the little blue book.

after 3 months.

2011-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

when did i stop writing?

is it because of work, and how it makes me so darn tired that any free time i have is meant for activities that require no extraneous thinking? don't get me wrong, i whine like hell about PI, but i can't deny that i'm learning a hell load everyday. and when i wax lyrical about how sian i am to my unfortunate friends, somehow work hours aren't all that bad because i hardly have time to feel sian when i have ten thousand short-term goals to work towards and a million things to learn and improve on, which kind of feels me with a sense of purpose. but the moment i leave the office, i feel like a deflating balloon, because after investing all those hours and energy, i can't help but thinking that there's got to more to life.

or is it because i feel that writing in this space doesn't seem to hold much meaning any longer? like i don't want people to read something that offers only a slice of what's happening in my life, usually the more introspective moments, and think that i'm always indulging in bouts of reflection or self-pity. i don't want people i don't know very well to read this and come to conclusions about me because of a few snippets of what's happening in my life, yet i don't want to lock out people who might come across this now and then and take something away from it.

or is it because i just feel conscious of whatever i might be putting out there? and how it seems to be rather ironic, considering how i don't like to broadcast all of my thoughts and opinions on a public sphere, because i don't know who would read it, with our lives more becoming more and more open to voyeurism.

yet i love writing. and i hope to be able to get back the inspiration and ability to write freely and expressively again.

I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE.

2011-01-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

The f-word is not really in my vocabulary but...

I'M FUCKING DYING HERE.

i cannot eat. i cannot even look at food without getting convulsions of nausea. i cannot sleep. i just lie in bed until 5am, bloody wanting to die. i cannot even lie down properly. i cannot read beyond a few pages before my head starts to split in pain. when i cover myself with a blanket i start sweating and when i kick off the blanket i start shivering. worst of all, i'm terrified i would inflict this pain on people around me. it's the kind of thing i wouldn't wish even on my worst enemy.

please let this 10 days pass soon enough.

HAPPY 2011

2011-01-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

2010 was kind of epic. most years kind of go by nicely in a natural progression, with few highlights here and there. but some years dole out more than the usual highlights, filled with moments that your favourite photo albums are made of, moments that you would probably look back on and realize how much it had changed or defined you.

and now, 2011 - it's probably one of the first times i'm starting a new year with an entire solid list of priorities and goals. more responsibilities, more to think about. i felt i grew up quite a bit in the past year.

but let me end this post with a reminder that, like katy perry said - you & i, we'll be young forever.

happy holidays!

2010-12-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

merry boxing day everyone!

off for the next 6 days to the land of a thousand smiles!

am gonna wean off my macbook or any form of communication back home. yes i know, HOW AM I GONNA SURVIVE RIGHT?!

but hell do i need a total cut-off from this wired-up, mad-paced life. i'm going cold turkey on the whole macbook/facebook/communication thing and i will force myself to push everything out of my mind and enjoy this well-deserved holiday!

happy winter everyone

2010-12-07T18:25:00.001-08:00

all i can say is, a room at the other end of singapore is a damn good place to run away to.

convenient? definitely. escapist? probably. selfish? but there's nothing you can do anyway.

everyone needs some time out, or time alone, sometimes.

-----

we all complain so much about exams.

yet ironically, exams seem to be an almost welcome distraction, an extremely convenient reason to have nothing else but one focus and one goal in your mind, and an oddly comfortable, single-minded routine.

mugging season

2010-12-06T05:14:00.000-08:00

flagrant display of unbelievable hotness.

i need to consume barrels of food in order for my brain to work. by the 20th of december, i'll be a barrel myself.

hello guys

2010-11-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

its a 9am lecture. i just got up and haven't washed my hair. i'm reading my latest blog addiction, metrodad, while watching lost on a huge-ass screen and surround sound. this is how all 9am lectures should be like.

by the way, i don't know if anyone notices how the women in lost have perfect brows. as in, they got the mussed hair and minimal makeup thing right, but the brows? i don't think a deserted island would have a pair of tweezers, much less a browhaus or indian threading lady.

it's the time of the sem when that screw-GPA mindset that most year threes develop, honed after 6 months of careless insouciance overseas, start to disintegrate. blame the radioactive NTU air that somehow bestows mutant abilities to live on caffeine, survive on no sleep and develop a bloodthirsty loathing for people who did better than us on that last assignment or are simply annoyingly smart.

so, i'm listening to 53A's album now. chillllll.... who cares? how much more inconsequential and trivial can GPA in the entire grand scheme of life?

now excuse me while i go off to chiong.

