Ahh... Finally...
Finally, it's up. My new blog design! Gosh, i just spent one WHOLE month of my life on this. (when i could just kope one from blogskins.com) first, had to force myself to learn css and blogger codes... Then, had zero idea of how i want to edit the image... Then, couldn't make up my mind on the colours of everything on the page... Meanwhile the whole world has changed their blog appearance so many times already! Do you call me a perfectionist, or plain SLOW? but anyhow, i'm so not gonna change my blog design in the near future already.
life-shortening job! ha!
Btw, sth interesting i must mention... See the clock in the picture? i already had a nice clock face in mind so i went to google to search for clock images and when i picked the nicest one among all, i realised to my surprise, it's an image of the clock face of McGraw Tower at Cornell! oh man! Feels like running in a closed circle -- you'll just have to return to the same point ;)
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1:20 AM
Faye-craze
don't you think the photos are damn cool!!! i have been drooling over these photos since months ago! Faye oozing pure star power! I mean, the clothes are nice la but not fantastically nice still, but Faye just makes me wanna buy those baleno:attitude clothes that she wore!!! But 4 months ago i was swearing cuz spore doesn't sell baleno:attitude clothes AT ALL... But apparently, someone on the forum has confimred tt baleno:attitude has opened a NEW shop at marina square!!! whee!!! at last! but he also said the clothes she wore are in the range of $60-10, and the silver glittery top is $250?????!!!!!! #$%*>"^(*(&^$#
but maybe i can still go down to marina squ to find the shop, and see how i can buy the giant posters from baleno to paste it in my dorm... hey the 2nd poster is so pei4 with tt jerry yen poster we saw on wan yuan yu le tape tt night right??
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12:30 AM
terrific weekend!
woah! did so much during this weekend i dun even know how to summarise! i shall list the top 5 craziest things done during the weekend!
1) trespassing rj! our old rj!! walked to rj after ghim moh lunch with some of my classmates on sunday.. while they were contemplating to climb the gate, we saw the sign "To all rafflesians: you are not to climb over the gate. All trespassers will be handed over to the police". i was numbed with shock: why are they so particularly strict with rafflesians visiting the old campus? i never knew it was tt serious!! :S den someone reminded the sign was there since last time... chey. den another shock: james coolly unlatched the side gate and WALKED IN! everyone marvelled and FOLLOWED IN, just like that! honestly, i was shaken! i was suddenly reminded of the dream i had last week abt me and a few other friends i cant rmb who were prosecuted for a small crime and there was the fear of my scholarship being suspended, and it seemed kind of
deja vu all at once
, and i was so scared yet i continued to walk in with them and passed by the guard
... thankfully, he allowed us to walk around the first floor of the campus. PHEW!
xu1 jing1 yi4 chang3! =P
2) playing at the playground opp henry park pri! the interesting one we always see on our way to jelita, the one i always felt so tempted to play, but finally played it yesterday! ahaha! it's not your normal playground, i tell you! so many "death traps"! we were SCREAMING and laughing as we played! woke up the whole estate, i'm afraid... den a few caucasian kids came along and played like pro i was so stunned! an evidence of different culture and upbringing? =P
3) slept for 1 hour at jiaying's house on fri night.. oops i mean sat morning! =P only fell asleep on a one-seater armchair a little before 7am! cuz was chatting with all the girls minus dada for hours in the dark in the wee hours ahaha! hoho so nice! :) of course, that resulted in me sleeping for close to 13 hours on sat night!! wahaha!
4) sang karaoke at jiaying's house for HOURS until like 1am! thankfully her nearest neighbours are not that near and her bedrooms upstairs are quite soundproof... :) den after breakfast the next morning, we sang for another hour again! haha! so shuang!! made me so tempted to buy so many albums to rip into my mp3 player! sammi, fish leong, SHE, jay... haiyo! no money la!
