sufficient to make me feel more appreciative towards my family and friends. Occasional hurdles like exams and papers don't seem too difficult anymore.

Alright. Time to do some revision and prepare for the next wave of papers. :)

Mooncakes

2011-09-15T15:23:00.000+08:00

My Mondays are horrendously packed. I have lessons in the morning, tuition in the afternoon and back to school for lessons again in the evening. 10am-10pm. I knew right from the start that this schedule would take my life, but I didn't expect it to FEEL so horrible.

For the Monday that just passed, I felt miserable. Maybe it's because of the mid-term test announcement that kind of exploded a bomb in me. Lunch was alright (I'm already used to having lunches alone -- how sad is that), tuition was pleasant (tuitions are always pleasant =D), but dinner was miserable.

I was reminded that it was Mid-Autumn Festival that day. From that point onwards, I just felt pathetic. What am I doing, having meals alone, on a festival that signifies a "reunion". 非常讽刺。

I know. I know I'm being all childish, whining over such minute issues when the world's worrying about income gaps and poverty. But I don't feel less miserable by comparing myself against people who are suffering a worse plight than me.

And, to be honest, I'm still feeling unhappy about it. It's too soon to be a PMS. It's perhaps one of the rare times in my life when I feel unhappy for such a prolonged period of time. Maybe I should indulge in some bimbotic adventure. Like, coating my nails with a hot pink nail polish. Or buying that 3M double-sided sticker to paste my Super Junior poster on the wall. Just something so brainless that I can take my mind of this issue.

Next Monday I'll be having the worst schedule ever, with a meeting with my thesis supervisor slotted in between classes and tuition. D=

Speaking of which, I need to start writing my ISM.

That's all for now. Wish me luck for the coming week. =(

Good Food

2011-09-04T20:43:00.002+08:00

School's in, but fun's not out yet.

The boy and I had lunch at Hippopotamus on Wednesday. We had our steak medium-done. I'm starting to love this degree of cooking for steak! :D It's a teeny-weeny bit bloody (you'd get some blood stains on the plate after you finish the dish but the blood doesn't ooze out when u cut the steak), but oh gosh it was so delicious! The sides were pretty good too. Haiyar, I would have posted photos of the meal if I had a better camera. We spent $50++ on the meal (the boy's treat! =D), which I think is pretty average for such a level of dining. The ambience isn't the best but who cares lah I only see the meat in front of me. HAHA.

As for Friday... GYA went to Modesto's for dinner! Spent a @#$% amount of $29 on the meal. Nevertheless, every cent was well-spent. My favourite dish is the seafood linguine (the first item on the pasta page on the menu). The sauce went well with both the pasta and the seafood. While I was fighting against the crab shells I thought I was having chilli crab. Hahaha. Service there was good too -- the waiter recommended dishes for us ("if you're looking for a meaty kind of pizza, why not try the ___ pizza"), and gave us information such as "there will be blue cheese in this dish" such that we could make a more informed decision and not regret our orders. Well I guess they have to do that since the names of the dishes are all in Italian and sometimes the descriptions don't tell the full story either. We ended up being too full from the meal. -_-

Chun and I went straight to GV for the Super Junior Super Show 3 3D. Oh gosh, this is the first (and probably only) time that I see people screaming and squealing at the screen. But I do have to say that the 3D effects were overwhelmingly good. It's a very fan-girl experience for me, but once is enough. Not really worth the sky-high ticket price for such a short movie (80 minutes only!) when it only consists of concert cuts.

=D

Okay, I need to start getting work done. RECESS WEEK IS COMING OMG I THOUGHT SCHOOL HASN'T STARTED.

Reality Check

2011-08-31T11:41:00.004+08:00

This problem surfaces every semester.

I thought it would be different this semester, considering that I'm currently taking all the level-4000s and 5000s, it logically implies that the people I meet should be a little more inquisitive when it comes to learning.

But, sadly, no. When one of the lecturers chose to digress from the topic and talk about education in general and his thoughts about it, people around me started to complain about tolerating 2.5 hours of non-curriculum stuff. "Might as well cancel the lesson," they say.

There was another occasion when another lecturer asked if we'd like to conduct our assessment through tests or essays. After the lesson, I overheard some classmates discussing about it, and one of them (I assume she has taken the lecturer's class before) said, "Just take the tests. All you need to do for his tests is to memorise and regurgitate the content. It's very easy."

I can't expect people (not even myself) to totally-not-give-a-damn-about-grades, then again, being so overly concerned about it... It's simply getting on my nerves. Of course I want my As, but what's the point of getting straight-As when you're not learning as much as you could?

I shall not elaborate on this issue. It disappoints me to even think about it.

School Reopens!

2011-08-17T23:15:00.002+08:00

It's pretty weird to be alone and hungry and you realise a majority of your lunch buddies are not in school anymore. :( Well but thanks to my friends from EL, at least I know I can drop by that room as and when I feel like it. And hey I can dabao and eat there too. :D

This marks the third day of school for me, and also the last day for the week. It's damn shiok, the idea of having a 2-day week -- one in KRC and another in BTC. I feel very insecure and uncomfortable at BTC, perhaps because I've only been there once before this semester started, and I tend to think that the people around me are Masters students, which kinds of unsettles me a little. It's true to a large extent, considering that the blocks I loiter at belong to the graduate school.

Meh.

But I was lucky to have known a fellow undergraduate. It's pretty hilarious. He was outside the classroom, and I wanted to go in, and since he's the only one outside, I asked him if we could go in. He said no, because he heard some voice which he assumed was the lecturer. And we chatted a little, and HOLA we're both undergraduates! It turned out that we could go into the lecture theatre already, and the voice he heard was from a YouTube video of the National Day Rally.

Okay. Digressed.

Classes are pretty interesting. First lecture taught me How You Should React When A Professor Says He Is Thirsty. Second one was cancelled because the lecturer wasn't in Singapore. 3rd-5th, well, the workload scares me. Graduate modules aren't like this if they don't scare us with the grading system yeah.

One of them had 5 assignments throughout the semester, one every two weeks, each assignment has to be around 2000 to 3000 words long. D: I can compile and write a book with these assignments.

Another one is more interesting, albeit being a little ?! when you think about how the lecturer's gonna grade you. It has role-playing, skits, the usual class presentation and a short essay. Like a drama class.

Alright, that's all for now. Will come back to whine if I don't get my desired module choices tomorrow. Wahaha.

我们出去玩。

2011-08-01T14:57:00.004+08:00

I haven't been updating this space much huh.

The three weeks of rest have flown by much quicker than expected. Been busy doing some preliminary research for my two essays, and trying to get my supervisors (one of which is totally MIA) to endorse my proposals. It really doesn't feel good to know that the first day of school is accompanied by two deadlines. Plus, next week I'll be attending the most number of lessons in the whole semester as some of my modules are not confirmed yet and I have to, you know, be conscientious enough to go for every single lesson that's within my choice.

Meh.

Enough of school. Let's talk about play.

Although I had been working for the past two months, gatherings with friends occurred on a more frequent basis than before.

I haven't been bringing my camera around for quite a long time, as there will always be someone with a better camera who takes up the responsibility of snapping shots for everyone of us, before sharing these photos through the social media.

Gathering with 草菇们. :D

It's heartening to see the girls from my batch having something to focus for (at least) the next few years of their lives. There was a point when I looked at them and questioned my decision to stay for one more year in college. Then again, if not for this additional year, I wouldn't have been offered so many more stuff that came with this decision.

Everything happens for a reason huh. :)

More fun coming up this weekend despite having proposal deadlines on Monday. Whatever. Play comes first. :D

A Dramatic Death

2011-07-31T15:59:00.004+08:00

To dream that you die in your dream, symbolizes inner changes, transformation, self-discovery and positive development that is happening within you or your life. You are undergoing a transitional phase and are becoming more enlightened or spiritual. Although such a dream may bring about feelings of fear and anxiety, it is no cause for alarm as it is often considered a positive symbol. Dreams of experiencing your own death usually means that big changes are ahead for you. You are moving on to new beginnings and leaving the past behind. These changes does not necessarily imply a negative turn of events. Metaphorically, dying can be seen as an end or a termination to your old ways and habits. So, dying does not always mean a physical death, but an ending of something.

On a negative note, to dream that you die may represent involvement in deeply painful relationships or unhealthy, destructive behaviors. You may feeling depressed or feel strangled by a situation or person in your waking life. Perhaps your mind is preoccupied with someone who is terminally ill or dying. Alternatively, you may be trying to get out of some obligation, responsibility or other situation. You are desperately trying to escape from the demands of your daily life.

Extracted from Dream Moods.

I dreamed that I was going to die. There were flashbacks of my life, and as far as I can remember, I said "I am happy" at the last moments of my 'death'. And I woke up. = =

Two More Weeks

2011-07-23T12:35:00.004+08:00

Another two weeks before the start of a brand new semester without my beloved batchmates.

:(

To celebrate the new semester, I have decided to go on a shopping spree one of these days to prepare myself. Aesthetically, that is. (Just purchased some lens cases for a start. Wahaha.)

Fine. All my celebrations come in similar forms. Either food or shopping. 我就是这么肤浅。

A Love Theme - Olivia

2011-07-21T18:34:00.000+08:00

Work Log #5 之得奖感言

2011-07-20T12:34:00.005+08:00

Good morning.

This marks the first day of Life After Internship!!! :D *Throws confetti*

Looking back at the previous four work logs, I realise all these efforts have come a long way. It started off from a kid who didn't know what she was doing in office, and slowly progressed to someone who got very depressed over bringing work home, now I've left the agency thinking that all these didn't happen without a reason.

Although I keep thinking that I kept an open mind when I first joined the agency, the reactions to the work I was given proved me otherwise. I was indeed too used to the environment where I work according to what my assignment / job scope entails. So, when people ask me, what does your organisation do, I can only manage with a "oh, they do this and this..." without further elaboration.

All the "extra" work that I took up during this internship made me discover the meaning of all these work. I can now tell people, "we thrive to achieve a certain goal on the basis of a certain belief, thus here's what we do in general." It was only towards the end of the internship when I started to realise all these.

Better than never, hor.

When my name was announced for the OutstandingIntern Award, I was pretty surprised. I did not start off with the best attitude. Furthermore, I believe other interns did much better than me during the two months, and performed well at work. I am elated. It's a form of recognition for the stuff I've done, and it will encourage me to work towards achieving excellence in my future endeavours.

So, at the end of all these...

Thank you, my supervisors for being all supportive and encouraging, and for nominating me for the award. Although sometimes I complain about the work I was given, I have grown to realise your good intentions behind them and I thank you with all my heart.

Thank you, Yuan Jun, for helping me out and for being such a good lunch/refreshments buddy! :D I will always remember the times when we chit-chat over lunch and gossip about people we know. Wahaha.

Thank you, my colleagues, for helping us kids with our projects and providing the necessary information when we need them most.

Thank you, my boyboy, for bringing me to the swings, for coming over to my workplace and sitting at the bus-stop for nearly an hour to wait for me as I knock off later than you, for having lunch/dinner with me, for everything. <3

Thank you, my friends, for being my listening ear when I was all grudgy and full of complaints, and for chatting with me when I'm bored online. Hahahahaha.

Alrights! Next two days will be dedicated to the boy. :D Till the next time I feel like blogging!

F Blogger.

2011-07-14T09:14:00.002+08:00

Now my blog has this audio advertisement that I can't remove.

I'm so annoyed and so frustrated that I have plans to move back to Wordpress.

But if I do this, my friends will be irritated as they would have to change the link on their blogs once again.

Oh how how how.

Lachrymose, Artfully.

2011-07-13T09:45:00.002+08:00

I wonder what makes art, arty.

When I say art, I include stuff like literature and music.

It seems like as if artworks need to be fundamentally negatively-emotional to create some sort of effect. When you're emo, you go all out to express it, there's an impact. Happy works don't usually make the consumers' cut.

Even when you're happy and you want to show it (no, don't clap your hands), you have to either exclude yourself from the situation and say it in a nonchalant manner, or inject some sad elements in it, nevertheless.

Of course I'm not talking about pretense here. The most renowned art pieces aren't about pretense. And I choose to assume that most artworks have their reasons behind creating it, until they prove me otherwise. Well, I've seen literature that put so much effort in peppering the vocabulary that it all becomes a pain to read.

I choose to appreciate the happy ones. For music, I find more ease with the rhythmic and bubbly ones. I avoid composers such as Beethoven and pieces such as Fantasie Impromptu, simply because they exploit melancholy. Composers such as Scarlatti and Mozart, the simple single-line melodies suit me better.

I'm not trying to say that I'm a square peg. Neither am I proud to be one.

I may sound like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, oblivious to the "reality of life". But hey, isn't it harder and more gratifying to appreciate what's around you?

("Lachrymose", synonym of "sad", is a new lexical item I learned recently from the GRE textbook. I like it, because it rhymes with "rose". :D)

?

2011-07-11T17:35:00.002+08:00

Jianrong brightened up my internship days.

A patronising post this is.

Change Small, Change Often

2011-07-08T14:26:00.003+08:00

Been out and about for the past few days.

This moment I'm seated in an auditorium learning how to network, the next moment I find myself at the 71st floor, in front of a stunning nightview. The next afternoon, I'm walking around an exhibition hall gasping at the babies of engineers.

Just a moment ago, I was frustrated with this whole new environment. And now I'm counting down to the last day of this internship.

This job is not exciting. At all. I still feel like getting out of the building every now and then. Let's just be frank about it. You look at papers day in day out, and you never know if using "enhance" instead of "improve" makes a difference until the people paying us see it. But you learn a lot here. The stuff that goes into all the planning, the dingdongs that people here have to go through... All of these remind me of the song 《十年一刻》.

Thing is, you don't just make comments and get replies telling you that your comments are just noise. You make comments and things get done.

If all else fails, there's still people to look forward to. The people here are generally nice. It makes life so much better when you have people around to chat with and make nonsensical comments about random stuff.

And I'm really grateful that I share so much in common with the other intern here. Life could have been worse without her.

7 more working days, and I say hello to whatever's remaining of my last stretch of summer vacation.

Work Log #4

2011-07-03T20:32:00.002+08:00

This week, is all about trying to get enough sleep.

I'm becoming a light sleeper. I'd wake up in the middle of the night for all sorts of reasons, ranging from the dog barking near my house to random thoughts of whether it's time to leave home for work.

If a pig like me can become a light sleeper, I wonder how the people around me manage to deal with this sort of working hours.

梦魇

2011-06-27T21:50:00.002+08:00

这样的梦魇，不断缠着她。

好像盐巴沾到曝露在外的、血淋淋的肌肉一样。

一次又一次。

她猛力地挣扎、反抗，直到全身虚脱。

那样的眼神、言语，像万斤重的铁块，压在身上。

她觉得好冷、好冷。

曾几何时，她最熟悉喜爱的棉被，转眼成了冷冰冰的铁块。

这样的梦魇，能否离开她？

Work Log #3

2011-06-26T21:54:00.004+08:00

This will be a short one.

Yes, we just got praised by someone high up there that we did a good job. I'm elated, but I don't really feel so proud about it. Maybe it's because I don't know what the benchmark for goodness is, so I don't really know where I'm working towards. To be dead honest, if I'm the one judging my work, I'll deem it just passable. I'm not trying to say that I hold higher or stricter standards than my bosses, it's really just a different perspective, an entirely different marking scheme.