11.11

2010-11-11T02:19:00.000-08:00

happy pocky/pepero day!

it feels weird being home on a thursday afternoon. like being in jc all over again. i should get used to moving back home, after spending all my uni years staying in hall. can't complain though - the weather is rainy and comfortable, my bed feels like a queen-sized down pillow i can dive into and i've spent the past couple of hours reclaiming the desk that my sister somehow took over, with my notes neatly spread out in front of me. and all i have been doing is ceremoniously opening my last box of strawberry custard cake pocky to commemorate this wonderful day dedicated to my favourite snack, eating home-cooked porridge, watching tokyo videos and marveling at how the above ads manage to capture those little scenes you see everyday in japan so perfectly.

so, 03.11 was well spent with the wonderful people in my life, and i couldn't have asked for a better way to turn completely legal than with a truckload of food, cozy gatherings and a series of miscellaneous interesting events.

okay, off to mug!

sick cycle carousel

2010-11-01T05:25:00.001-07:00

stress, anxiety and unhappiness is part of a sick cycle called life.

just learn to deal with it, because with family and close friends, how bad can everything get?

mug.

2010-10-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

what. the. hell. is wrong with this semester, i think my gpa is gonna drop by half, and i'm only taking 4 measly cores and probably s/u-ing the 2 electives. how am i gonna get my 5.0 huh huh huh.

and on a side note, the usual order of java chip soy banana muffin and potato salad immediately transforms a lazy sunday like this from drab to fab, because there's something about starbucks, comfort food, caffeine-laced endorphin-surging drinks and chillax music that makes the whole overpriced capitalist thing pretty justifiable.

500 days.

2010-10-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

"so, what happened?"

"what always happens? life."

10.10.10

2010-10-10T07:16:00.001-07:00

call me bored, bitter or cynical, but there's something about these 'special' days that make me feel as if i'm supposed to feel a certain buzz in the air and not celebrating makes me feel as if i'm missing out on something but i honestly don't really care.

10.10.10 comes close to that, with all that incomprehensible buzz about it. CNY visiting and V-day often tops the list. my 21st birthday looks like it's going to beat that though.

but anyway. since it's supposed to be a special day and i'm currently reviewing my past and planning my future i.e. painstakingly doing up my resume for That Dreaded PI... i shall keep this in mind, and see where i am on 11.11.11 and 12.12.12. hopefully doing more than what i did today - which is mooch around, force myself to get com428 done, force myself to get up for a run, then mooch around some more, before finally settling down to do this, which i have been blissfully avoiding for the past month or so.

this decides the path the next 6 months of my life goes.

the opponent-process theory of emotion.

2010-10-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

http://gettingstronger.org/2010/05/opponent-process-theory/ - lots of CR-worthy information, but the gist of it is explaining the "paradox of why so often our pleasures turn into problematic addictions and, conversely, why our stressful experiences frequently lead to sustained good feelings and even happiness".

just a scientific way of validating that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. and happier too.

and another way to reminding myself that wallowing in self-pity is all too easy. no matter how potentially difficult or painful it might be, i just have to stand up and do something about it.

it's been a long, long time since i gave myself a motivational pep-talk to just wake up, because being unhappy doesn't change anything. a weekend out without touching any work, the opponent-process theory of emotion, or that one-hour endorphin-releasing run around NTU - whatever the reason for this sudden tiny prick of optimism, i just have to work hard as hell to sustain and grow it.

afterthought.

2010-09-30T21:42:00.001-07:00

perhaps time glosses memories over, files away the unhappy bits, and just leaves everything slightly fuzzier, with only the nice bits in focus.

because all those times i remember, of wanting to come home, of certain unhappy incidents, suddenly seem so trivial and inconsequential. all that remains is the good parts. the whole experience wasn't perfect, yet it is only after i'm back, that i make everything out to be more perfect than it ever was.

fly me back.