5) ate soooooooo much good food over the weekend!!!! beach road $4 prawn mee and ngoh hiang, mos burger's coffee milk shake (meant to keep me awake during jap lesson but in vain. still heavenly nonetheless!), ghim moh's carrot cake and dong feng fa chicken rice and sugar cane, secret recipe's cheesecake, pizza hut, and my bro's bday cake!! ahhhhhh!!!! i am getting fat!!! :S
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2:58 PM
Counting my blessings
I've always known that i'm fortunate to be born and to be living in spore, so i never minded about staying in spore for the rest of my life to do sth for it. I'm also aware that the children living in poverty in the less developed countries are being exploited, but, well.. i've only briefly read abt it. But this is the first article that managed to contrast children in those countries and those in spore so starkly, that combined all aspects of the cruel exploitation in cambodia so succinctly, that almost saddened me to tears, that made me realise that just being aware that i am fortunate isn't enough. mmm... i wanna do sth... but wad?
credits: i weekly ;)
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4:41 PM
Random ramblings
here i go... they are not even in any logical order... haha...
- salsa is getting fun!! i just learnt the coolest step ever -- turn..and turn! turn till u get giddy! so shiok! and the best thing abt partner dance is, the guy will lead. so i dunno exactly know how to turn (how the hand is held blah blah), but it's ok! just rmb ur footing! ;)
- lindy asked me me an o level chem qn but to my horror i realised my brain is devoid of chem knowledge already!!! wad de hell!!! i am so DEAD! i've been psychoing my students to mug, it's time i seriously have to mug too!!
- i didn't finish reading 3 out of my 4 library books by the due date. but well, i've been guilty of tt since rj days. but hey, i couldn't even finish that ONE dvd i rented by the due date! wad de hell am i doing!! my time management is getting from bad to worse!
- nus just sent me an invitation to apply for a bursary award?! huh?! siao ah. after sending me an email asking me to give them reasons of why i rejected them even! (oh i had fun doing that feedback! =P) their system is screwed up lor! shall i try applying for the bursary to diao them? ahaha
- oooh the ndp dance is so fun! wad a great chance to sweat it out! whee! haha i think i love dancing huh? i can't recognise who are the 2 singers of this yr's theme song though.. celeste chong? but the heavy commitment is kinda troubling... the schedule keeps changing, and it only gets heavier and heavier... i may drop out of it in the end... gah.
- i went for the ndp motivator practice alone... as i looked around, all the other gals (and a few guys) were all standing ard in groups.. signing up for any activities with at least a few ppl u know seems like the most natural thing huh? it just occured to me that i too have been "guilty of" that all these while and i seemed to have forgotten what courage it took to sign up for anything alone... (the last one seemed to be chinese drama in sec2??)
- mr and mrs smith is nice man! i dunno how i can even find a violent show sweet but i really think it's so sweet! violently romantic, or romantically violent? i mean, marriage crises are common, but hey, overcoming a marriage crisis through killing each other -- that is way cool. but anyhow, the most troubling thing is, i think angelina jolie is damn hot!!! gosh, sth's wrong with me... :S
- this is on my cornell's forum.. someone asked how many stories a certain residence hall is, and this was the ans.. go figure (cuz i can't :P)
Ahh the joy of Cornell, where entering a building on one side is the 4th floor, and entering on another is the 3rd. Where a residence hall clearly has 8-9 stories, but if you take the elevator to the 5th floor you wind up on the 9th floor :)
This website doesn't actually say 6 stories, it says 6 floors, which is accurate in a way. The building is in 2 halves, North and South Balch which to me always seem like West and East Balch :) But anyway, Balch is not more than 4 stories high, but there may be more floors :)
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11:40 PM
Treat!
Yay finally the treat as promised by dave and francis! ought to have been on our last day at rj but the 2 of them left so early christine and i couldn't give them their car signs personally! >__< and then dave went to US for hols, and christine had obs last wk, so we only had the treat yesterday! :) food at "food street" of esplanade and dessert at california bistro are so-so yet so ex! they are really generous ppl heh!
hanyan, christine, mingjing and i at california bistro; with dave; with francis, at marina's pool tables (fyi, we all started taking fotos there den the PA system went "table 28, pls refrain from taking photographs" damn
hilarious!!!!) ; die from "sarah's casino"! really!
These 2 phy teachers are so different in character. Dave is damn CRAPPY and corny, so atypical of a teacher! like yesterday, he claimed he didn't get anything from US for me and christine cuz things are damn ex there, so me and christine suaned him innocuously "how could you... you bought sth for everyone in the phy department? aren't we part of the department too? -hurt-" then during the meal, he suddenly took out 2 dice and said "ay, we play a game la. who lose shall pay for the meal" and we just ignored his usual pi4 hua4.. yet he shove one die each into christine's and my hand and said "play leh!" and i was in disbelief when i saw the words "sarah's casino" on the die!! "HUH?????" haiyo. trust him to give us our presents THIS way. this is dave.