I'm now halfway through this internship. Although I do feel dejected when things don't go my way (which happens most of the time), I'm really grateful to have such great colleagues who are willing to help me when I'm doing my slides and papers. There are things that I'll never understand (like, KPI -_-) but at least they helped me with all the information and explanations.

Speaking of which, my supervisor is leaving this Thursday. =( He's so nice to me. Hopefully he finds a place where he likes after leaving this unhappy place. :)

On a personal note, working life is really tiring. Of course I have the choice to go hope directly after work everyday, but I choose to spend more time outside with my friends and baobao. Working for five days straight without going out is like, jail. LOL. I tend to rest more during the weekends, and they are SO PRECIOUS. Just one day of plopping around at home is enough for me to rejuvenate and go back to work all energised.

I hate to imagine how our lives will all change when we step out into the society. An 8.30am-6pm job is... quite ridiculous. Not like I have anything to do for the first 30 minutes when people from other offices haven't even started work. But, oh well. I'll have to get used to all these when I start work a year later.

Once we start work, it's gonna be a 10/20/30-year affair. I shudder at the thought of it. Maybe I'll feel better if I have the choice to change departments frequently. Staying at one place for too long will just encourage moss to grow on my brain. It's unhealthy. And a scary thought.

Oh well. Let's just see how this goes. :) Till the next work log! :D

Life's a hell of a roller coaster ride.

2011-06-20T14:10:00.002+08:00

Just when you feel bad about something, good things befall you.

I slogged through Saturday, churning out something work-related while trying to get a hold on myself. I had to rely on Lady Heehee and Single Ladies to keep myself sane. XD I eventually finished the work and found myself shocked that I have nothing to do after that. -_-

Now the submission deadline for that piece of work is being postponed, but I'm not complaining as I'm already done with it! :D Besides, I can review it again a few days later and improve on that sketchy emo draft. HAHA.

Anyway. Some random updates here:

1) WENT AND LEARNT SWIMMING YTD. :D I have to thank baobao for this though. Half the time I was koala-ing him in the middle of the adult's pool and too horrified to swim in the 1.75m-deep pool. Another half of the time was spent drinking god-knows-what's-inside pool water and forcing every single drop out of my pharynx. But hey I can swim a little now! Just a little more practice and erh, guts? and I can announce that I CAN SWIM. :D

2) Mahjong too, yesterday. With the usual No Plans gang. My virgin visit to Tracy's house though. And it's really damn near my dad's shop. Damn. Why didn't we know each other's presence earlier. Anyway, 3/4 of the time was spent looking blur and being baobao's puppet, and the remaining time was spent balancing the winnings and losses. In the end we lost the most. Boo.

3) Meeting the old friends -- Something that can never be truly done. I thought I'd be deprived of outings after I start work. I was utterly wrong. Dinner gatherings are the norm, with random meet-ups (refer to 1 and 2) during the weekends. Working just beside the town makes everything seem so much more convenient. Hahaha.

4) Field trips and dialogue sessions. It was the dialogue session that made me realise that what I'm doing is really part and parcel of what the permanent staff elsewhere are doing. As usual, some brainwashing and propaganda tend to tickle me a little but it doesn't matter. Field trips are awesome. There may be a lot of framing work in the introductions but who cares. HAHA.

That's all I guess. :D

伤

2011-06-18T08:34:00.000+08:00

原来，沉睡的时候，泪腺依然醒着。

Time?

2011-06-17T09:29:00.002+08:00

Now I know why people say weekends are precious.

Working saps out most of your energy. It's really hard to imagine how office work can be so draining. Not only that -- I have to bring work home to do. This is something I detest, but I'm not complaining because I yearn to see the results of my work.

I was just thinking, hey, journalism really wasn't this tiring. We get to knock off early, as long as you finish your stuff and ensure that the photos are all in place. We get to go out and take our time to bus back to office.

Perhaps I'm saying all these simply because I hate to bring work home. HAHA. I mean, although I don't have much to do at home other that doing the cross-stitching and watching some brainless dramas, I still enjoy wasting my time away at home. It's pretty rejuvenating. LOL. To me, workplace is for work, home is for me to rest. So, bringing work home is like, blurring the boundaries, which unsettles me a little.

Now I don't even have time to think about my thesis topic. Two topics, to be specific, as I'll be doing my ISM next sem as well. Woohoo good luck to me.

I'll live with it somehow. This whole mindset has made me more productive at work, so I shouldn't complain at all. Give and take.

The remaining weeks of work will be horrifying.

Till the next rant. :D

A Change of Perspective

2011-06-16T19:09:00.003+08:00

Hello!

If you haven't been following my blog, I hope I didn't shock you with the sudden... tweak in content. Hahahaha.

I have to do some self-censoring, at least before I finish this thing. I'll still blog -- NOTHING CAN STOP ME FROM BLOGGING -- but whether or not you'll see it, will depend on my mood. HAHAHAHA.

Okay.

Enough of my schizo streak here. Sleep.

Last day!

2011-06-10T10:44:00.002+08:00

Not my internship, obviously.

It's the last day of baobao's reservist! :D Much thanks to CK for bring the bridge of connection between us.

It gets creepy sometimes, especially when CK and the boy both send messages via CK's mobile (the boy didn't bring a phone in), and I reply to the same person with messages in different tones of expression. -_-

Oh well, glad that it's finally coming to an end, the end of their agony.

That's all for now. More updates tomorrow!!

=(

2011-06-07T19:41:00.006+08:00

为什么，不在媒体，却更要处处注意说的每一个字。

为什么，不在媒体，却更要编故事，把没有的变成有。

为什么，只是短短两个星期，我却那么想逃离。

Work Log #2

2011-06-04T23:00:00.005+08:00

The working environment matters a lot.

Every morning I'd roll around in bed, hoping that I'd suddenly realise it's a weekend and I won't need to go to work. I don't like the environment here. Everyone's highly stressed, and nobody knows what they're stressed about. The atmosphere in office is stifling, sometimes till an extent that you feel like standing up and leaving for good.

Don't get me wrong. The workload is manageable, and the colleagues here treat me very well. So, if the 1.5 weeks of work can give me such an unpleasant impression of the office, imagine the plight of the staff working there.

I realised it all stemmed out from the way they handle their fellow colleagues. When there's something A needs to tell B, A does not go over to B to tell him or her. A emails B. When they're just a table away. But, if B screws something up, A will go over and give B a earful. I think this sort of communication strains the relationships between people.

Besides, they don't go for meals together as well. They leave in pairs, at most in threes or fours, but never as a whole department. During the orientation, the big shots encouraged us to be proactive during our internship. But the next day by the time I wanted to ask the colleagues out for lunch, the office was already half-empty.

There's definitely something wrong in this office. People only care about their own benefits, and will never do things that do not have any short-term benefits. We have light refreshments such as swiss rolls and brownies almost everyday, and the person that takes the last piece is supposed to return the entire tray to the lounge. But during my short term there, I've noticed the empty tray in office once, and for other umpteen times, the tray with just one piece of cake left -- no prizes for guessing why.

I think it's a vicious cycle. All the accusations and scoldings they get from work just leave them with no remaining energy to even think about doing a good deed for the others. And when I talk about these unhappy exchanges between colleagues, I don't just mean that they're things related to work. I've overhead a few unreasonable accusations.

There's something that needs to be changed. It's not about the policies, nor the amount of money these people get. (I sincerely hope they get good money for enduring all these shit.) I really hope that people here can be more considerate and sensitive to other people's feelings. In such an uncomfortable working atmosphere, how can one be innovative and come out with good ideas? Seriously.

A brand new (or not) work-week starts tomorrow. That intern friend will be on leave on Wednesday. T.T Hopefully stuff can be done as planned and hopefully my supervisor won't get scolded by the boss again. =(

And I'll be going cold turkey on baobao this coming week too. I've planned several meet-ups for the week to prevent myself from drowning in sorrow. Hahahaha. This reminds me of the commercial for the navy. Hmm.

Alrights, 6 more work logs to go. :D

Get over it.

2011-06-03T09:14:00.002+08:00

Sometimes, I feel so detached from myself. This sounds ridiculous but I'm dead serious about it. I get quite disturbed when instances like this happen.

And I'm saying all these because they have happened, and I've walked out of it.

Just last week, when I'm busy adapting to the new work life that I'll be leading for another 7 weeks, I realised I needed so much encouragement. It's not that I don't have confidence in myself. I do have a lot of confidence, and I'm very determined to make the project a success. But as I grappled with the job demands and the new environment, there was this little tinge of fear that rang at the back of my mind.

The last straw came when I went office clothes shopping and I chose a dress of a size I thought was appropriate and my mom asked me to choose a larger one because she thought I was fat. And there, being the very unusual self, I put back everything else I was holding, lied that I was having a splitting headache and pleaded my parents to bring me home. I was unusually affected by her comments, taking them at face value when I would have otherwise played along with her teases.

All huddled in my blanket, negative thoughts started to engulf me. I started to remember bits and pieces of the past... especially the unhappy ones such as people not liking me and such.

And it was results release. I felt lost. I looked at the 2nd Upper that I'm desperately holding onto, and I looked at the year ahead that I extended to clear my credits, and I felt useless. What am I doing, doing 200 credits worth of a "general", "useless" degree, when I could have landed myself in a decent job based on my resume? Besides, people around me improved a great lot. I felt happy for them, but I felt that I was lagging behind them. If I'm more or less confirmed to be graduating with a 2nd Upper, what's the use of doing one more year of studies, just to torture myself at the next two results release days?

"I'm fat, nobody likes me and I'm holding a useless degree."

That was what I thought.

It all accumulated to a point when I couldn't contain it anymore and broke into tears. And here I started to recover from the psychological mess I was in.

1) As of this day, I have gotten more than enough people to buy our idea of the publication, and I'll be following through the project. After the first step, everything after seems easier.

2) Yes I'm fat, but I try to lead a healthy lifestyle. 15-minute walks to the train station, plus another two 15-minute walks to and from eateries during days when I'm at work. That sums up to 45 minutes of walking daily, topped up with a jogging routine on Saturday/Sunday mornings. I've cut down on my meals as well, after slowly decreasing the amount I eat for each meal, I'm consuming half of what I used to eat at home, and I hope to maintain that amount of food intake. Perhaps I'll still remain fat and plump and all, but I can then proudly say that I'm healthy.

3) For the number of people liking me, I will have to accept that there'll be the same amount of people disliking me. For the loving baobao that I have, I'll have to accept that there's someone who hates me as much as how baobao loves me. :D

4) I'm still lost, but I'll find a way out. I'm now very satisfied with my college life, as I've experienced more than what I expected when I stepped foot in this school. I was given ample opportunities to develop my interest. Much as I'm still dissatisfied with my results, I believe that my college life means more than just the alphabets and the final three digits printed on my transcript.

Besides, to quote a friend's blog, "I can never be at the top of my game, nor can someone truly overpower me [...] for every 1 point I have above the rest, I lose out somewhere somehow somewhat." This slapped me awake. How can I ever forget this?!

I was all "normal" and bubbly throughout this period, even though the turmoil was killing me from inside. I chose to go on an "autopilot" mode as I thought I was going to fall apart if I let any of my emotions out.

For those who care, I'm sorry I didn't divulge this whole ordeal to you. And to baobao, I'm really sorry for keeping all these to myself. I didn't know how to express myself then, and you already had so much on your mind, I didn't want you to worry. All I wanted was a hug but life was so busy, I could only hear your voice over the phone and say "I miss you" like as if they'd translate into physical hugs. I'm sorry. But I do really miss you a lot. :)

I write this, because I want the future self to read it and go "this too will pass" instead of mourning over the shortcomings. I write this, to remind myself that missing one opportunity doesn't mean reaching the end of the world.

This is not me.

Grudges

2011-06-01T15:36:00.005+08:00

I met this intern from another department in the same office. She's also from my alma mater, and very coincidentally, we were in the same CCA and musical section.

So, we started gossiping a lot, and we chatted a great lot about our lives in that CCA.

I was reminded of how unappreciative my teacher was. No matter how hard I tried, I would never earn a praise nor a smile from her. I was indeed disheartened. The incident that hurt me most was when I topped the cohort, sharing the same grade with another girl in the graded examination and she only announced and acknowledged that girl as the best. All she gave me was, "Yes of course you passed."

I know that I should put the past behind me. But I can't help feeling sour whenever I go back to the orchestra to help out and experience her coldness towards me all over again. I can't stop myself from feeling all negative and horrible thinking about how much I was ostracised from my own section within the group when I worked so hard for it. I can't help it. 我没那么伟大。

Yes, I love the friends I made from this CCA, I love the way we expressed music, I love the way we come together as one once the first note starts. But at the same time, I grew to get used to hatred. I grew to think that efforts don't harvest other people's appreciation. On a more positive note, I grew to work for my own satisfaction and to surpass the benchmark I've set for myself. It's always so hard to please others.

Okay that's all for now. :)

掌声落下

2011-05-31T20:46:00.002+08:00

This song reminds me of how all of us behaved online during the GE period. O.O

掌聲落下
詞曲/吳青峰

比夜還深的黑裡眾星都陣亡
無數饑渴的瞳孔比月還要亮
自我滿足的慾望比夢還要想

隔著螢幕成了英雄用距離埋葬真相
且讓誰為你鼓掌

天就快亮......

鍵盤不停敲響仿若演奏嗩吶
只要擁有假象我們就有希望
天花亂墜荒唐都像國色天香
你的我的他的她的誰都一樣

躲在虛擬的世界誰也都偉大
毋須負責的說法講起來最爽
踐踏別人的小丑都成了偶像

有了帳號才敢狂妄
在自慰的舞台上讓同流與你擊掌

天就快亮......

再來更多視窗不睡也都不怕
只怕醒來以後又是苦痛掙扎
都有魔鬼力量更有天使長相
你的我的他的誰的地獄和天堂

天都已亮......

鍵盤就像嗩吶興高采烈奏響
只要擁有假象前途無可限量
天花亂墜荒唐吐露絕色芬芳
你的我的他的她的誰都一樣

再來更多視窗不睡也都不怕
只怕醒來以後又是三千亂髮
不管地獄天堂撒旦也都不怕
只怕生活以後王子打回青蛙

Work Log #1

2011-05-29T11:08:00.002+08:00

I've decided to start a little record on my work progress. I know weekends are short and I shouldn't waste them on work-related matters, but looking from a different perspective, this 8-week internship period is possibly the only chance in my entire life to do something within this job scope. So, I want to make it as meaningful as possible, and also monitor my own progress in this project.

Three days (or 2.5 days if you exclude the half day spent playing ice-breaking games with other interns) have just passed. The supervisor and my boss are putting quite high hopes on me. I've just spoken to the "biggest" boss in this office and he doesn't seem to know my background, and I'm very relieved about it. Anyway, my supervisor used to work in the media as well, so we were on a similar frequency right from the first day when we met and introduced ourselves. As for my boss, he's a very friendly guy, but he made it clear that my resume's a double-edged sword. I got my internship with this piece of paper, but it has also heightened the expectations.

Just three days on the job, and I've already met publishers and edited a contract. These are things that I have never done before. Quite a refreshing experience I would say.