2010-09-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

i miss japan. not in the way that slowly creeps up and builds to a nagging wistfulness at the back of my mind, although that's happening at a rather alarming rate recently whenever i walk through the grey drab buildings of school, feeling just as colourless and holed in. but this time, it's a full-on, agonizing blast of longing, right in my face, when i met the soka girls for dinner.

i miss the cold air. not this dehydrating, germ-infested artificial air-con air. but that genuine chilliness and the scent of tokyo - sharp, clean, with the occasional wafts of yakitori and beer. i miss sakura. i miss the sight of the sakura-lined avenue on the way to school, cotton-candy pink against the bluest spring skies. i miss those times behind our school building, when we scooped up the fallen sakura petals on the ground, like a fluffy pink carpet, and threw them over each other like confetti.

i miss the salad udon at new prince hall. i miss shoveling spoonfuls of wasabi in it and then sniffing excruciatingly away while eating it. i miss small wooden cabin down the hill from campus, where we would run in to, heads bent against the icy wind and hands shoved deep down in our pockets, for the best kimchi steamboat ever.

i miss the ofuro, which was the ultimate therapy for those inexplicable, tangled moods. i miss stepping into the numbingly hot water, surrounded by mist and the tart, clean smell of chlorine, and then holding your breath and going underwater for those blissful few seconds where your mind just shuts off. i miss how it makes me magically clear-headed the moment i step out, and how it makes me fall into the deepest, most dreamless slumber. i miss dragging our futons out into the tatami room during the world cup, and falling asleep with the blasting tv on. i miss sprinting back into the dorm at 10.55pm, and diving into the shower before the 11pm curfew and bathroom closing time. i miss breaking curfew, and tip-toeing on the cold tiled floors along the pitch-black corridor to sneak into the showers, and almost exploding from stifling our nervous giggles as we tried to push images of ghostly hospital-gown girls and frowning dormitory leaders out of our heads.

i miss the drink bar at royal host, where i would spend entire sundays, alternating between rosehip tea and van houten's cocoa. i miss the long conversations i had in those plushy old-school booths and 1950's lighting, with the rain thundering outside.

i miss school, and walking down to the student hall to get chocolate-and-waffle-coated vanilla ice cream, and sitting outside underneath the dappled sunlight, doing nothing. i miss studying kanji words at the cushy seats on the first level of bekka. i miss those lazy, sultry afternoons during JAS classes, where my mind and eyes would involuntarily drift towards the wide expense of green outside the windows.

i miss taking the train to shinjuku, zooming past that familiar, quintessentially japanese landscape so often seen in dramas, the never-ending expanse of little cottages and open roofs and wooden beams, clear streams and mountains. i miss people-watching in the trains - rainbow-coloured afro wigs, handsome suit-clad japanese men with their deep-set eyes and high cheekbones, girls with ethereal complexions and floaty layers, high-school couples with matching handphone straps and blonde hair, cute kids with honey-and-peaches cheeks and straight-cut black bangs. i miss stepping into the maze of streets with its maddening array of neon lights, bleached-hair teenage touters chasing people around, yakuza-like beefy men clad in black suits and ray-bans, muttering into their walkie-talkies. i miss how the scents and sounds of the roads match the bewildering barrage of sights - the cacophony of rapid-fire japanese and techno-pop from the pachinko parlors, the smell of grilled teriyaki meat and cigarettes and alcohol.

i miss them saying 'irrashaimase' without fail every time i enter a store. for hours on end, in their chirpiest, loudest voice, no less. i miss how the toilet cleaners and cab drivers take such transparent pride in their job, always in a neatly-pressed uniform or suit, and delivering the most professional and meticulous service ever.

i miss cycling to and from the train station, stopping at the river to stare in breathless amazement at the spectacular sunset, or the view of stretches of mountains on a clear day. i miss cycling back with friends late at night, and how the entire stretch of road is ours, and we could just sing or scream and no one would hear. i miss how it's already daylight at 4am.

i miss doing things i would never do in singapore. i miss going to shibuya all night, and devouring a hearty breakfast at the nearest ramen stall after stepping out of the club. i miss traveling by myself to osaka, walking back to my seedy hotel alone and past curtained m-18 shops, leather-clad girls handing out flyers and drunk rowdy men, with a certain half-fascinated, half-scared adrenaline. i miss getting gloriously lost, studying my map, stopping to snap pictures of the most random things without asking anyone to wait up, having random conversations with people who stop to talk to me, taking the ferris wheel and watching fireworks over the entire kanto skyline and eating all the matcha ice cream in the world.

i miss the crazy, spinning city, and i miss my quiet rural small-town of hachioji. i miss crazy technology like jet-spray toilet bowls, vending machines at every corner and weird gadgets and contraptions. and i miss traditional japan with its quaint little shrines, awe-inspiring temples and yukata-clad people tottering around in polished wooden clogs.

all that word vomit is just snippets of what i remember, that cannot be fully captured in photographs. all that, plus my entire archive of pictures, suddenly brings an onslaught of memories that are far too vivid, yet suddenly so far away, like it was another world, another life.

for those about to go on exchange, you've been warned. it gives you the most massive withdrawal symptoms. ever.