Francis, on the other hand, is such a nice guy who seems to have no temper and is always helpful and gentlemanly. and he always kindly gave christine and i lifts to novena station on his way home, saving us from the dreary walks to bishan station! and it's not exactly "on the way" for him either lor! i always can't help but associate him with a "kind Christian" image ever since he mentioned he was a christian! haha...
Rather embarrassing to say this now, but i used to have an impression that
some (i emphasize
some) teachers out there (i dun mean rj!) probably only chose to be teachers because they can't find other jobs, and the pay is good. but, looking at both of them, both have an engineering degree: one of them chose to teach only after he was sure he had the confidence; the other forgo a higher-paying engineer job for teaching. so I have to say, the 2 of them kind of changed my impression of new teachers in general. :)
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5:09 PM
Fickle-mindedness
A few hours ago, as i looked through every single information page and photo available on the website, i saw nothing but all the advantages of that all-girls dorm Balch (size, convenience, aesthetic appeal..) and was almost ready to call up the housing office to try and change my housing option. Just a while ago, as i looked through the same information pages and photos, i started seeing the advantages of my original housing choice HILC again (open during winter break, the experience of interacting with ppl from different parts on the globe!), and contented myself with saving the money on that long-distance call.
I can't help but think i am quite a joke sometimes. it's so easy to sway my decision: just offer me the possibility of reverting my decision! yet, it's so easy to convince me that my original decision was still the best.
wait, is this a typical behaviour of a piscean?? let's just blame tt for now. hee.
sidetrack: earthquakes are so scary! i don't suppose the crew actually could crake the road apart to shoot that scene huh? must be some past footages...
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1:25 AM
Kyumei Byoto 24-Ji 3!
the third series of one of my all-time fav jap dramas! (btw the kanji is 救命病棟24時) my fav matsushima nanako is back in the cast! i didn't even know they have filmed this 3rd series, and now channel 8 is already going to broadcast it starting on sunday??!!
so shocked!!
channel 8's unbelievable efficiency only highlights the fact that i am so darn out of touch with japanese dramas since... ages!
the days i watched and RE-watched Kyumei Byoto 24-Ji 2 and never failed to cry for at least 8 out of 12 episodes... (i'm not embarrassed to tell u i cried my eyes out for the ENTIRE last 2 episodes) the days i caught every single episode of jap show after jap show on tv... the days when all the jap stars' names in jap and "chinese" could roll off my tongue effortlessly...
and now i dun even know who's the most popular star in japan right now.
it's not my fault but i am still saddened... it's like losing your favourite soft toy -- no longer in fashion, but you thought and still think it's the cutest and after all, it
was once part of you.. no?
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10:02 PM
Orientation
67 days to orientation. The orientation guide/schedule is out. Even timings to move into residence halls are out.
but.. as i read through the pages... i feel rather...
overwhelmed? maybe even..
scared?which is bad.
there seem to so many things yet to be done! i guess i will give harry potter a miss for now... cuz i have a required reading project! book written by an african author. comes with a written assignment. hey, the last time i touched literature was sec 2! sheesh... i kinda forgot how to approach a lit book already..
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1:09 PM
"You see... pre-valentine is our busy period..."
You thought it's the rose-selling business?
Nah...
Lacuna. Any painful memories you want to erase? We provide the service ;)
Ahhhh.... i love the movie! the sheer joy of FINALLY doing the thing u have been wanting to do in ages!
Isn't Memory such an intricate mechanism? Memorising/remembering sth tends to be a voluntary and conscious action, but the reverse process "forgetting" is involuntary. "Forget" often has a negative connotation because people who tend to forget things easily (ie absent-minded) could not help it! meaning, it is involuntary.
Who can actually make themselves forget certain things/memories/experience
completely? i mean, completely. Think abt it. i believe we can't. (unless you have Dory's illness) the whole idea of the movie is thus a manifestation of human's desire to erase certain memories.