While my past temporary positions and internship opportunities often only require me to follow instructions, this internship values my opinions so much more. Right from the first day of work, my boss threw me the contract and asked me to look through it and look for areas where I can improve on. It was something... unexpected on my side. I did manage to change some areas and suggested stuff that we could do to make the project more successful. I'm really grateful that my supervisor's very open to opinions. I expected him to indirectly refuse my opinions with some excuse but hey, he was all-ready to accept it and asked me to develop that idea.

Well, I expected a whole hierarchy of head-nodding to clear, but it turned out that I could do whatever I want to, as long as it contributes to the success of this project.

Let's just hope that I won't result in the closure of this mini department that only consists of my supervisor and me. -_-

That's all for now. One week later for the next work log!

People and Work

2011-05-26T21:09:00.004+08:00

I had been back since Monday night, but was a little lazy to update this space about the mundane details of the eat-walk-sleep routine in China.

I'll just write about my thoughts then.

The thing that startled me most during this trip was how people behave differently in relation to others.

Let's start with the one that annoyed me the most. He has a very short temper. On the second day of the trip, when a lady kindly asked him to refrain from smoking at the dinner table, he shouted at the poor woman and asked her to go elsewhere and sit instead. Between the shouting I heard stuff like 你去死啦 which I thought was quite rude. Many other little incidents, including a personal encounter with him, slowly made me summarise him into a word - Rude.

And then we have this guy at the jade store who asked us not to buy his company's products as we can have them at a lower price back here. After around two hours sharing about his life and how he intends to contribute to society after his father was diagnosed with cancer, he asked us to just walk around, and requested his employees not to sell anything to us. For that moment, I was thinking, OK since you say so, then I'll believe you if you really don't sell us anything. But no I didn't have the chance to believe him. In the end he promoted this cheap necklace thingy to the group and many bought... both his story and several necklaces. Another word for him - Scheming.

Of course I'm not supposed to generalise. But from the short span of time that I've spent with both of them, I thought it was enough for me to stay far far away from them. The former is too rude and uncultured (as in basic manners and respect) for me to even communicate with him without bursting into laughter/tears of dismay. The latter is too clever. Terribly clever, literally.

Makes me wonder why this is the first time I encounter these sorts of people. Even the media interviews in the past were OK - I really haven't seen people of such extreme characters. I wonder too, if it's money, or other factors that reveal how much a person's character and tolerance can contain. Or, as one grows old, the character sinks in more and thus is more obvious to other people?

I try to be careful when I meet new people, as I believe first impressions and the first few interactions do not reflect much about our true personality.

OK I'm starting to be nonsensical. I was nursing my throbbing headache a few minutes ago. Desk-bound jobs really tire the hell out of me. I couldn't stop fidgeting at my desk and finding stuff to do: Make calls, type emails, top up water-bottle, run to the toilet (I intentionally chose to go to the toilet one floor up as I strongly believe I can get rid of some fats accumulated at the desk if I walk up and down everyday).

I'm sorry I can't help but talk about my new internship. Just a few paragraphs yea?

First 1.5 days of work and I'm quite bummed out. -_- I think the intern orientation games sapped the life out of me especially when I was hallucinating some turbulence at my house just a few days ago. Yeah jet lag. Hahaha.

Since this is a pretty new project and it's a small department I'm working at, I'm determined to grab hold of this chance and test my limits. It's not the do-as-told kind of job anymore. I do sincerely hope to add some value to the stuff that they're currently handling. I don't really know how I can do so yet, since I'm still a greenhorn at handling editorial matters, but like what my boss told me, this will certainly train me to look at things from a very different perspective.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting the publishers. My supervisor will be there to assist but I guess I can't just sit there and listen passively anymore. The thought of it is slightly unsettling but I'll brave through it. :)

On a random note, my new office laptop is sparkling pretty. But I hope I'll never have the need to bring it home. Hahaha.

Till something exciting happens again~

Off I go!

2011-05-14T10:25:00.002+08:00

To the East with my parents again.

Honestly speaking, I'm getting a little sick of the place. Perhaps it's the idea of following tour groups. -_- Other than the time when we went on a free-and-easy during the first week of my exchange trip, they have never been on a trip without a tour guide. The scheduled trip and meals make me feel so... restrained. Maybe that's why recent holiday trips don't really feel good. I tend to forget where I've gone to.

It's always the same routine - wake up freaking early (like, 6+ or 7+am), board bus, alight at destination A, take photos walk around, board bus, alight at destination B, take photos walk around, board bus, alight at restaurant A, eat, board bus...

The Jiangxi trip last year... I can only remember climbing that hill and the awesome view from there.

Hmm.

Nevertheless, I'll still enjoy the trip as much as I can. I hope I get to go on a graduation trip next year with my friends. And we get to schedule our own trip and have fun exploring the different places with our own legs. Ooh awesome. :D

Ok that's all for now. I'll be back on the 23rd, so, till then!

Draw turtles~

2011-05-06T23:37:00.003+08:00

Cool-off Friday today, even though I'd been cooling off since a few days ago. :D

I'd been thinking a lot about the elections, both about the incumbent, and about the "opposition" parties. I hesitate to label them in opposition to the incumbent but I guess I'll just borrow that label for now.

I did doubt myself as an impartial, wise voter. For my virgin vote, I must definitely make it worthwhile. Have I focused too much on the shortcomings of the incumbent and neglected the big picture? Does it make a difference, whether the parliament includes the opposition or not? And then I become the typical so-called apathetic young person -- Does it matter at all?

My experiences at the newsrooms start to playback in my mind. The saga about the PSLE Chinese, brushing shoulders with several ministers, interviews on pressing issues with others which garners nothing newsworthy (and I still had to churn something out). I was very well aware that I held more unpleasant memories than pleasant ones. The pleasant ones were purely personal too -- the dialogue session with Dr V, the phone interviews... Well, one hand is enough for the counting. I was so aware that I spent some time pulling myself out from the bias, and look at the political scene as a whole.

I remember what I was taught in the newsroom. Every country has an ideology which it maps its policies around. For places like America, their ideology, whether it is conservative or liberal, takes a philosophical slant. Here in Singapore, our ideology lies very firmly in the economy. Therefore, to make sense of whatever that country's doing, just take a look at what they're working towards and everything will fall into place.

After the first hectic week of rallies and massive FB sharing of political stuff, I refrained from sinking too deep into my imaginations and prejudice, and started to observe what people have been sharing. While the first week is loaded with anti-incumbent content, the second week saw the revival of supporters of the incumbent. Either way, people are still trying to frame things the way they want people to see it.

I have my own stand, which I'll not reveal here since today's Cool-Off Friday. 莫谈国事. LOL. But, this round of elections has made me see many sides of human nature. Amazing. I'm sure CK will have some thoughts on this so I'll leave him to do the talking MUAHAHA. *推卸责任*

That's all for GE2011, folks. Vote wisely tomorrow!

Goals for Summer Vacation

2011-05-01T13:32:00.003+08:00

My current progress in the part-time stuffs is now far ahead of schedule. :D So, before I run out of stuff to do, I'd better create a to-do list for my last tertiary summer break. In no order of priority, here goes:

- Complete the third colour for my cross-stitch.
- Do some research on the ISM and keep in contact with the supervisor.
- Freaking settle a topic and report to the supervisor early for my thesis!
- Accomplish something significant during the internship.
- Keep my room as neat as it is right now.
- KTV at least once.
- Start and maintain an exercise routine.
- Meet the boy on a weekly basis (at least).

Alright, time to go shopping! :D

“结束了。一切都结束了。”

2011-04-30T11:56:00.002+08:00

Yes it has finally ended. Their final year and my penultimate year in the school.

I realised (with a shock) yesterday that I have to work on both my ISM and thesis topics concurrently. FML. I haven't even met my thesis supervisor!!

There's always this "what should I do" feeling whenever I get home from the last paper of the semester. Yesterday I lazed around online, by 11pm I was getting so bored and sick of the internet that I fished out my 2-year-old cross stitch to work on the new colour. Yes I'm finally on the third colour. :D After a while I got tired and went to sleep. Well, I still have something to do -- RA and SA work which will fetch me my ching-chings when I complete the projects. Will try to complete it by Monday.

Skimming through the past articles is indeed a very interesting task. I saw articles that featured those two young candidates running for this year's election. And I spotted the same cap that she wore for the "I don't know what to say!". Pretty amusing.

No exciting updates, yet. Will probably upload photos of our hauls after GYA's shopping trip on Tuesday. :D

Linguist Jokes

2011-04-26T23:04:00.003+08:00

I can't stop bursting into laughter when I saw these linguist jokes. Work of genius.

I'd been playing this thing with friends around me. Hoho.

Okay this is purely course-related so, it's really alright if you don't get it. :D

We should do such stuffs too. Hahaha. Like, take turns to stress the different syllables in "significant" and laugh. Or, 谁说英语没有语气词? Meh.

Maybe this tumblr site can give us inspirations for our next EL shirt. Wahaha.

选我!! 选我!!!

2011-04-23T20:39:00.003+08:00

With the local buzz about GE recently, I thought it was just obligatory to throw in a post to stay in trend.

Just kidding.

I'm partly interested in the elections this time round as it's going to be first time I vote! :) To add on to the excitement, a 24-year-old young lady (just a year older than me!) is going to run for the elections. No prizes for guessing who. I think some department is also getting a headache because two of its alumni has decided to engage in a philosophical catfight in the politics.

I haven't quite gotten down to decide where my final vote goes to. It seems to me that the white-on-white has taken the "default" route, with people generalising the various opposition parties as, well, "the opposition". I'm guessing that the anti-government feelings at the ground have morphed into an anti-political party thing. It's like what my friend said, "党政不分".

So now it's either pro-white or anti-white. Which is a little weird, in my opinion.

Political decisions aren't simply yes-no questions. Either you get all the benefits, or you just stay home and die and rot away. -_- I don't even know if people even bother to know what the different parties are standing for. [I know that a handful here and there don't even know that NSP, SDP, SPP exist -- Opposition = WP.]

I'm more interested to know what the different political entities promise to deliver, which, in oftentimes, is marred by random trivia. The Tin-Seah rave is one of the many examples.

At the end of the day, it is what they do during this coming five years that creates the most impact on the people. Who cares, then, whether you're more eloquent than the other, or whether you played a lousy joke on your fellow teammate?

So, what kind of qualities am I supposed to look out for?

I've only got two weeks to mull over this. :(

晚安

2011-04-23T10:46:00.000+08:00

Tuesday!

2011-04-22T14:41:00.002+08:00

Tuesday will mark the start of my exam spree this semester. Friday will mark its end. I wonder if I'll be too excited after Tuesday to study for the Friday's paper.

Anyway. I'm just here to share a little story.

有这样的一个女孩，她生病了，在巴士上脸色苍白，差点没晕过去。

巴士司机停下车，徒步走到附近的咖啡店买了一杯热腾腾的饮料，回到巴士上。

其他乘客也都热心地上前帮忙，有的帮女孩煽风，有的则把位子让给女孩坐下来休息。

司机回到岗位，继续把巴士开到每一站。

到了女孩该下车的车站，巴士司机不放心让女孩自己回家，于是向她要了家里的电话，并四处寻找公共电话，好通知女孩的家人。

家人急忙赶来车站接女孩回家。巴士上的乘客都七嘴八舌，有的说，快带她去看医生，有的说，可能天气太热，中暑了。

这是发生在30-40年前的真实故事。

若有这样的女孩在你搭巴士的时候出现，故事会如何发展？
1. 司机停下车：乘客怨言不断、要求赔偿、投诉公司……
2. 众人把女孩赶下车，最多叫她快点去看医生（心想：不要在公共场合碍手碍脚的）

炫耀经济发展的我们，怎么了。

So what?

2011-04-17T14:57:00.002+08:00

This has been the only question in my head these days.

I blame it on the essay crunch. You know, when you slog at some individual essay, and you keep thinking about the "so what" question, then at some point in time you just feel like smashing your computer? I'd been feeling something similar.

I shall pound on my laptop for (hopefully) a few more days before I start drawing rubbish mind maps to prepare for exams.

Other than the haunting "so what" question, I have itchy hands to deal with too. Those 18xx and 19xx books are so freaking yellow that I have to wash my hands with Dettol every 2-3 hours to get rid of that itchy feeling. And that smell. Oh gross.

I'll try to clean my table with Dettol later. And my shelves. And the floor. *OCD*

Alrights. End of emotionless update.

How?

2011-04-09T16:07:00.002+08:00

Good things have been happening!

1) I've finally grabbed an internship opportunity! :) For the coming vacation, I'll be working in one of the gahmen agencies at a decent pay. Gonna look forward to it since it's the first time I'm stepping out of whatever I've been doing for the past few years. Partly.

2) The department's graduation night was held yesterday. I didn't expect us to occupy that 10-seat table though. It was even bigger than the ones those teachers were seated at. LOL. The dinner was OK, but I think we ate too early so by the time the event ended all of us wanted supper. The best performance that night was, ironically, the song sung by two non-Arts students and the little skid that the Year 3s prepared. Nevermind. I shall bimbotically add that such events are meant to be a look-nice-and-take-photos-and-go-home thing so performances were a bonus.

Oh, the chicken was delicious.

-----

Since it's 好事成双 I'll just stop here and continue my word-diarrhoea. Till next time!! :D

Why?

2011-04-03T12:19:00.003+08:00

I feel uncomfortable, when I have to leave a party early, and the only reason I can give is, well, "curfew".

This problem has been bugging me since secondary school? I'm not sure. As the days pass it just gets worse. I mean, back then everyone had a curfew, and as we grow up these curfews just dissolve naturally.

"Curfew" gives a sense of top-down management. To me, it just means I'll have to go home early, because:

1) My mom will sit around waiting for me to get home;
2) My dad will sleep and later wake up to ask my mom if I've gotten home;
3) I don't want them to have sleep late / have a disturbed sleep as they wake up at 5.30am everyday to work for 12hours before getting back to sleep at 11pm;
4) I'm an only child, and it takes much longer time for parents to trust that I can live on my own;
5) I live in such an ulu district that has a murder case recorded in its history and FTs crowd every night to drink and have fun just outside my gate;
6) I, too, want to sleep early.

Brushing all these reasons off by just saying "curfew" makes me feel guilty for putting the blame on my parents. What have they done wrong? Loving me, worrying about me, I should be the guilty one instead!

When they say that parents never retire, I know what they mean.

Much as I want them to enjoy life as a couple and rekindle the kind of love they have for each other before I appeared to wreck their lives (FTL bahaha), I can't deny that they still need me around to make things work, or not. Imagine spending 24 hours everyday with your spouse. I'm sure my attitude problem spiced up their lives a lot more than expected. :D

Yes, I'll eventually be independent, financially and whatever else. But I'm not rushing into it. It's an irony: As I become more and more independent, parents become more and more dependent. By saying so, I'm referring to their health.

I still need to learn how to balance this around. My loved ones, my life, my conscience.

[By the way if you realised, my titles are usually not in sync with whatever I'm blogging about. ROFL.]

Soon soon soon

2011-03-26T11:31:00.002+08:00

I will not be updating this space till hell week's over. :)

Anyway, I had the honour to participate in a dialogue session with ex-PM of UK, Mr Tony Blair yesterday. The whole session saw many questions that addressed several current issues regarding the interfaith stuff going on in today's society.