424, kill me.

2010-09-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

how am i supposed to develop realistic, poignant stories and multidimensional, complex characters when my life experience seem to sum up to zero, and my only inspiration is from korean/hk/gossip girl-type dramas?

nooooo.

2010-09-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

small mooncake = 400 calories.

double cheeseburger meal = 1100 calories.

happy mid-autumn festival!

2010-09-22T04:44:00.001-07:00

i want to eat mooncake. snowskin mooncake. or even better, durian snowskin mooncake. i want to play with paper lanterns and sparklers in the backyard.

i don't want to be in my claustrophobic room, doing up com401 slides.

self-pitying moment here.

1.38am.

2010-09-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

scrubbed, wiped, mopped, dettol-ed and air-freshener-ed my entire room. which is smelling crisply like disinfectant and lavender. i think i can even see the floors sparkling, and i'm unspeakably proud of myself. :D did japan domesticate me or something! what happened to those times of us getting warning letters from the hall office for dirty toilets!

THERAPEUTIC MUCH.

okay enough of mundane highlights. 424 assignment due tomorrow and i'm nowhere near that elusive 'illumination moment' for a brilliant script idea, as quoted so aptly by the lecturer.

murphy's law.

2010-09-15T03:29:00.000-07:00

my life now is living proof of that. and living proof that it doesn't rain, but it pours.

to top everything off - blood-red eyes, sick, and the unexpected holiday when the doctor told me it's contagious and that i shouldn't go for class is nothing to rejoice over, because i spent the entire night forcing myself to complete the tutorials and am now grumpily in my room with nothing to do and telling myself that the only way things can go now is up.

1.32am.

2010-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

i'm scared when everything is spiraling out of control - emotions, tears, and i can't explain why it does. or, maybe i can, but i don't want to admit it because it just reminds me once again that you simply can't have control over everything in your life.

please, please, please let me wake up to a new day.

year 3 sem 1.

2010-09-10T05:04:00.000-07:00

STARS ending in two days, I have 26 AUs of mostly PEs, a timetable most worthy of being on FML.com, and I still have no idea which lesser of the two evils I should choose.

In year 1, the seniors somehow seemed so sure, and so experienced. Before this, I had an excuse for being completely unsure of what I want, or what I'm studying for. I don't feel like I'm in year 3 yo. I don't feel I'm turning 21 this year, going on my PI from January for a whopping 6 months, and graduating in two years. Sometimes, I don't even know what I have learnt in my one and a half years of NTU education. It feels like getting past one tutorial, one assignment, one exam after another, and once it's over, the sheer relief just relegates all that information crammed into my short-term memory into the Trash icon of my mind.

Life has taken a significantly droller turn since I returned from Japan, hence this urge to blog again, because I just need another self-indulgent outlet for my trivial rants and whines about LIFE, and SKOOL. Words somehow always seem inadequate to describe every experience I have there - there's not much time to sit down and really write, when every day is spent just doing things, and taking as many photos as possible to make up for the lack of written reflection and memory logs.

Coming back after 5 months, the number one question I get is "Japan fun or not?" I think NO ONE, after a 9-month vacation from NTU and into the wonderful world of S/U-ed subjects and mad traveling, will say that exchange is not fun. "Fun" cannot even begin to describe the entire experience. Hence the post-exchange syndrome that everyone is facing now.

Boy do I miss Japan. I don't even know where to start writing about what I'm missing in Japan. Looking through every single picture, probably thousands of them, every single picture has something that I miss about Japan.

But since this is meant to rant about being back in ANN-TEE-YOO, what I am missing right now, is how, without the pressure of fretting over my GPA, I could finally learn at my own pace, and really honestly enjoy every moment of learning. It's not only an exchange student thing. Despite its hectic work pace and perfectionistic culture, your GPA in Japan is not even close to a top priority when job-hunting.