The movie hinted that most of the people who seek that treatment are people in problematic love relationships. why? "
i hate you! i wish i never know you at all!" impulsive people.
But the treatment is not fool-proof! The strongest memory will be resistant to the erasing process! even if all resistance fails, it will still be withheld, albeit in another form..
sub-conscious mind? that is unreachable by the erasing machine? tt's probably how the male and female leads meet again :)
if such a treatment ever exists, i am dead-sure i would never be part of the treatment-seeking gang. no matter how impulsive i might ever get. The shot of a forlorn jim carrey sitting with 2 trashbags of belongings/presents associated with his gf (which await to be consficated by the clinic) and then a shot of another old woman holding a pile of objects for the same purpose -- i felt the pain for them! i'm the sort who never throws away any presents from any friends no matter how much i dislike the presents -- i can't bear to! so, i would definitely run away from the clinic by that stage.
"You can't have the procedure done 3 times a month...i'm sorry... that's our policy..." I was so tickled.
Keep erasing painful/sad memories until your whole mind is filled with only happy memories?
In my opinion, someone with only happy memories is as sad as someone with only painful memories. We define "happy" and "sad" ourselves, based on our own past experiences. "Happy" and "sad" are not absolutes; they are relative concepts: I would be "happy" to eat an nydc cheesecake if i have never eaten any cheesecakes in my life before; a spoilt brat would be "sad" to eat the same nydc cheesecake if she only eats ritz carlton cheesecake all her life. or put it another way, this spoilt brat would never know eating ritz carlton cheesecake everyday is a happy thing if she is never forced to eat an nydc cheesecake.
That's why, we need to have sad memories in order to appreciate our present happiness! That's why, i always want my memories complete and intact. losing any part of it is like losing a part of you -- that's the uneasiness the female lead felt.
All our memories -- happy and sad -- define who we are today. As we relive/reflect on our memories (like what the male lead had to do during the process) we learn more about ourselves -- our emotions, our actions, our mistakes. that's how we grow! that's why i love to do it. The female lead claimed to go for the process in order to have a new start and move on... rubbish! it's still possible, and in fact more advantageous, to move on even WITH the memories! you can trust me on that. ;)
gosh. never had any movie made me think sooooo much! anyone who sees this, please go and watch the movie! i am so going to rewatch the dvd!
what? I didn't say the movie title?? oops. i
forgot. :) it's
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
remember.
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2:10 PM
POKE!
first, i am deprived of sleep today. i make myself sound so pitiful hoho but chotto matte.. sleep deprivation by my (present) standard is anything less than a usual 10hours nightly ;) i had 6 hr last night btw haha...
got dragged out of bed a little before 9.. barely an hour after i woke up, in a half-consious state, i had a jab! O.O and i woke up!
nah. i was exaggerating. :P
according to my immunisation records, the last time i had an injection was in pri 6! didn't realise it though... i thought i had it not long ago like in sec4!
now i am contemplating whether to take another SET of hepA and hepB jabs (which are optional). blood test+3 jabs in all. but hey, this is not even a fraction of what i have taken in my entire life!
I really have to salute MOH (or wadeva org) who draws up the entire immunisation plan that spans from infancy to teenage. my immunisation records basically satisfy all the requirements set by cornell ("must be taken within last 10 yrs" blah blah). besides the heavy subsidy (i dun rmb my parents paying huge sums whenever nurses trooped into my pri sch), the majority of the jabs are planned to be taken before the age of 2! brilliant! what phobia of needles does a baby have? what tantrums can he/she throw in front of the nurse? when an infant feels the pain of the needle, he/she just cries, and it's
duh; when a pri 6 boy/gal feels the pain and he/she cries or screams, he/she will be ridiculed by peers.
hmm.. infancy could potentially be a period when great things could be done kae... hmm...
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1:02 PM
Book I
"Huh...?"
"Zzzzz..."
These were the 2 responses elicited alternately from reading my first library book.