It's pretty insightful. As a free thinker, it never occurred to me that the call for understanding between religions should, at all, matter to me. Mere tolerance across religions is not enough. Religions are not in opposition with one another. Often, they hold the same core values but choose to exercise these values in different ways. Even though I do not have a faith to start with, I'm starting to understand that the purpose of interfaith understanding matters to the society as a whole, not just to the religious people.

It's a little like, travelling. We can choose to tolerate what other countries are doing and still achieve peace, but mutual understanding can achieve better results.

Okay. That's all for now. The more I type the more anxious I am to finish my work.

Till when I'm more free. :)

=)

2011-03-17T22:30:00.003+08:00

挣扎了很久才决定把这一天记录在这里。
我强调，这并不是为了炫耀我的爱心。

今天，我做了件有意义的事。

投了钱，折了纸鹤。

我很开心。:D

（这样的小学作文应该不会及格吧。XD）

我不是草莓族

2011-03-16T21:23:00.002+08:00

所以我会更坚强。

失去机会又怎样。面对黑暗的现实又怎样。

一定会有另一道通往阳光的门，正等待我去开启。

Just Got a Lemon

2011-03-12T12:26:00.002+08:00

I was getting busier, but at least I thought everything was going smoothly.

Not until I received The Call. I was bewildered, I felt that the world was unfair, but whatever it was, I had to blame it on fate for playing such a trick on us.

Yes. Us. It was the bunch of us, eyeing a chance with a special responsibility, now ironically neglected due to a technical glitch.

In short, our applications for internships (via oosp) were left unnoticed. After a long wait, our representative gave them an email to enquire about our application statuses -- That was when they realised all these applications have not surfaced at all.

At first I was pretty angsty about it. We missed so many other opportunities just to wait for a confirmation email from them, whether it was a letter of acceptance or rejection. It was just not polite to apply for 5 internships at different companies, and reject them when they offer you. It's like, you're begging us for it and now you reject us.

Not to mention, even if they try to salvage the situation now, chances have been lost. They have allocated the internships. We'd probably be slotted into whatever's left.

Then again, they couldn't be blamed. Technical glitches happen, and on a more pessimistic tone, even if my application had gotten through, I might not have sailed through the interviews.

I'm sure oosp will be looking into this matter really seriously. But I'm not banking all my hopes on oosp to rectify this matter. It's like relying on a rich gangster daddy to solve all your problems. Whatever the outcome is, I'll just live with it. If I don't get it, I'll just look for something else to do. [I can always apply directly to other agencies.] If I do get it, I'll still put in as much effort as I can.

I hope I'll have better news by the time I blog again.

Busy Bee Bzzzzz

2011-03-10T20:38:00.003+08:00

Haven't been updating this space for quite a while.

Now I'm starting to find it difficult to meet the demands of studies + two part-times. Oh yes. TWO. Just signed the 生死契 to be the research assistant of Doraemon. While the USP one will expire when the semester ends, this research thingy will only end when I graduate, or what he retires. Whichever comes sooner. LOL.

And. My job scope is: Collect examples for swear words. ISN'T THIS INTERESTING. Now I can say 草泥马 all I like and tell people I'm just checking out the linguistic use of swear words. Oh yay. ^^v

Speaking of which, I'd been listening to radio and reading HerWorld's website very extensively -- all in the name of RESEARCH. Linguistics FTW.

Okay. Time to complete some work. Ciao~

Mehh.

2011-03-06T12:22:00.000+08:00

1. It was surprisingly therapeutic to reorganise information and give them bite-sized write-ups. It's like, I'm finally doing something non-academic at home. =.="

2. Non-examinable modules are always a scam. I'm underloading (for the Nth time I'm saying this) and I still feel that the deadlines want me dead. Maybe it's because there's only one individual paper, which, at the progress I'm doing research, I can finish it by next week. (One week is considered quite a lot of time put into an individual paper... if you know my usual style.)

3. I can't bring myself to do history. It's not because of the belief that historians memorise timelines /dig soil a lot. It's because I find it difficult to relate to historical figures when they're put out of context. I feel that I can never understand the way things work then. And to make things worse, the amount of names that follow a single historical event makes me very confused. Especially when I can't put a face to everyone of them. And they're usually all guys. Boo.

4. Is it six-year-old, six year old or six year-old?

5. I should start pasting "A+" post-its all over my room so that I'll really work hard for it.

6. Ikea meatballs tomorrow ohyay!!

7. Pragmatics is still harping on the topic of deixis. I can't wait for politeness (or impoliteness) and Grice to come. I realise that the EL side focus much more on theories, but the CL side puts emphasis on things that you can see on the paper. Like, oh why is there a difference in the use of 懂 and 知道... etc etc. I'm not keen to do a lexicogrammar analysis for my term paper (like everyone else in the class). Well, let's see how this goes.

8. That's all for now. Sometimes I feel so useless I just want to cry. I need a chocolate.

Perceptions!

2011-03-02T19:35:00.002+08:00

Just some random moments these days...

1) On the topic of that drain that leads to LT10 from the Deck:

CK: Why don't you walk there *points to the drain*? It's faster.
Me: I don't want to walk in a drain.
CK: You could see it as a flight of stairs with wider steps.
Me: I prefer to think that it's a drain.

2) On the topic of brown leather wedgies:

Eve: You know, sometimes when you see these brown branded shoes in neighbourhood shoe stores, they just don't look like the exact shade you want to get.
Me: Yeah, usually they just look like sai colour.

I really saw such wedgies in a neighbourhood store, and started comparing it to the branded one that I spotted online. I described the online one as a coffee shade. But to be dead honest, that shade of light brown could have been deciphered as something similar to coffee, or sai. Perhaps if we switched the contexts that the shoes were put into, we'd have changed the description of sai to coffee and vice versa.

In conclusion, I've decided not to get the shoes. Such an awesome way to save money. I'm so proud of myself. :D

Online purchase

2011-02-28T22:53:00.002+08:00

I haven't really gotten over the psychological barrier. I still can't buy things online without worrying 2000 times if it's going to fall apart within 7 days.

The first tube dress I bought... The lace at the hems were tearing off and I spent some time sewing it back just now. I haven't worn it much you know. Just three times excluding the first try when I got the dress.

And now my friend's recommending me to buy lingerie online. I doubt I will, eventually. (Much apologies to that dear friend though.) I still feel more comfortable buying these intimate stuff at the stores. At least you can try and see if the cutting, size, etc fits you perfectly. I wouldn't want to live with one that eats into my flesh. =S

Besides, as hilarious as it sounds, it would be so embarrassing if it turns out to be a size too big for you and people catch you with it. Especially for the piece above the waist. Ohhh I can't imagine that. LOL

Alright, just a bit more fine-tuning to be done for my presentation slides and I shall start the second half of the semester with a sleepy face, as always. =)

Disappointments

2011-02-27T13:16:00.003+08:00

Just a patronising post before the semester comes back in full blast again. Zzz.

I've had so much thought about this post, but when I really sit down and start typing, nothing comes out.

Maybe I'm just too disappointed to bring myself to blog. Haha. "Disappointed" sounds like a strong word -- It's just "discouraged", perhaps.

This semester has been crazy -- The Nth time I've been repeating this. I am underloading my semesters, with only four modules each term all the way till Thesis Semester. Then again, two non-examinable modules are just enough to suck all the marrow out of my life. Boo.

Which is why, when people blame me for not initiating gatherings, I feel helpless. This sense of helplessness morphs into annoyance when some of them start to bring the boy into the topic.

Does it make you happier if I meet up with you everyday and my relationship with the boy starts to grow sour and eventually break up?

I do understand that some of them meant it as a joke. For that, I brush those comments aside. But some comments can get really hurtful.

"It's OK, I'm sure you don't want to meet us at all. You don't have to say 'meet up soon's when you don't mean it."

I am trying very hard to balance school, part-time, family, friends and the boy. I'm sure all of you out there are trying to manage your time as perfectly as possible too. I know you may be too busy to organise a gathering or even meet up for a meal. Then again, it doesn't mean that "I have time for my boy" would directly entail "I have time to organise gatherings".

I don't have such problems back then. Why is it that people start to expect me to initiate meet-ups when I'm attached?

I cherish my friends a lot. And here I am, seeking your understanding and patience. Just like how I'd appreciate it if you cooperate when I organise gatherings, I would most gladly cooperate with you too if you drop me an SMS, or a call, or even on the FB events page.

Haha. Come to think of it, maybe it's just my attitude problem that's acting up. The more you ask me to do it, the more reluctant I would be. :D Again, if I hadn't been annoyed by these hurtful comments, I wouldn't have developed such an attitude to protect myself either.

Disclaimer: This post is not directed at any specific person. =) Well if you think it sounds offensive... you should know what that means. Hahaha.

平时如战时，战时如平时

2011-02-21T14:54:00.004+08:00

这是我中学乐团指挥说的一句至理名言。

他总是激励我们，鼓励我们去追求名利以外的乐趣。我还记得，那次我们彩排比赛曲目时，他郑重地说：“我们不是为了那份荣耀，更不是为了赢别的学校。我们为了音乐而演奏。让大家知道，什么是华乐。让大家知道，这美妙的声音，就是华乐。”

确实，只要自己满足于自己的演奏，就是赢家。

那年的比赛，是我印象最深刻的表演。指挥棒挥起的那一刻开始，就像踏步在音符的草地上，尽情奔跑，尽情游乐。终于玩够了、玩累了，虚脱而倒在草地上，带着微笑，喘气。结束的那一刻，指挥棒在空中静止、颤抖。大家都屏住呼吸，深怕破坏那份短暂的快乐。掌声渗入了宁静，指挥棒离开岗位，乐团笑了。

这句话后来成了我平常做事的依据。我把它当成座右铭。顺便也成为我想念这位老师的借口。

最重要的是，我领悟到“兴趣”这回事。“兴趣”并不是一朝一夕，更不是三分钟热度。在我们不断努力，不断挖掘新体验、新知识的当儿，“兴趣”才会默默出现，然后又默默离去。能促使你从现有的框框破茧而出，只有“兴趣”。

我一直不断地寻找这种乐趣。这种饱满而不肤浅的乐趣。于是我拼命地生活，把每天都活得踏踏实实地，不容许有任何一分后悔的机会。我一直以为，这样子，是在寻找未来更快乐的生活，让自己以后能够尽情地"have fun"。

却发现，这样的努力，本身就是一种乐趣。

说我自虐也好，失心疯也好。能够在努力的当儿挂上一丝快乐的微笑，何等难得。说穿了，我也不过是一个不知未来的路该如何走的大学生，为了未来铺路，也不知该铺去哪里。但是，我活着的每一天，都是快乐的。因为我努力了，我知道明天的我不会有任何遗憾。

你呢？你现在快乐吗？

[Trivia:

This post was written on 20 Feb 2011 and somehow, very creepily, something similar popped out from HJM's blog. Conclusions are different. I guess I don't need to go into a discussion of how impossible it is for us to copy each other's blog entries since we're both great bloggers. LOL.]

Where's our recess week!

2011-02-20T10:56:00.002+08:00

The recess week ahead will be filled to the brim with projects, assignments and presentation preparations. What's new.

The past few days were spent nursing my very bad flu and sore-throat-turned-cough and trying very hard to get enough rest. I coughed really hard just now and now I'm hiccuping so I can't really see very clearly what I'm writing. I type like, five words? and the hiccup comes. -_-

Anyway.

Something hilarious happened recently. Chun and I were shopping at the school's bazaar on Friday when we both bought an item each. I picked up this dress and Chun was worried that it might be too short or too body-hugging. I bought it anyway, and when I went home to try, the comforting thing was that it wasn't body-hugging at all. The not-very-comforting fact was that it became a normal dress length on me. LOL.

It was supposed to look like a damn short dress so that you can wear it with tights. But oh well I guess I can save up on the water needed to wash the tights. After that I deduced that it was probably not as body-hugging as we thought cos the tight parts were all at the wrong areas since it wasn't meant for short people like me. LOL.

Nevermind. At least I still look decent in it. :) And I need to sew up the zip because... it doesn't open to a pocket.

金文泰醉骂

2011-02-17T23:22:00.007+08:00

[内容纯属虚构，如有雷同，纯属巧合。]

图书馆前的夕阳西下
四年后遇见时还是害怕
若爱上了它
或许是时候找个朋友了吧

你上了那蓝色橘色的校车
一屁股坐在同学隔壁
脸一瞥
怎么成了世界最遥远的距离

什么兄弟什么姐妹
是孩子接受大人专制的难过
“傻”字还写错
四年中文系该重新修过

最后这一环节请绕了我
我还真的蛮洒脱
时光非常仁慈
擦身而过连一秒都嫌多

日积月累的错
总算能一次跟你说
不奢求把你扣上锁
只望往后不再忆起这场祸

Fanfictions

2011-02-16T22:42:00.002+08:00

Just a random note.

A few days ago, Chun was telling me about how awful fanfictions nowadays are. Most of them are for the mature audience, and no matter how bad the language is, sex is almost becoming the only selling point for these stories. It's so advanced that there is a ranking for the extent of R-rated-ness for these fictions! Gosh. Just a 10-year break from that scene and such things have happened.

I thought that writing 纯情 trash was bad enough. Here comes sexual trash.

Where are my flowers?!

2011-02-14T23:25:00.003+08:00

From the moment we met to celebrate Valentine's Day today, I'd been bugging him about the flowers. He SMSed to confess that he didn't buy any flowers for me even before we met up. Although I didn't mind not having any flowers to hold on to and proudly show off to other girls along the corridors, I kept bugging him no matter what. It's just pretty fun to see him cringe and get so embarrassed and finally get pissed off when I keep harping on the topic.

He said he'd perhaps buy me one just to shut me up. LOL.

Now it's 11.30pm and I still don't see any flowers. That's why I'm seizing this last chance to harp on it here. :P

Not like I mind, really.

After I ended lessons, we went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for our dinner --- stuffs for chawanmushi, bacon-wrapped asparagus and fried rice. We prepared the food at his house. He did most of the cooking though. All I could do was to beat the eggs, take plates and bowls as requested to, and cut the meat up. LOL. Very useless assistant chef with no background in Home Econs here.

Nonetheless, the chawanmushi turned out to be fabulous, despite looking pretty hard and not-very-appetising at first. Bacon-wrapped asparagus was a tad bit saltier than usual (because he added salt to the already-salty bacon) and I thought it would do better with some sauce. Fried rice paled in comparison to the previous two, but it's OK since it's his first attempt anyway. I guess the rice wasn't moist enough to start with, so the whole dish became dry.

Oh well! It's perhaps the most unforgettable meal we've ever had.

He was so apologetic about not giving me a typical romantic Valentine's date like all other couples in the restaurants enjoyed. Our first Valentine's Day was such a simple domestic affair. Nothing posh, nothing to be proud of.

So what? If I had wanted to dine in a restaurant, I could do it any other day. Besides, we'd been dining outside for most of our dates, so there's really nothing special about dining out anymore. (Plus the fact that prices are hiked up so high it's impossible to even dine without burning a hole in our pockets.) It's nothing to be proud of, but at least it's an experience that is uniquely ours.

I'm so happy. I'm really so happy.

Happy Valentine's Day, love. Flowers or not. =)

Lasts of CNY

2011-02-13T22:16:00.004+08:00

Three CNY visitings have happened since Friday. Let's just go in a chronological order according to the time. HAHA.