In Japan, I told myself to be like that when I come back. Like, really enjoy learning and all, and your GPA will just fall into place. I'm still trying. Honestly, the entire atmosphere just makes me naturally fall into that frazzled, stressed-up state all over again. And because it becomes such a CHORE to learn, I end up procrastinating even more.

And don't even get me started on student welfare. For once in my life over there, students were a priority.

Although honestly, the Singapore education system is quite awesome in the sense that you could probably survive in any education system around the world and get a whopping good GPA. Thing is, when you actually put students out there in the real world outside of academics and writing reports and doing research, it's quite a disaster. Me included. Which is why going for PI kind of scares me sometimes, because despite being in year 3, I honestly really feel like a huge noob, smoking my way through every essay and exam.

Sometimes I feel that the 5 months there made me learn so much more than one and half years of university education here. I guess, to really get an education, you just have to go out there, whether overseas or just in that elusive "real world". Because all NTU can give, is probably just a degree.

But looking at how increasingly difficult it is to even get into JC nowadays, as attested by my poor, O-level-taking sister, I am really happy to already have the chance to get a degree. Rants aside, sometimes I guess I just need to put things into perspective and force myself to learn in the kind of way I want to, instead of blindly following this mad rat race.

25.5

2010-05-25T07:20:00.001-07:00

had the sort of crazy-fun weekend that made me feel as if every weekend should be maximized this way.

just an afterthought.

too much of trying to make everyone around me happy, of fulfilling expectations that are not even your own, of tolerating things that i don't really have to tolerate, of restricting myself from doing, and doing too much of needless thinking. of worrying about the consequences of everything, or if what i am doing is right or wrong. who even defines what is right or wrong?

for once in my life, i want to not go around worrying about what the rest of the world thinks of me. for once in my life, i simply what to do whatever makes me happy. for once, just once in my life, i want to stop living for others. i just want to live for myself.

and what better time to start than now?

sunday night.

2010-05-16T06:55:00.001-07:00

haven't blogged in almost a month, and it's what, almost the 50th day here. yet i don't feel like writing down everything that i go through everyday, because the best memories seem to be in pictures, or in my head. or maybe i'm just lazy.

somehow i feel that time here is elapsing at a crazy rate. sure, time can crawl sometimes i.e. now, when i'm studying for tomorrow's keigo test. or when i'm fervently clock-watching during lessons. but the weeks fly by, and weekends fly by even faster. sometimes all you want to do on a weekend morning is to curl up in bed till you feel like getting up and taking your time to make sugar-sprinkled french toast dripping with jam and melted cheese for breakfast. yet there's so much more to see and do outside of here, and i feel i'm not maximizing my time here as well as i should.

carrying out a conversation in japanese still kills me, i'm not knowing as many people as i could, and i just feel that i could do more with my time here, yet sometimes i don't know where to start. but everything starts by taking a step out of this comfort zone that i always settle into too easily.

34 days.

2010-04-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

i'm getting the month-long syndrome already, settling into a certain kind of routine, walking around like it's my all-too-familiar neighbourhood, feeling almost as if this might as well have been home - evening jogs and trips to 7-11. yet noticing how everything is in japanese, the noise and lights from the nearby pachinko parlours, the wide spaces everywhere, i realise how this isn't home, and that 4 months is far too short to really get to know every quirk and corner of this amazing place.

although, admittedly, not everyday is a stroll through sakura-lined avenues, or camwhore-worthy yukata-wearing classes, or mad shopping in 4 levels of h&m and f21 in the glitzy neon city lights. there are days when waking up at 7 everyday for intensive japanese classes become a huge-ass drag and days when budgeting in this mad-expensive place becomes a huge-ass chore.

but i'm happy for every moment and opportunity here. learning a whole new language, cycling past brightly-coloured tulips on the way to school everyday, getting a part-time job ($! (:), cooking and preparing my own bento everyday, every person i meet.

school!

2010-04-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

classes officially start next week, after this week's flurry of orientation activities.

it's a dreamily lazy sunday morning with my balcony doors thrown open to the crisp chilly air and the palest heather-grey sky. i love lazy sundays with time so luxuriously on your hands - making a huge wholesome breakfast, playing chill-out songs aloud on my mac, possibly diving back to my unmade bed for a catnap before going to school for hanami (flower viewing) later, and letting memories of last week drift back in bit and pieces as i look through the pictures.

day three.