How many times was i lost in long dreary descriptive chapters written in profound English (i shall -ahem- abstain from using the word "cheem")!! I just glimpsed through those paragraphs without actually absorbing them cuz i dun even understand what's her point and they are meaningless to the progress of the story. urghz.
thankfully (for the author and myself), the book was saved from my condemnation as ultimately at least a shocking truth was revealed in the last few chapters of the book... (but between the point of revelation and the actual naked truth revealed she had to insert yet again 2 chapters of descriptive gosh!) how long i'd persevered!! ok, blame my non-existence flair for english, i even had to read these last few chapters again to actually get the gist of the truth. haiz, my fault, ok?
well, i do have a feeling that this subtle story is actually a piece of craft and i may be able to appreciate its beauty if only i read it again...erm no thanks.
The next time... uneventful and slow books filled with long and profound expressions... -rolls eyes- forget it.
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8:17 PM
Squandering time
Squandering time is very much the same as squandering money: when you are in it, you just can't pull yourself out of it; you only realised what you have foolishly done when faced with the aftermath of it; and it's too late to regret it cuz it's irreversible.
Sighz. just wasted one whole day yesterday. when asked "what have you been doing?", i was like "umm... err..." -- no answer!
It's just amazing how capable i am at wasting time! i could just sit/lie/stone/laze ard or dilly-dally in the bathroom and HOURS could just pass by effortlessly! and i really mean
effortlessly! look, i need to learn how to study, i need to learn how to play the guitar, i need to learn what kind of clothes fit me etc etc... but i didn't have to make a conscious effort to learn how to waste time and
i just know to do it!
utterly disgusted.
then again, looking back at my entire student life, and then my relief teaching stint, once i am occupied with real stuff, i will naturally come to whine i have no time to tidy up, i have no time to read books, i have no time to read newspapers, i have no time to exercise blah blah blah...
So, it's either i am damn occupied that i complain i have no time for myself, OR, i have nothing to do that i have too much time to waste and rot myself away. How can i
ever be in-between these 2 extremes??? or, is there even such a thing as "in-between" in the first place? :(
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1:20 PM
Birthday outing!
A nice outing at Pasta House with 6A girls celebrating linda's, shiyun's, jiaying's, zhien's, and anuja's birthdays (in that chronological order!) ! Haven't seen anuja and mich in ages! So nice to know where all the girls are going... Seems like there's going to be a mini 6A association at LSE soon! (as a matter of fact, make tt an S06A/B association haha!) 6A seems to be obssessed with econs izzit? besides the LSE ppl, anuja, zirong, lindy and joseph are gonna take econs at different parts of the world too! And then there's another cluster of accountancy ppl -- my 2 les and da jie. Linda and zhien are going to "cohabit"!! so fun!! i've decided to crash their dorm! yay! ok, back to the celebrations...
cute little cake from breadtalk!
All the girls posing with the cake! :) (from zhien's pretty cam!)
Abit off-track here... But well, i'm impressed by:
- Pasta House, for its wonderful service! Such generous ppl, allowing us to bring a cake in and offering us plates for our cake voluntarily!
- Picasa. Such a powerful program -- i was shocked to see all my fotos appearing together with Picasa on my dad's screen when he used the comp! It really unreservedly and ruthlessly sweeps the whole hard disk for pictures! So powerful tt it's scary! :S
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1:23 AM
Rewards of teaching...
Lovely porcelain doll from 3P! :) so sweet i wanna bring to cornell!
Sweet Secret's tiramisu cake from 6C! yummy!
Plus a huge sweet card from them! :)
Surprise pizza feast from 3K! (can't see the pic? duh. we ate it b4 i took any foto! haha!)
You think they are the aforementioned "rewards of teaching"?
i'm sure. what can be more precious than simple "hello miss hiong/ma'am!"/ "Thank you!"/ "Bye miss hiong!" and smiles and smug looks as they show off their completed tutorials to me during routine checks and whinings when they can't complete their irritating SPAs and more whinings when i give them class tests and near-suffocation due to eager physical crowding when just 1 person is asking me a qn after lesson (that's 3p =P) and innocuous mockings when i make a fool of myself (compliments to 3k boys) and most importantly... their acceptance of me as their teacher?
Sadly, it seems like this would be the first and the last time i could ever experience all these... If only all these emotions could last in my memory for a lifetime...
Of course, how would i have ever lasted this long without...
...my dearest pal, christine! :) We have both agreed we would
never have chosen a different way to spend our last five months during this jc-to-uni break! ;)
no regrets. absolutely.
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12:40 AM