The Nanjing bunch of girls met up at Clementi to shop for food to bring to Maggie's house for lunch. Mag ordered the sushi set from Sakae, so the other girls just continued shopping at the supermarket while the boy and I went to collect it. The boy suggested that we take a bus to Mag's house with the amount of stuff we were taking. Blur Maggie didn't even know what buses were available around her house. HAHAHA. We had roast chicken, the Sakae sushi set and prawn salad that Maggie's mom prepared. After a few games of Saboteur, we proceeded with the smoked salmon louhei! The amount of smoked salmon totally covered the other ingredients. HAHAHA.

Yeah and we went off soon after as everyone had dinner dates elsewhere. A last group photo for the day!

Everyone looks so happy. Hahahaha. We were just unsure if the shutter had clicked. LOL.

Saturday was a long day for the both of us. We met up to go to Sin Yee's house for the annual CCC CNY visiting after his lessons ended. We were way early. Chatted with Sin Yee and Moky, had fun with her water bed (omg I want!!), hugged her humongous Doraemon while the rest of the clique streamed in. Ate a bit, played a few rounds of Uno, a game of Hunter and Bear, another few rounds of Blackjack... AND I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO PLAY MAHJONG! Awesome. And I won the last round (out of four rounds yay). Much thanks to Soo Khee for teaching me though (the boy wasn't there as he left earlier to celebrate CNY with his class). I think I kept asking very weird questions. For the third round I got like, half of a 十三幺 but it was too difficult to get the rest of it.

After laughing and eating and talking about random stuffs at Sin Yee's house, I left to meet the boy (again) to go to his cousins' gathering at CCK. So we traveled half the island to his cousin's house. There were a lot of people there! The boy introduced each of them. I can't exactly recall everyone of them but I can roughly get the names of the ones in the Y-gen. The louhei was crazy though. I'd say it's the most crowded louhei ever, and I bet half of the ingredients either landed on people's hands or on the table or on the floor. LOL. Oh! We played Blackjack and the boy won with a pair of Ace in the last round before I left! :D

I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open when I reached home. Nevertheless, yesterday was really a very eventful CNY day! The last time I attended such huge relatives' gatherings was when I was still too young to appreciate CNY (other than the angpaos and the goodies). It would become less and less possible to hold such gatherings as the years pass. Besides, since I don't have any siblings, if I ever have any children, they will never have a chance to play with cousins from their maternal family. Oh well.

Let's not end the entry on such an emo note. Happy CNY, and Happy Valentine's to those who are celebrating it! For those who are single and available, JIAYOU! It's a good year for Dragon babies wor! Next year we'll 犯太岁 so you'd better hurry. Hee.

Result of Procrastinating too much.

2011-02-09T11:56:00.001+08:00

Finally I'm getting down to blogging about my CNY. I want to write all these down as this CNY is definitely more eventful than the previous years, and I don't know if I'll ever experience CNY the same way again.

In my last entry about the first two days of CNY, I forgot to mention that my parents and I went to visit the Sentosa Flowers on the first day. There's nothing much to see there. The amount of flowers for the show is really too little. I think we have a more spectacular display of flowers along the roads outside Changi Airport. Oh, the place was also flooded with foreign talents.

The amount of people (and their nationalities) is more amazing than the flowers.

We walked around the place for a while before taking a bus to RWS. It was really not a good idea to have dinner outside on the first day of CNY. Firstly, most restaurants weren't open. Secondly, even if they're open (like those in RWS), they had queues that stretch longer than those of Koi's.

This was how long we had to queue to enter Baits. When my dad went to check it out, most of the dishes were already sold out. In the end we just settled down at Ramen Play. It was quite a wait, but it was really better than nothing. After dinner, we walked back to the Beach carpark and it was home sweet home at a little over 9pm.

On the third day of CNY, we went to 313 to have our dinner before doing some sale-shopping around the area. I ended up with a backpack. The boy had been bugging me to get one since the time when my previous tote left a bruise on my left shoulder. Mom and dad each bought themselves some clothes and we went off to visit my paternal side's aunt's house.

I had a great time chatting with my eldest cousin. The conversation largely circled around academia and internships, but as someone who's nearly 10 years older than me, he provided me with very good advice and suggestions. We chatted all the way till near midnight before we realised it was too late and we should make a move. Hahahaha.

This weekend will be spent visiting my friends' houses, and hopefully I can get to visit the boy's house sometime soon. =)

Right, time to do some work and sleep by 9. These few days have been a blur. -_-

Rabbity Rabbity Hop!

2011-02-05T13:32:00.002+08:00

That was a lame title.

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

It was a pretty eventful CNY for me this year. Due to assignment demands, I suggested to visit all the relatives' houses, including those that we've never been to before, so that I could do some data collection. To talk through my mask, I'll say that I was joking. To be honest, that's one of the many reasons why we decided to do some CNY visiting this year. Another reason that I can think of would be how bored the three of us got, lazing around at home and getting a headache from sleeping too much.

The very ironic thing is, even though data collection is 3/5 done, none of them contains the trend that I was supposed to look out for. Well, for Arts majors, no trend is a trend. Just explain it away.

Yesterday we visited relatives from the maternal side. My aunts kept feeding me stuffs. One even gave me wasabi peas even though I kept saying I don't eat wasabi. At night, we went to my cousin's house, whose daughter is just two years younger than me. We reached their house at around 8pm, and chatted all the way till 10.30pm. :D My younger niece got very jealous over the fact that I went for Super Show 3 as she gave up trying to get the tickets. Tonight we'll be visiting my aunt from the paternal side. =)

On a side note, I've gained 2kg from the CNY eat-and-sleep-and-eat routine. Boo.

Super Show 3

2011-01-30T22:39:00.004+08:00

I'm still suffering from concert hangover. This morning I woke up with Rokkugo looping in my head, and I was all smiley despite the never-ending shower outside.

So, here's a rundown of random stuffs that happened during the concert. SuJu's first concert in Singapore. :D

1. The stage was damn huge. It was like, the shape of the word "田", with the mosh pits covering the white squares in the middle and seats surrounding three sides of the stage.

2. The boys really ran everywhere on the stage.

3. My seat was at the left side of the main stage. Even though it was at Row 20, everyone just flocked to the railings that separated the stage and the audience whenever some SuJu member advances to our side.

4. Yeah, the only thing that separate us from the boys was the railings. So. It's not a surprise that I got a chance to leave some of my sweat from my sweaty palms on their hands. Muahaha.

5. With the very good sound system that sent our seats trembling with the beats, YC and I had to scream to each other during the show. And we ended up not hearing anything either. I bet our conversations, if re-enacted at a quieter place, would have sounded hilarious. 各说各的。

6. I'm going to repeat this again because it is just so overwhelming TO HAVE THE BOYS UP SO CLOSE. When they choo-choo-trained past us their faces were so damn clear. It's a bit hard to imagine how huge they are in reality when I'd been watching them on the mini youtube screen.

7. The boys had a lot of fun on stage. When Shindong appeared as some Chinese guy he went "Muahaha I am hungry!", and when LeeTeuk appeared as some rich guy he kept going "Money! You want money?" Seriously. Boys.

8. Lady Heehee's appearance was awesome. His legs are so freaking pretty. And after his performance, "Beyonce" appeared, where Donghae and Eunhyuk kept rubbing Shindong's tummy and fool around on the stage.

9. The fruits platter was damn cute. Wookie sat down in his tomato costume and attempted to stuff his head into the fruit. Some fan threw a capsicum onto the stage, Siwon picked it up, opened it, and got so amused that it was the real vegetable that he asked the other members to see. Heechul's chilli costume was a tad bit obscene but that's just so Heechul. LOL.

10. Siwon climbed up the railings at our side. Wookie looked very shocked though. And when Siwon wanted to come down he looked shocked by the sheer height of that railing and started to look terrified. LOL. But he managed to jump down unharmed. Luckily. If not the fans would have died snatching a chance to give him CPR.

11. Wookie has very awesome vocals. I started liking him due to his unique voice -- it was very easy to spot him in a song. Then slowly I realised he has always been consistent in his performance, which is a very amazing feat.

12. Fans went wild. They threw all kinds of things on the stage. The boys usually just randomly pick some and throw back to the fans. Wookie even went to collect the towels and threw them back one by one. Hilarious.

13. Towards the end of the concert, Hyuk opened his bottle of water and started spraying at the fans. I pity those at the mosh pit. At least I was on a higher platform, so only my face had one streak of his bottled water.

14. The boys kept teasing one another. One of them kept throwing his wig at other members, Siwon threatened to kiss Donghae which made the fans crazy, Heechul ran his hand down Teuk's chest (as usual) during Bonamana... Well, there was a whole load of trivia.

15. LeeTeuk's coat was unbuttoned, but he kept clutching on to it. We were wondering if the button had fallen off. He was like, clutching on to dear life. I WANT TO SEE HIS CHEST MUSCLES but boo there weren't any. =(

I'm definitely thankful that XINMSN gave me the pair of free tickets (and such good ones some more!!!) to attend Super Show 3. It's really one of the best pop concerts I've ever attended.

And I reached home feeling drained out. LOL. It was really very amusing to see people in the Circle Line MRT looking bewildered as a horde of drenched and excited girls boarded the train from Stadium station. HAHAHA.

Sorry for the very late update though. :)

She's such a darling.

2011-01-29T11:58:00.005+08:00

I shrunk the video so it looks a little blur. Watch it in full screen for the HD effect. :D

IU!!!

Not Engaged. =_=

2011-01-28T23:09:00.003+08:00

Immediately after seeing that FB photo with the very misleading caption, I asked ZB, "So where's my ring?"

Nevertheless, it was really a very good distraction to see the top five news on my feeds occupied by close friends who were either 1) confused by the situation and were in disbelieve, or 2) bent on worsening the condition by adding more misleading remarks, or those who moved from 1) to 2).

Entertaining huh. Now I'm just very afraid that it would be such a huge scar if things don't work out as expected. -_- But well anyway, much thanks to those who were concerned. :)

-----

On a more serious note, emotions were a hell of a roller coaster ride today.

I never had to send anyone away. "Send away" as in, deaths. I remembered attending the funeral of my paternal grandmother, but I've never been close to my paternal side as they are all in the neighbouring country, so memories of attending her funeral are only the ceremonial remnants, nothing about her as a person.

My maternal grandmother passed away when I was merely an infant. She was on her way to take care of my cousin when a motorbike rammed into her at a zebra-crossing and she was pronounced brain-dead. She would have been a healthy and awesome grandmother if she had lived on to watch both my cousin and I grow up.

I am always afraid that someone close to me would leave me just like that. I will start forgetting the details. And slowly, the faces will blur. Of course, to quote the cliché, life moves on. Yet we try every possible means to hold on to these remnants and enhance them with the presence of physical items. From time to time, we would share these memories with other people, only to realise, with a hit of sorrow, that all these can never happen again.

I love you: papa, mama, baobao, my relatives and all of you my dear friends. I wouldn't have been what I am now, without you. You would probably be doubting this as social media platforms can never win in the sincerity battle against non-mediated communication.

Whatever it is, I love you, from the bottom of my heart. I shun the Asian tradition of hiding my feelings -- what's the point of doing that, and letting the one you love not know that you love them, and regret when they leave? The emotional load of these words are definitely not inversely-proportional to the frequency of which they are used.

-----

Super Show 3 tomorrow! :D Will update this space with awesome stuffs.

Give No Excuses

2011-01-27T22:35:00.003+08:00

I'm still pretty mentally-stressed over the essay thing. Boo.

Anyway.

I've got to stop finding excuses for things I don't wanna do because they're are out of my comfort zone.

I've got to stop the voice that says: I can't do this because...

1) ...some girl in the department has bewitched all the professors such that she can make her way to the Apples (many times the ApplePlus), and force myself to put her in positive light and see her as a diligent student who's willing to spend 12 hours in the library.

2) ...I am not intelligent enough.

3) ...I don't have a background in this field.

4) ...certain people climb to that academic status only because they're good at collating information, not critically analyse what they want, yet they expect such high standards from their students.

5) ...these people, in an attempt to stay in their comfort zone, limit their students' essay topics such that they wouldn't need to do extra research to understand what their students are writing.

Okay. I've ranted enough.

No more complaints from now on. Just. Freaking. Get. Started.

It's ONLY Week 3!!

2011-01-26T13:14:00.003+08:00

Week 2:

"Come to class with your essay topics and we'll briefly discuss about them in class."

Week 3:

"My topic is..."

"Where are you going to search for your research materials?"
"What's your motive of writing this essay?"
"I don't this this is feasible -- you have to keep in mind the (insert social context) that this happened, hence it would be difficult to create such a link between these two issues."

By Week 4 (which is next week):

"I want a concrete essay outline from each of you."

(FYI, this essay we're talking about is due only at the end of April.)

WTF?! What happened to "briefly discuss"? Is there some kind of semantic misunderstanding or is it merely euphemism he's using to mask the true colours of what we'd call "slamming"? He was probably being linguistically "nice" by saying "we'll briefly discuss about them" instead of "I will judge your topic and slam them when appropriate".

Thanks so much, for the premature essay stress.

Now I feel horrible about it. I feel obliged to do something in the teacher's favour, something that "has a significant academic effect" in his eyes.

The thing is, I do not like to feel obliged. I feel that my room of topic-creativity is being suffocated to its extremes.

Perhaps he's just trying to help us save our time by telling us what's doable and research-friendly and what's not. But, seriously. I want to go into the mud and get my hands dirty. If I do not find my piece of treasure in this plot of land, I'll venture elsewhere. Telling me where exactly I can find the treasure kills ALL the fun.

Boo.

I'm now feeling so stressed by this essay thing that I've lost all the enthusiasm to skip classes and go back to TJ for CNY visiting. I've just decided to just obediently attend my lecture and zoom home to read the 5 books that I've just borrowed, on top of the preparation for GRE. Damn damn damn.

Okay, time for lessons. I hope I'll feel less stressed when I update this space again. =)

太巧了！

2011-01-23T23:03:00.001+08:00

Something very amazing just happened.

I just found that my childhood friend is in the boy's class. OMG.

SUCH A COINCIDENCE.

Wow.

2011-01-19T19:39:00.004+08:00

I don't have much patience for huge chunks of text in blogs. I know mine's crazy, but usually I don't read what I write before I click "publish post" (this parallels my essay-writing style -- just write and hand-in, last minute). That explains why, I guess.

Unless the person's a close friend, like Chun or CK or Eve or (insert your name shamelessly), I don't usually sit here and read entries where people drone on and on about their daily what-menial-task-have-I-done-today.

Surprise! Recently I'd been following this fellow EL ex-classmate's blog, and found it pretty cool. We're not close -- talked a little more than just hi-bye yet not to the extent of gossiping about fellow classmates, and yet I could finish reading his blog entries without feeling tempted to switch to my FB tab for daily scoops. Probably it's got to do with the way he blogs. I could practically "hear" his blog. Really.

So, regarding the "lard factor" in my entries. I need to cut them short. If I can't even read my entries with such patience, I doubt anyone would. (AWW *Hearts* if you had been following my blog religiously.)

Stuffs like "I personally think" will go into the trash. As a form of practice I shall be more careful in my use of words, especially the flowery ones, to cut down on the lard factor. Unless, of course, that my intention is to smoke you to achieve some goal heh heh heh. This sentence sounds incorrect. Whatever.