2010-03-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

Went to Ueno, and ate the sweetest and hugest strawberries ever. Damn shiok, I swear it brought this immediate jolt of happiness to a very frozen and windblown me. Went to Ginza, and stepped into the most wacky Abercrombie & Fitch store ever – bouncers at the door, eleven floors of blasting club music, strobe lighting, uber-hot & impossibly toned/skinny salespeople gyrating around you. Totally changed my impression of the A&F t-shirts you get from those factory outlet stores, although it beats me who the hell would want to pay 50 bucks for a plain singlet. Spent almost 100 bucks on Uniqlo and H&M after 2 days of controlled abstinence, and am now left with 1/6of the cash I brought to Tokyo, much to my horror.The prices of everything here make me feel faint, and I have images of me surviving on 7-11 onigiri and my emergency bottle of sambal belachan for the rest of my days, heavens help me.

And I swear the wind here is biting. We must have looked so darn miserable, me limping in my not-yet-broken-into boots after hours and hours of walking, us looking stoned, forlorn and half-frozen to death. This old man at the metro turned around when we were grumbling something about being “left with 100 yen” and talked to us in Japanese, which we roughly deciphered as some words of encouragement about tomorrow being a better day.

Tokyo makes me shuttle between different emotions. One moment I can be staring at something in fascination i.e. Ginza’s city lights at night, crazily-dressed people, random cute Japanese kid or teacup dog. The next moment, I feel that this huge city makes me feel isolated and i still cannot believe this is where i'll be for the next 5 months. It makes me not feel touristy, and i'm often too sian to take many pictures. Oh well, it's only day 3, i guess i need more time to adapt to somewhere i've never been to before.

tokyo tokyo.

2010-03-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

私の家族！

sitting here on a teeny tatami mat of a room while typing away. walking down the chilly streets of ikebukuro and letting glimpses linger on the impeccably groomed passer-bys. everything still feels unreal. maybe because it's happening in a mist of exhaustion and post-departure syndrome - where your heart is trying to recover from the entire nerve-wracking packing fiasco, every single cell is shriveled up after seven hours of insomnia in the plane and all those nagging homesick pangs brought on by the bewildering foreignness of everything.

my very first glimpse of japan was from the airplane window - at the moment i felt that the stupid flight was taking forever, daylight thankfully crept in. the entire process was breathtaking - how perfectly horizontal strips of azure and dark orange formed on the horizon, how the sunlight watered it down into pale blue and gold, and finally, the blood-orange sun peeking out. i stared at it in rapt fascination for so long until white dots literally flashed in front of me. greetings from the land of the rising sun yo!

after that spectacle, my first impression of tokyo was less exciting. i could only think of one word to describe it: grey. maybe i've seen too many photos of bright neon lights and wackily-dressed people, but coupled with the depressing drizzle, the entire landscape was just grids and grids of rectangular concrete buildings.

i still feel lost, disoriented, and sometimes, like i want to go home now. the people i've met so far have been amazing, to the extent i'm still trying to pluck up courage to converse in my lousy japanese, because smiling, bowing and "hai" is mostly sufficient to get your way. maybe it's because it's only day one, but honestly, i expected day one to be more exciting than this.

i think i just need to sleep off my exhaustion. g'night.

btw, it's 6.10pm and the sky is pitch black with ominous looking clouds. boo, everything is still so stony and wintery.

10 hours!

2010-03-17T05:18:00.000-07:00

my last 10 hours in singapore!

when you realise that you might only see or do this 5-6 months later (depending when the money runs out), every tiny detail of things that are usually overlooked suddenly gets thrown into sharp relief.

instead of packing the pile of clothes strewn all over the floor, i'm walking around the empty house snapping pictures of random things with my phone. 3.2 megapixels can hardly capture the full pictorial detail, much less the sounds, scents and how everything is real, moving, and not a frozen image onscreen.

but it's just reassuring to keep pockets of memories somewhere which will follow me wherever i go. maybe tomorrow morning, when i'm sitting on my huge-ass luggage, waiting for the tokyo metro and surrounded by a bewildering barrage of foreign sights and incessant japanese voices, i might take out my phone and scroll through the pictures.

not like i can imagine any of it now. everything still feels surreal and unreal. the wistfulness of leaving hasn't set in, with the distracting rush of preparations and meet-ups.

nua-ing on my bed, it feels like yet another lazy day at home. packing is such a chore, i'm gonna nua for a while more. i think i'll miss my bolster. i hope they use bolsters in japan.

ohfck.