So much for the English bit.

This thought went through my mind during class today when Prof A was talking about the lard factor of texts. The more efficient way is to type like as if I'm typing on SMS or Twitter, where every character is crucial, lyk dis. But I doubt u will undst much frm e codes n close dis window fr gd.

Cheers to a more concise style of writing. :D

I'm gonna end this here and hug my readings on Overseas Chinese, and leave you to mark my blog with a red pen. Have fun!

CNY is coming!

2011-01-17T10:17:00.002+08:00

I can't help but feel a little more festive when I went to Orchard to shop last evening. The festive songs were blasting in my ears, and they kept looping and looping. There was this particular song that looped till I could remember the lyrics. Oh okay maybe it was just me spending too much time in that mall.

I bought some clothes, and none of them has anything to do with CNY. Well if I pile all those new clothes on me and go around for visits, I'm sure I'll look like some oddball who wears black from top to toe for CNY.

Last night I added a pair of glossy black Americaya heels to my over-flooding shoe rack. It's those kind that I could wear to interviews and look all prim and proper. All I had before that were either sky-high (~5 inches LOL) strappy heels, bright-red "I-wanna-get-all-the-attention-in-the-world" heels (a little better -- 4 inches maybe), another pair of strappy for random formal events, a pair of black low-heeled pumps with a ribbon on top which used to be part of my working attire till it's now worn and torn, and a few more lying around.

I want a pair of low-heeled boots. But it's so hard to find one when all the freaking high-heeled ones are so awesome.

I bet this pair hurts.

Anyway. I should stop getting black stuffs. Or white stuffs. My whole wardrobe is now in monochrome. The only corner with a little bit of colour is probably the side where I store my T-shirts. Yeah, the signature pink ones. I think I've ranted about the monochrome thing quite sometime ago, before I made an effort to buy some other-coloured T-shirts. Hahaha.

My family's starting to feast on the heap of tidbits we've stocked up for the festival at home. The prawn crackers are going to deplete in a few days' time, and omg the bakkwa. We eat a piece like, everyday, almost religiously. LOL.

Okay I should stop this monologue and do my Teochew-nang readings. Damn boring argh.

A Poem of Consonants. LOL.

2011-01-15T20:19:00.000+08:00

她说 /m/
必须很久很久不说话
才发得出来
这非常低的/m/

她说 /m/
然后不动
不想动

那音节拨不动一丝涟漪
在养着青苔绿灰的湖

Read More

失眠

2011-01-15T11:10:00.002+08:00

已经两晚没睡好了。

在疼痛中醒来，冒冷汗，岔气，然后迷迷糊糊地睡去。

好像没睡一样。

Santa's Belated Xmas Gifts!

2011-01-13T19:03:00.005+08:00

Yay. For those who know me, this is an open secret. There will be another round of interview, but I'm already very grateful that I have managed to come thus far, given my meagre academic results and zero CCA record. Hahahaha.

Well let's just see how this thing goes. By mid-February I should have a rough idea of how this is going to turn out. And if everything goes well, I'll be kept busy for about 2 months of my holidays. :D

This is the next good thing that has happened recently. HAHAHA.

FREE tickets to the concert! I'm so blessed with luck. I kind of thought that the tickets would be the ones at the mosh pits or what, since they're free and they have little reason to give us the good seats. Turned out that I've got seats at one of the blocks nearest to the stage. How awesome is that. And today when I went to collect them, I peeped at the list and only saw three names, including myself. SUCH LUCK.

:D

Anyway, I realised that living in PGP last semester has made me a more disciplined girl. I used to come home, throw my bag aside and stare at FB for 2 hours before going off to sleep. But somehow when I was in PGP I didn't have much desire to be really online 24/7. It was like, I'm online but when you talk to me on MSN I take ages to reply cos I was studying on my bed. LOL.

When this semester started, I was wondering how I would ever get anything done at home, but alas! I have completed my Week 2 readings already! It is really not that difficult to concentrate on my work. Hahaha. I wonder what I was doing for the previous semesters when I was at home. Hmmm.

I'll just need to be more proactive in class and this semester will be a breeze. Or so I hope. :)

Hi, Juniors.

2011-01-12T19:41:00.002+08:00

The first day of school started with a bit of shock. I haven't been having history classes since centuries ago, so coming face-to-face with a history class flooded with Honours, Masters and PhD students was too overwhelming for words.

And honestly, other than listening to stories and betting with myself how long I'd take to forget them, I still can't admire the beauty of history classes.

Nevermind. To avoid having lessons from 7-10pm, I'm more than willing to sacrifice a free day for a history class. :D

After a shocking first-class-of-the-semester, all others have so far been a breeze. ProfA's was as fun as ever, and well, my cute Doraemon's class was filled with exchange students. Awesome. He's teaching in English this semester, by the way.

Nothing much for the start of the semester, except the very pleasant surprise when Charis popped up in my class this morning. She wasn't in the class roster so I thought she had abandoned me, turned out that her bids got retracted. =O Poor thing.

That's all for now. Hopefully I can finish my Week 1 readings by tomorrow and blog about other more interesting stuffs at night. :D

Looking forward to school!!

2011-01-08T22:28:00.003+08:00

The start of school term would mark the end of any possible chance to spend more money than needed.

=D

School, part-time, research proposal and one important interview -- my first week of school is going to be a bomb. No Plans is most likely to 无限期延期 since I can't really spend so much effort organising the gathering with my interview under-prepared and part-time job thwarted at the first week on the job. And it looks like everyone else's busy as well so we'll see how. I am so sorry, Ahhong. =( [Why not let's meet up separately for lunch soon? :D]

As for the boy, we'll probably meet up for a meal somewhere during the week if there's time. I presume we won't be seeing each other as often as usual, since his prelims are around the corner and this coming semester's going to be another purposeful one for me. Much as I miss him, we still have to give each other some space to work hard towards what we want. =)

I can't believe I just said that. I'll probably regret and fly to the other side of the island to look for him tomorrow. -_-

My two-day week dream has been smashed. One of the modules has cancelled the tutorial that I have originally planned for. F. So now I'm stuck with a horrible three-day week, with alternate four-day weeks. F again. So much for cancelling my school accommodation.

Anyway.

Front Row had our first gathering this afternoon!

Dimsum at Imperial Treasure, aimlessly window-shopping along Orchard for squishables, desserts at Sun with Moon. :D Photos from sister JR.

Happy New Semester!! ^^

I don't want to go back to school!

2011-01-04T11:23:00.002+08:00

I went back to school yesterday. LOL. The inertia kicked in right at the point when I stepped onto the train to Clementi. One semester of a-15-minute-ride-to-school hall life had spoiled me. Luckily next semester's gonna be a 2-day week. And I have my beloved living at that side of the city so it makes my travelling seem more purposeful.

Anyway. Yeah I went back to school for some work-related stuffs yesterday. I had a really long chat with YunSian (AssocDir of USP) about my part-time job, alumni activities and the admission criterion, and many many more. While we were chatting, my module mate for last semester dropped by and said hi, and another alumnus popped by to send his regards too.

I told her, seeing all these people contributing so much to the society and the humanity in general, I wonder what I'm doing, worrying about my grades and how I should get my As. I felt like I was hit by some kind of serious myopia. But the AD was right: we never know what's in store for us, and what we can do now, is to put in as much effort as we can, on the things that we're currently doing. Every step is a step towards something... big.

I'll probably end up in the crowds, slaving for a company and getting the pay to satisfy my short-term desires.

Nevertheless, I really appreciate the times when my effort's being recognised. Someone told me last Friday that she was very willing to recommend me if I had plans to apply for graduate scholarships. I was very grateful when YunSian told me she'd include me in the student's achievements folder. I had always been a hide-in-the-middle-of-the-class-and-gape-in-awe-as-other-students-give-constructive-comments kind of student in USP. Any tiny recognition for my effort is miracle.

[She said something funny though: "Sometimes I sit at the back of the class and wonder: How can a 21-year-old know so many things that I've never ever come across in my entire life?"]

So I'll be working part-time for the school next semester. Hopefully I'll be able to cope with the project-basis thing and still have some time off for myself. =) And... yeah, allow me to survive the semester, financially. =)

MMXI

2011-01-01T01:05:00.001+08:00

Happy 2011 to all of you!! =)

Last year, the rocky one.

2010-12-31T23:50:00.002+08:00

2010 was a bumpy ride. Despite all the turbulence met on the way, everything eventually turned out well. Like what the boy always says, the unexpected should be appreciated.

I'm not a girl who keeps to what she says. Much as I treasure every promise made between my friends and I, the promises that I made to myself have never failed to... well, fail. As such, new year resolutions never come in handy for me. I'd blog about them very excitedly, and at the end of the year I would be surprised by my own resolutions. -.-

And so. This entry's gonna be a look-back at all the things that have happened in 2010, and I hope this serves as a better reminder than resolutions. =)

-----

School The Academic Part

I have spent a very huge part of the year not knowing what I was doing in school. CL modules were a total disaster. They made me feel more inclined to pursue further studies (if ever) elsewhere. Most of the CL modules that I've taken this year, I have barely learned anything from them. The only fruitful one was Phonetics, although it is not as heavy as the EL counterpart, I still managed to learn many new things from it. Other CL modules were just, bleargh.

EL modules were fantastic. The funny, animated and cute professors totally spiced up the classes with their awesome characters. I was also blessed to have very motivated and fun-loving groupmates for both the semesters too. Next year, Front Row (that's my group name for the previous semester) will be taking the same module again. :D

The only first-tier that I've taken throughout this whole year is BioD. The professor was fantastic, but I was just too mal-knowledged in Geography to keep up to the module's progress, and only gained momentum during the 2nd half of the semester. Nevertheless, it was one module that I enjoyed a lot -- even mugging for it was a pleasure. :)

I decided to slacken a bit and do a 5-year undergraduate stint since I reckoned I was putting my life on the line if I were to overload myself with 4000-modules. The previous semester I had only 17 credits (as opposed to the usual 20 credits) to cope with, but unfortunately each module demanded two assignments (almost the scale of two separate essays), hence I was more than exhausted when the semester finally came to an end.

Thanks to the overwhelming demand for rote-learning this semester, I found that I wasn't entirely incapable of swallowing and vomitting notes at all.

I realised that my hatred towards rote-learning stemmed out from the level of pro-exam satisfaction I get. If the exam's all about memorising work, I would be too inclined to expect myself to remember every single detail perfectly during the paper. But we all know this is not possible, so I always get disappointed with myself for forgetting stuffs during the paper.

Tried living in PGP for the past semester, and the experience was not bad. It's really not as terrible as what others have told me. Those shortcomings that have annoyed me mostly stem from the insane stuffiness of the room and the lone trips for meals. Next semester I'll be pulling out from the place as I'll be sporting a 2-day timetable (finally!) and I reckoned it would be much more convenient to stay at home if I take up some part-time job.

Hopefully next semester I'll see less memorising work and more exciting papers! :)) I'm pretty optimistic about it. Hee.

School The Exciting Part

Well, I guess the most significant event that has happened to me ever in school is the proposal from Charis, and the still-unknown stalker on Facebook who wanted to explode Charis. The flowers have wilted, we have FB-divorced, but the ring still stays. Aww.

As part of the self-initiated module that I had in the first half of the year, I had to conduct a lecture. That wasn't exactly exciting though, since to me it's just a prolonged presentation. HAHA.

Took part in several extra-curricular stuff, like the Singaporeans in Conversation dialogue session in mid-2010, which got us thinking about what the ideal Singapore should be and... well, stuff like that.

Hmm.

HOW CAN SCHOOL EVER BE EXCITING, SERIOUSLY.

Career

Although I landed myself in a vacation job under the same big employer as the previous vacation jobs, the journalism stint this year was much more satisfying than any of the previous ones. Perhaps it was the circumstances and the work dynamics that made my experience so fulfilling. Like what I've always mentioned, the group of news reporters was small, so everyone was tightly-knitted. Even as I came back to freelance in another department, I'd still join them for lunches on a weekly basis when we're all in office. =D

Thanks to the advice that fellow ex-colleagues have given me, I've also decided to try doing something in the public sector. I'm not sure what it'll give me, but exposing myself to more opportunities is perhaps the most crucial thing I should do now to build experience and get a better grasp of what I really want to do.

During the semester next year, I'll be working with one of the school's department on a project basis. Student price $8.74 per hour, but at least it's not entirely out of the way -- I have more reasons to spend my time doing research in school. :D As of now, things are still very much unconfirmed, but hopefully I'd be able to come into some agreement with the department in two weeks' time and sign the contract.

Uncategorised Commitments

Well, my only random commitment is probably the blogging stuffs that happen occasionally. Like what I've mentioned very recently, the blog opened by the top 5 Y Bloggists from the competition, the Fifth Avenue, has just gotten some attention from one of the statutory boards. At least for the start of 2011, we'll be working closely with them to promote the Marina Bay area.

Hopefully this will also be the first step towards getting more event invitations as a team. =)

Friends and Family

Most of my friends have finally come back from their overseas exchange stints, so this year has been largely filled up with meet-ups and gatherings with old friends. On top of that, due to the very tiny group of Honours students that Chinese Department has, I've also known some people whom I've never seen in my modules for the past three years. =.= The Malacca trip was definitely one crucial event that spurred all these new friendships.

As for the family, I have requested to take over my bank account, and hopefully, when I find myself a part-time job for next semester, I'd be able to stop my dad from giving me generous pocket money each month. There are some things which I've hid from them, but I'm sure they'll understand if I tell them again when the time is ripe. I just want to protect my loved ones, wherever possible.

Personal Life

I'm sure you're better-informed than me when it comes to my personal life.

The earlier half of this year has been blurred with uncertainties and anguishes, with a sprinkle of the truth from the past which made me sink into despair (it's not as serious as it sounds but well, you get what I mean). When ZB appeared at the later half of this year, I felt trapped. I put myself in her shoes, and felt so bad about it that I couldn't stop tears from welling up whenever I thought about it. It took me quite some time, one month to be exact, to accept ZB. One month may be very short in your eyes, but imagine waking up to a million uncertainties waiting for you -- one month of turmoil is equivalent to 30 years of normal life.

I'm still not sure what I was thinking when I accepted ZB, but whatever the reason at that moment is, I'm happy that both of us have been leading a fairly blissful life thus far. In the new year, when our relationship steps out of the so-called "honeymoon period", I hope we'll still be able to be as happy as ever. =)

Of course, one thing that I have to come to terms with is the amount of publicity this relationship has gotten us into. It's like, 3/4 my fault for posting the initial hairy-hand photo on FB and got tongues wagging about it. This matter wouldn't have been blown up this much if not for the massive amount of common friends we share. But, oh well, since our friends definitely mean no harm, we can always play along. Haha.

-----

来来来，开始颁奖咯！

Most Eventful Month: January (28 posts!)

Most Exciting Month: February
- Stalker on Facebook
- KFC Egg Tarts Advertisement
- Proposal from Charis
- Friend's Mom's performance

Proudest Entry: GOT IT!

Most Movie-Loaded Entry: Inception, Despicable Me and Aftershock

Most Memorable KTV Entry: The Extremes of KTV

Most "Sweat it Out" Entry: Row, row, row our boat~

Entry that fetched me the Most Monetary Benefits: Where Lee Min Ho shrunk to 2/3 of his original size

-----

This pretty much sums up the more significant moments of my year.=) A big thank you to everyone who has bothered to finish reading this insanely long entry. Hahaha.

Here's wishing everyone a Happy New Year! May 2011 be a peaceful and blissful one for you! =)

The Second Day of Birthday

2010-12-30T19:57:00.004+08:00

As ZB was working the night before my birthday, we decided to celebrate my big day on the day after instead.

We met up at 9 in the morning (WTH for me and FHL for him) and went for breakfast! After a little walk up a gentle slope, we had a very scrumptious breakfast which sort of paid for all the walking that we had to do prior to that. Hee. He was complaining about the poached egg and I was so full of praises for the tomatoes throughout the meal. LOL.

Look at the sausage! Loves max. That black mess behind is the sauteed mushrooms. LOL.

After the meal, he gave me the first clue to the birthday present, and I totally got it right on the first guess. To quote him: “不是你太聪明，而是我太笨。” HAHAHA. After searching the area, I got my baobao-customised 2011 organiser!! :D The second clue was then given, and again, I was correct on my first try and tada~ my "birthday card" in the form of a video!

So sweet. Aww.

I hope I can still deliver a surprise that falls within the budget on his birthday! :D

Xiexieni~ ♥

Happy 18th Birthday to me!! =D

2010-12-29T00:13:00.000+08:00

永远18岁！-> Some lies have to be started early. HAHAHA.

Since I don't have too many birthday wishes this year, I'll just rank the people according to the medium they sent their well wishes through!

MSN Video Call

HZB Baobao!! :D He was working at the clinic and attending to patients when the Cinderella hour came, but he still gave me a little surprise online nevertheless! For this, I shall not write down the exact time he called since it was a few minutes after midnight. Hahahaha. Love max.

Face-to-face

1050 Sie Yen: Because we randomly met up such that I could pass the tickets to her. LOL. Thank you girl! Didn't expect you to 听说 about it. HAHAHA.

SMS

0009 Maggie: How can I ever forget that gingerbread house you girls bought for me last year! But I did get the 10th present eventually. That's more than enough. HAHA!

0009 Samartha: Thankew so much for spending an overseas SMS on me! Hahaha. Have fun in Hainan and SEE YOU BACK IN SG OMG YOUR PRESENTS ARE FLOODING MY ROOM.

0038 Yen Chun: 阿纯你发错人了啦，我18岁。

0049 Chao Kiat: Oei 酸我huh! Okay la at least I'm not as popular as you, so you're still in the top 5. HAHAHA. 谢咯兄长。

0937 Eunice (Phua): Darling!! Ai ni. Thank you so much! Haiyars. Really very busy recently lah. We'll meet up when Charis flies back okay!! :D

1155 Sin Yee: Dean's 娘, thank you belly much! A pity next semester we won't be taking any common modules. But hope it'll be a great last sem for you!! =D

2029 ZB's Mom: SURPRISE!! :D 谢谢 auntie!! 祝你新的一年全家幸福美满哦！^^

Facebook
(Due to the very vague time indication on FB, I'm going to list the names in order without the time. :D)

Dean: Ultimate first of the day! Thankew 宝哥哥/相公/module buddy! =D

Lixuan: Long time no see wor. Hahaha!! Xiexieni~~

Evelyn: BIMBO! 谢谢你！爱老虎油 much much!

Kar Keat: I posted on his wall and demanded that he wished me back. LOL. Happy 22nd birthday to you KK!

Ying Hong: AHHONG gam sia ar! See you next week! HAHAHA.

Yen Chun: Chun! =D Yes I 永远18岁, you send bday message to wrong person liao. HAHAHA.

Pek Sia: Thankew my primary school bestie, JC classmate and uni schoolmate!! =D

(Low) Xin Yee: 谢谢你哦！XINYU 同学！（哈哈哈哈忘了怎么写你的华文名。）

Chao Kiat: Awww ♥. Thank you so much!!! :D Let's try not to forget the time again next year! :D

Samantha (Leung): Hahaha thank you! Hope to see you around in school!!

Weiling: LINGZIEE! Meet up for KTV soon! I miss singing with you!

Jianrong: LOL thanks for bothering to jump on the bandwagon. =.=" Thanks wor. Xiaolongbaos soon!

Yachun: Wah got 神的祝福, I'm sure this year will be a blissful one! :D Xie lo!

(Tang) Xin Hui: Yes. Totally. KTV soon. LOL.

Yuxiang: Thankew! Good luck for exams and see you back in Singapore soon!! :D

Wuchen: 学妹! 谢谢你! 周五见咯~

Hui Min: Thankew my module buddy!! Hahahaha.

Charis: 前妻啊前妻, 我何时能再遇见你. LOL. Thanks wor.

Joyce: LOL thanks! See you in school with Shona again! :P

Alan (Li): Thanks a lot! Enjoy your countdown on Friday! ^^

(Poh) Shi Hui: Hello Xiezhi's ex-wife. HAHA. Thanks!!

(Lee) Hui Jun: AHJUN DARLING! MEET UP SOON! (After you come back from TW, that is.)

Wilson: 我也希望能快高长大。祝你快点成为肌肉男。:D

Mickey: Auntie, I very long never sit on your lap le. Thursday let me 坐个够 okay. :P

Belated Wishes

Wanjun via SMS: Thank you! Hope to see you soon yeah!! =D

Sherilyn via Facebook: Muh partner-in-crime!! =D Come back soon and brew evil plans with me! ^^

Thank you, ALL OF YOU, for the overwhelming amount of wishes! =)

The Fifth Avenue

2010-12-26T19:31:00.002+08:00

Actually this thing has been around since a year ago, right after the results of the Y Bloggist competition 2009 were released. BUT. Everyone was so busy with their schedules and the event invitations on their respective blogs, that nobody actually made much effort to update this blog. Hahahaha. I guess Kevin has been the only one who is keeping the page alive. =P

Anyways.

We've gotten our first event invitation! =) It's the Countdown at Marina Bay on the 31st of December. Not only are we going to blog about the event, we're going to give out tickets (worth ~$40 each) to readers as well!

Do support us and "like" our Facebook page!! =D

Xiexie dajia!! =D

On the Eve and Eve's Eve of Christmas!

2010-12-25T19:54:00.004+08:00

Merry Christmas!! :D

This year's Christmas is particularly eventful.

Two days before Christmas, ZB and I met up with his secondary school clique. We had our dinner at Everything with Fries, the branch at Holland V. It's my virgin trip there -- the food's quite good, albeit having too much fries to go with the main course. Haha. For the clique, I knew two of them from TJCO and the interschool camp, so it wasn't entirely a group of strangers I was meeting. Pretty peaceful a night, with a slight tinge of regret as Weiling ran out of polaroid films so we didn't have a chance to take one together.

On the eve of Christmas, I woke up quite early to meet the Countdown @ Marina Bay team at the URA Centre. Some preliminary plans have been drawn out for the whole blogging event. It's quite exciting as it's quite a long-term "contract" with the statutory board, especially when it's the first assignment we've ever gotten as a team ever since the contest. More details will follow, and I'll link you guys up with the blog once the mess is cleared. =D

Met up with ZB for a chicken-pie lunch. It was fantastic! YC next time I bring you there. =D Just the pie alone is enough to fill our stomachs for lunch. We went to Bugis Street to window shop, and eventually retreated back to Bugis Junction to sit down and rest, before going to Teo Heng for KTV with the No Plans gang.

It's my first time singing with Tracy and Simin! We had random jokes like, Halloween being a joyous festival as it starts with a Hallo (-.-), "Alex" the imaginary friend, 合音天使 become 火鸡天使 for the festive mood and lame stuffs like that. I went home after KTV as I was having a throbbing headache, possibly from fatigue and also the scorching sun in the day.

And so, I turned in at 9.30pm, and celebrate the first hours of Christmas with an undisturbed 13 hours of sleep. :D

Hopefully HJM etc can send the photos soon! =D

No Plans Party

2010-12-22T22:04:00.003+08:00

The weather was terrible, but the great friends made up for it. :D

We had a potluck picnic at the Botanical Gardens. Everyone was already tired when we reached somewhere in the middle of the whole garden, but unfortunately, we were attacked by little ants when we finally settled down. So we moved to another patch of grass, just a few metres away, and started eating. Halfway through our picnic, the grass cutters came and surrounded us!!! HJM's face at that moment was very funny, like as if she was going to kill the grass cutters just by staring. LOL.

Anyway, those grass cutters eventually left without disturbing our picnic, and we continued to finish the huge amount of food. Tracy kept offering her strawberry oreo, and I was happily savouring the mango Pocky she brought back from China. Hahaha.

We moved our butts to Minds Cafe in the evening, and that's really where all the laughter started. We played a round of Jenga where Chao Kiat was unlucky enough to topple the tower (he was the first to start the game) and had to answer a very lousy Truth question, something about the remote control in his house. =.=" For the rest of the night, we played endless rounds of Taboo.

There were uncountable epic moments in the game. HJM, Moon, ZB and I were in the same team, and CK, Ah-he, Simin and Tracy in another. Let's just list down the epic moments that I can recall thus far.

#1

ZB: The thing in your room where you put your bags.
Me: Hammock!

Me: The thing in my house, the old old thing, tall...
ZB: Grandfather's clock!

(Both answers were correct)

HJM and Moon: How on earth would we know what's in your house and your room?!

#2

Me: *Points to the bowl of nachos on our table* What is this?
HJM: Fries!

(Answer was obviously wrong)

#3

Moon: Dean.
Us: Wolf.

(Correct! LOL.)

#4

(The target word is "toast".)

CK: You know Yakun right... WTF cannot say Yakun!!

#5

CK: (After some description) Aiya! The rrrrrrrrrr~~
Others from his team: Vacuum cleaner.

ZB: The... dididadidoo.
Me: ATM!

(Both answers were correct -- the second one was correct on the first try. LOL)

#6

ZB: Helicopter helicopter.
Me: Harry Potter!

(Correct wor.)

Yeah that's most of what I can remember from the night. I suppose if we kept playing Taboo we would have developed abs from laughing. HAHA.

Looking forward to the next No Plans party!! Whenever that will be. =D

Christmas Too Early

2010-12-17T23:06:00.002+08:00

Last night was the annual CCC Christmas Party at WenJie's residence.

I wasn't from the Club, but I was roped in as most of the original members knew me and they thought that being ZB's girl would be a convenient reason to have me join in the fun so yeah.

That sounds like they're the one inviting me. HAHAHA. I'd rather say it's a two-way thing. It's quite weird to see a bunch of people you know and have close contact with, come together for a gathering that doesn't include you.

Whatever the reason is, according to the twin (also officially announced yesterday LOL) YKT, I'm already a member of that CCC group. =.="

We had a lot of food: sushi, beehoon and curry, popcorn chicken, festive logcake, tea jelly... Well, we couldn't finish the food.

While we gorged ourselves with the food, we played Monopoly Deal, and Hunter and Bear. I conclude that I'm totally not an economics-conscious person. I was still pretty clueless after a few rounds of Monopoly Deal. Hunter and Bear was awesome. I played Polar Bear before with the CO people, so the only thing I could remember about the game was that it was fun. LOL. Anyway, playing Hunter and Bear with a bunch of drama people is fairly annoying. With people like LZT who looks forever suspicious and SinYee who looks forever on top of the game, every game becomes very tiring to guess.

Much thanks to those who have given me the Christmas and birthday gifts! Sinyee, I really love that contact lens case! =D Very pleasantly surprised when I opened the piano-shaped thing to find something I need so much. =) And YKT, buying things for me is like buying presents for yourself isn't it. =P You know exactly what I want!

祝大家幸福快乐，永保安康！=))

执着什么？

2010-12-16T23:01:00.000+08:00

一直很坚持的意见，在家人病倒的时候化为乌有。

虽然老套，但我还是要说：我父母真的老了。昨晚照顾着生病的妈妈时，忽然发现她精力已大不如前。

我们一天天地长大，一天天地变得更壮硕、坚强，却在一群一样活泼的年轻人群中，忘了那个把我们推入人群的手 -- 那越来越弱的手。

近来一直觉得我的生活应该更加缤纷多彩，应该趁求学时候、佳节时期，尽情地玩乐。

不过，妈妈这一病，就算身处庆祝会，心也挂念着在家的母亲。

玩乐，瞬间变得黑白一片。无趣。

今天的圣诞派对，我本来不想去。

试想想，家人病得咽不下饭，只能靠饮料充饥，虚弱得无法起床走动的时候，我却一个人在外头和朋友狂欢、吃好吃的，能不惭愧吗？！

爸爸说，答应人了，就去吧。看在爸爸还能照顾妈妈的份上，不情不愿地，离开了家。

咀嚼着咖喱米粉和树桐蛋糕，家人到底吃饭了吗？

收到了圣诞节礼物，妈妈身体好转，我们一起出去吃圣诞大餐。

回家，踏着高跟鞋，步伐却比往常急促许多。

我的一天才刚开始。

无眠的一夜。

苏打绿《各站停靠》巡回演唱会　新加坡站

2010-12-12T09:07:00.008+08:00

The boring title is certainly an understatement to the concert.

I was really looking forward to the concert. Before the concert, when I went out to sing KTV on Tuesday, AhNong and I kept spamming Sodagreen's songs on the system. I think we sang at least 5 out of 8 full pages of songs they had in that KTV. LOL.

It was a truly music concert. There was no fanciful stage decorations nor costume surprises. Not that they needed it, anyway. The usual sprinkles of visual effects in pop concerts were almost nonexistent. The band wore a single set of clothes throughout the concert, and never once left the stage, not until nearing the end of the concert when we shouted for encore.

Godlike Qingfeng. LOL.

It was like, a massive Sodagreen pub, with music and Qingfeng's random muses. The concert started off with the what-we-interpreted-as-one-night-stand song 《蝉想》, and burst into a few other heavy band-music songs before the concert cooled off a bit for the ballads. As a surprise, they prepared a Singaporean-friendly song, 《城里的月光》, which obviously had the whole floor singing in chorus with Qingfeng.

I kind of like 《各站停靠》, especially at the end where Xinyi sang along with Qingfeng. For a moment I thought they were going to sprinkle white flower petals on us, seriously. Beautiful.

After the first round of encore-screams, Sodagreen appeared on stage again with 《狂热》 and 《无眠》。For the latter, they started with the Mandarin version of the song, which got me a little disappointed as I preferred the Hokkien counterpart. But when the second verse started, they switched to the Hokkien version! Multiple loves.

There we went, with the second round of encore-screams. I seriously didn't think that they were going to come out anyway, but as there wasn't a really perfect ending, I thought they would probably, at the slightest hope, come out for a bow.

AND THEY DID! :D

They picked two songs, 《这天》and 《小宇宙》, from the myriad of song suggestions that the audience threw to them. As for the other songs like 《追追追》 and 《带我走》, Qingfeng sang a verse from each to satisfy the audience. Qingfeng intentionally ignored the pleas for 《小情歌》. I believe they wanted to tell people that Sodagreen is still as good, even without that song which drove them to their current level of fame. =)

And so, the concert ended perfectly with the chorusing of 《小宇宙》's "lalala"s. I hope they won't let us wait too long before the next concert's here again!! :)

Lalala-ing.

A final bow. T.T

犀利人妻

2010-12-03T21:17:00.002+08:00

教我们，

拥有爱情的时候，要用心捍卫爱。

失去爱情的时候，要用脑保护心。

One more to go!

2010-11-28T09:52:00.003+08:00

I think I've conveniently proclaimed end-of-exams ever since yesterday's Sem&Prag paper.

No no no. I must study for Phonetics, since it's something that has a very steep bell-curve (I think), especially when all the past-year papers are so doable.

I have grown to hate easy papers. Once you miss a step, you're a B, while others celebrate their As with a champagne.

Oh well.

The past three papers were by-far alright.

BioD was very fun, despite being an exam. It was non-stop writing, with a whopping 15 short-answer questions (where each question demands an answer that takes up 1/3 of the page), 5 MCQs and a 30-mark essay. I was very lucky, so to say, as I Googled some extra information on the web just before the exam and they all came out in the short-answers.

Maybe all the others in the class did so too. FML.

Dialectology was a disaster. Open-book as it is, the paper came out with everything that could be found in our notes. It's just brainless copying. I can't be bothered about this module. It's just so freaking useless a module. I. Have. Learnt. Almost. Nothing. From. It.

Sem&Prag was hilarious. I was taking my own sweet time doing my paper, since I reckoned I had way more than enough time after finishing the first part on definitions. I still finished the paper at around 10.15am (the exam was 9-11am), and was casually checking and filling in random sentences to substantiate my arguments. JR (who happened to sit diagonally in front of me) kept turning around to check if I wanted to go off. So at around 10.40am, we exchanged looks and raised up our hands together to hand in the paper. LOL. Viv even said that she saw me finishing the paper early and editing my stuff way too casually.

SERIOUSLY. Why is everyone watching one another when we're having an exam?! LOL.

But, aww, Prof Sato. I will miss him and his cute jokes.

Exams of the best two modules I have this semester both happen to be cramming-for-exam kind of modules. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed studying for them, as I feel that I'm learning something, and these will come in handy one day.

My mom once told me that I have a bad habit of choosing to work hard only for the stuff that I like. Well, I tried liking Dialectology, and I was always interested in dialectal groups in China, but the module just disappoints me again and again each time I go for class. Even BioD, something which I resented in the middle of the semester due to the overwhelming workload and something which has nothing to do with my major, could rekindle my liking for it.

I'm so gonna screw up my results for this semester. Heck. Tomorrow's the last paper and I'm going to play hard before I mope over my results.

On a side note, Danny, ZB and I prepared a present last night for the birthday boy CK. Hahaha. It's the helmet (with the 佛光) that CK's character is wearing. And just in case you didn't notice, there's a "22" by the side! =D

Happy 22nd Birthday CK! :))

Okay, enough of happy birthdays. Back to the past year papers now!

If

2010-11-20T09:46:00.003+08:00

If my CAP wasn't on the brink of dropping to a lower future starting salary, I wouldn't have given a heck about my grades and play even before the exams are over.

Damn my CAP.

Next semester: One A module which guarantees at least an A, one 4000 module which doesn't have exams, one ISM and one 3000 which has its exam so friggin' late (6 May) I think I'll just have fun.

Either way my CAP goes, I'll be freed from trying to maintain my CAP. :D Then I'll be the ever-annoying Year4 who slacks with minimal negative consequences on my CAP. Hoho.

Alright, back to the books. Nine days more to freedom and love!

作战策略

2010-11-16T21:56:00.003+08:00

Bracing myself for 13 days of...

1) No bf (as in no physical meet-ups);
2) No social life;
3) No Internet while studying;
4) Non-stop mugging;
5) No procrastinations;
6) Maximum 30 minutes of Maple for every two days of studying;
7) Info-cramming, and;
8) Stress.

希望在这一番努力之后，我们能一起享受成果。

<3

Five Months

2010-11-14T19:31:00.002+08:00

It always shocks me to calculate how long our relationship has been, and end up gawking at how young it is.

Anyway. That's not the point of this entry. I just couldn't find a title for what I wanted to talk about. Hee. I'll just put my thoughts in points then.

1) Exams are nearing.

2) I just started a new Maple character like, two or three days ago. Level 20 within an afternoon, of course with the help of the boy who has an imba character and another character that is more than twice my level. =.="

3) Maple skills have gone rusty. I can't even do the jump-and-hang properly now.

4) This character is amazing! The attack range is like =O now. I can barbecue several slimes at one go!

5) Leveling up at a much slower rate now as compared to the first 20 levels. Nevertheless it still serves as an incentive for me to meet my short-term goals in the study-for-exam spree.

6) I love ZB.

7) No, 6) has nothing to do with Maple at all.

8) There's STILL an essay obstructing my way. I WANT TO MUG BUT THIS ESSAY FRIGGING DOESN'T ALLOW ME TO.

9) Oh well. But this essay should be done eons ago. I wonder what I was doing.

10) Perhaps I was just doubting myself too much. "Find a problem and propose a solution" -- Easier said than done.

11) Halfway through my thought-process I'd think: Is this even a problem?! What if there is no problem at all? What if this isn't significant enough to be a problem in the first place? -- And there I lose my train of thoughts.

12) On losing the train of thoughts, JR: Wait for the next train then.

13) I need to mug. Mug for the short-answer stuffs. I suck at definitions and details and I desperately need these brownie points to make my very significant essay results not go to waste and triumph over the others.

14) I feel sleepy now.

15) Back to essay, bye.

无缘

2010-11-07T22:38:00.004+08:00

I really have very little fate with Taiwan. Despite having intentions to spend my holidays there since when I was still a young Sec-3 student, the opportunities seem to dissolve into thin air everytime it is being brought up in the family.

This coming holiday, my family and I had plans to celebrate Christmas in Taiwan. THEN the Qantas thing had to happen and now all the air tickets are gone as they needed to use those planes in place of those flights that have been affected.

Really 无缘 max.

Well it's okay, not travelling for the holidays this year means that I can finally spend my birthday at home (after having celebrated it in other countries for quite a few times already) and earn an extra income for our dream. Besides, I can also spend more time with my loved ones before the new hectic semester starts again. =)

During next year's long vacation, I may be in Xinjiang. :D My parents were really excited about touring all the exotic places in China. Since they're still very much healthy and fit (they walk so fast that sometimes I find it hard to catch up with their pace -- embarrassed max), I really think we should make use of this opportunity to complete all the difficult destinations before exploring somewhere else that is more relaxing.

Ah well. We'll see how then. ^^

Confused

2010-11-05T14:48:00.002+08:00

Which citation advice should I refer to?

I've got "Writing Sources - A Guide for Students" by Gordon Harvey (written for some writing programme in Harvard) which I got from my writing module. Ever since I've been loyally following the citation style suggested there.

I remember in the Beijing trip's paper, the prof circled the in-texts and said that they should be in (author year:page) format instead of (author page), as written in the book.

And now I don't know which one to follow. Other than the usual MLA, there's also the Chicago style which JR introduced to our paper lately, which is miles different from all the in-texts I've always done. =(

Very confused. Why can't we just use a uniform citation style for all purposes?! This is just so annoying.

我们游乐去~

2010-11-03T22:06:00.002+08:00

I'm still 3 assignments and 4 exams away from HOLIDAY.

The unit of time has reduced to deadlines and exam days rather than days and weeks. Oh weeks perhaps, as in Week 12 Week 13 on the academic calendar.

I blame my lack of updates on none other than myself. I have come to realisation that the older I get (in terms of the number of years I've spent in college), the higher the expectations for myself. And I'm also starting to weigh modules by the amount of contributions they have for my thesis topic. Some modules are just revisions of whatever I've learnt thus far, and most of the time I just throw them aside till something I don't know about pops out during the lessons.

Then again, I have to admit that I've slackened a lot this semester. More brainwork has been dedicated to the thought-process of the ultimate final thing. It's something that cannot be done last-minute so I shall make sure it remains a good piece of work even though I know I work better with pressing deadlines. Well, 2 years for a thesis is pretty pressing. :D

Anyway, I bought my pair of sports shoes today! It's a Mizuno baby, and gosh it's fabulous. Well, we kind of limited our choices to this and two other brands, but after trying the first brand which was so hard to even balance on, when I tried the Mizuno it was like, :D. I'm sorry for the limited amount of adjectives used to describe it. HAHA.

Since it's such a baby, it's of course not cheap. $159. Much thanks to Mcorp for awarding the $200-worth of vouchers for clinching the Best Blogger. I only spent $9 in cash for it. Yay.

The remaining $50 shall remain untouched till I find something worth spending it on. =))

Meanwhile, I shall go catch some beauty sleep and wake up to a new day with my research proposal. =)

小小

2010-10-31T13:35:00.003+08:00

总是在最不经意的情况下，为一些小小的举动感动着。

微不足道，却如此暖心。

山珍海味、金银珠宝，吃多看多了，也都会变得乏味。

反而是那些我们每天都能轻易做到却没人肯花时间去关心的，更显得珍贵。

If you're suffocating from our education system...

2010-10-28T10:19:00.005+08:00

you are not alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

This is an animated teaser. The full video is here if you're interested.

What are we studying for? Economic advancement? What does intelligence mean -- a) being able to take full advantage of knowledge to achieve economic success, or b) being "alive"?

This flawed goal of education then spreads virally out to the other aspects. We classify countries based on their economic ability: the developing and the developed. We look up to people of certain nationalities for their role in the global economic stage. Has it ever passed our minds that the "developing" countries are usually the ones with the richest natural resources and the happiest people? It doesn't do them justice when they are the ones providing the resources that make "developed" countries become developed.

Perhaps, it's time to review our goals of education.

-----

On a random note, HI SHANA!

Hearsay

2010-10-27T23:22:00.002+08:00

Rumours can kill.

"He was chosen to do this."
"He wanted to do this."

Just the difference between these two utterances can create the image of one person in two conflicting ways. It's just pretty shocking to know that such things can still happen in such... circumstances.

It tends to get unnerving at times when you start to think about how the different images of "you" people have in their minds. Then again, before you get too worried about it, you would probably brush it off and say, who cares.

Who cares. We're all truthful to ourselves. 清者自清。

蝉想

2010-10-25T21:11:00.002+08:00

ZhanTing and I were discussing about this song over the CCC gathering last Saturday. He insisted that the lyrics were hinting a one-night-stand, something which triggered some objections among the girls.

Well, I can't say much either since there are so many lines left unexplained when you try to fit in any sort of idea. Hahaha.

One thing for sure: it's definitely about a type of unconventional love.

The music arrangement is so intentionally messy. The keys change one after another, and the electric guitar + bass at the opening gives an underlying instability to the music. The only word I can use to describe this is “浮躁”.

Sometimes, I wonder if the music itself contributes to the story of the lyrics.

It's possible. Ever since they made the 春·日光 album's song names weave into a poem, I thought anything could be possible when it comes to Sodagreen. LOL.

SUPER CAN'T WAIT FOR THEIR CONCERT TO MATERIALISE. LIKE, NOW.

:D

Weekend Getaway

2010-10-24T20:34:00.004+08:00

Being at home is such a luxury.

After having lunch with the CCC people yesterday, I WENT BACK HOME.

Multiple =Ds.

I left my lappie back in hall and only brought back two meagre pieces of readings, of which I completed none. LOL. I spent the whole Saturday night watching TV and chatting with my parents over fruits platter. And on Sunday morning it was just me and the piano (hands damn itchy, metaphorically), before advancing 1/4 of a colour on the cross-stitch project. I hope this birthday gift can be ready by next year. ^^

Oh! And I wrote a letter too! HAHA.

I sound like some woman from the early 19th century. Sit at home, play piano, weave jumpers, then prepare to get married to some unknown rich guy.

Minus the jumpers part, minus the unknown... and rich. =P

Felt so much happier after indulging in such an abundance of "me"-time. ^^

Alright, I've got to run for the first lesson of the week. Will update again soon about the BioD field trip and... Hmm, perhaps when I get my hands on a new pair of running shoes!!! =D

Stress?

2010-10-20T09:24:00.002+08:00

Essay/presentation rush has been pretty crazy.

There hasn't been any waking moment these days where I wasn't thinking of ideas for my projects.

Yesterday evening was the breaking point. On the bus back to hall, I felt so physically tired that I wanted to sleep for a while, but the buzz in the brain kept pushing me away from the slumber. It was such an uncomfortable feeling.

So I sat down, weeped, and continued fighting. Spending just a moment with myself and my emotions really helped a lot.

A proposal and a presentation later, and I'll be free for the week. Research for the second Dialectology project isn't as descriptive-based, so it'll be pretty much a breeze. :))

Jiayou, everyone, for this essay season.

First Steps

2010-10-17T10:00:00.002+08:00

I edited my resume yesterday.

Chopped off quite a bit of information, and from a two-pager it got cruelly sliced into half its length.

I thought I would have struggled with the chopping. Apparently I didn't. I even had to re-add stuff back when I thought it was getting too short (and I didn't want to increase the font size). LOL.

Networking session's on Tuesday. After casually chatting with Daniel about it, I started having some jitters. I believe people who are there, all have an idea what they want. I'm just there for... more information. Like what he said, networking shouldn't be a problem for me, but I'll have to keep in mind a myriad of information about the agencies such that I can use them to my advantage when there's a need. I can't just go there and chit-chat bimbotically!

It's like, wanting to explore a dark cave without even knowing what you want to see.

Let's just see how it'll go. As for now, I'll have to craft a perfect answer for my lack of CCA footprints.

Stop waiting for me!!!

2010-10-14T23:55:00.005+08:00

Argh.

I really don't like being the only one who calls the shots in the project group. This semester I have two, of which one of them I'm one of the two people who are deciding what our final product's gonna be like.

It's like, everyone's waiting for us to do something, and they're just sitting there waiting for things to happen. Like, hello, the paper won't write itself if you don't do anything!!! I'm not saying about freeloaders, since these people, I believe, belong to those who will really do things when assigned.

I guess I'm pretty lucky to have a very helpful partner alongside me. We complement each other in terms of ability -- he does most of the research within the scope of the essay focus, and I try to pull things from other sub-disciplines of the research area. We do share somewhat similar mindsets, which is a good thing for us if we do the project alone. Having such strong collaboration usually means "leaving out" other group members in the sense that they don't really know what we're trying to get at.

Yesterday during the meeting, this girl in our group proposed something which made both of us gawk for a moment.

I know I've said this N times already: They should just open writing modules in Arts and make the students take them. If they still don't know how to write, so be it -- they just have to freaking wake up and acknowledge the fact that descriptive essays are not the norm! Where's the thesis statement? What are you trying to prove?

Back to that project, it was really so difficult to get the idea across to other group members, because they don't have an idea that we're doing a critical analysis, not a list-all-you-can -kind of "research".

It bothers me. A lot. It makes me feel that I'll have a lot more to do when I do the final editing for the paper (no word limit some more FML).

Just thinking about it makes me shudder. I wonder how their scripts will turn out to be.

And I've got a feeling it's gonna hit 10K words this time round. This is what happens to no-word-limit essays: You cannot give excuses such as "due to the word limit, we will keep ___ out of our essay focus".

I desperately need my As from my expertise this semester. Please please do not play games with me. =(

Don't you think

2010-10-11T15:28:00.000+08:00

the weather is getting way too hot these days?