2010-03-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

6 days to flying off, and my mac decided to completely and randomly die on me, leaving me in a state of panic now because obviously i can't fly off without it.

this and another 101 things to worry about explains my worst bout of insomnia ever. i thought that there would never be a day when i am physically unable to do what i do best, and boy is it torturous.

dear john

2010-03-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

blah movie, but nice song.

random tumblr-ing.

2010-03-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

16 days!

2010-03-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

shopping for cold-weather stuff is so much more exciting. patent black docs ♥!

67537532985637 things to do before flying off.

28 days.

2010-02-18T08:08:00.001-08:00

it's unbearably long, yet looming closer so quickly.

can't believe i'm saying this now, but with my ticket booked and less than a month to go, i'm suddenly struck with a fearful regret.

visions of postcard-pretty scenes and a six-month holiday aside. thoughts of finally getting a much needed break from everything here aside. i imagine how potentially isolating it can be. and no matter how fun it can get, it seems so ephemeral after all. after six months, what am i coming back to?

i picture last semester. and half of me wants to run away, yet the other half knows that running away is never a solution. isn't it better to stay, face up to it and at least have a security blanket? instead of coming back and feeling even more lost than before.

i'm scared of the six months there, but i'm even more scared of coming back, in a way.

i know it's once in a lifetime, and what with me and my wanderlust, it's the kind of opportunity i should be thankful for. i know it sounds confusing and stupid, but it's ok, i don't expect anyone to fully understand and get the entire picture when even i myself am unable to.

28 days, oh well.

happy cny yo

2010-02-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

it's the time of scorching weather while trawling house to house, when-are-you-going-to-have-a-boyfriend/did-you-put-on-weight questions (which btw i've already received and it wasn't even cny yet mind you) and my greatest downfall, pineapple tarts and bak kwa.

i usually complain like hell about it, but oh well, i guess i love cny anyway.

:|

2010-02-07T07:35:00.001-08:00

there are times when i feel back in secondary two all over again, bewildered and hurt as to why i'm being treated this way, for something that i didn't even know i have done.

times when i just don't feel good about myself.

times when i'm scared, for many things. when people might slip away anytime.

but then, how do you know what is love if you don't experience hate? and how do you know what is happiness if you don't experience sadness?

it's impossible to always be happy. to always accept yourself and everyone around you. to always be nice to everyone. but perhaps it's only with the bad can you fully appreciate the good.

i just need to remind myself that, plug in my ipod to an appropriate soundtrack, sleep early, and everything will be ok. :)

-.- zzz

2010-02-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

had a nice, touristy walk around chinatown today with maryam. quite a refreshing change, because recently i think i can find my way around 313 blindfolded.

there's something about chinatown that is this blend of old and new singapore. old as in, the incessant chatter of dialects. the sharp herbal smell every time we pass a traditional apothecary. the grittiness.

new as in, it is literally china-town now. -.- and how some part of it always seem to be under some form of upgrading. actually, singapore in general. there never is a set landscape or skyline huh. i'll come back six months later and see another spanking new mall jostling for space and shoppers at orchard road.

and staying at home makes me so easily lethargic. gone are the days i could survive on 2 hours of sleep and red bull. without the adrenaline of mad deadlines and phonebook-thick stacks of readings, just a walk around town in the scorching afternoon heat makes me all sluggish and sleepy.

btw, how does grace alexis sound? =))

annoying movie-goers should be shot.

2010-01-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

quite in love with new york i love you. it was like watching a poem. compressed, at times incomplete and disjointed, and very open to interpretation.

and the shia labeouf story is so hauntingly beautiful, like a moving baroque painting. one of the most subtle and strategic uses of jump cuts i've seen. those transitions from story to story as the camera focuses on random strangers around the city. the stylized, wong kar wai inspired moments of the city lights and sounds. the amazing soundtrack, like an underlying current throughout the film.

it's the sort of film where you sit there and let the images and sounds wash over you, without really following any plot. which was, unfortunately, spoilt for a moment by The Most Annoying Ah Tiong ever.

apparently we were seating on her seat because cathay issued the same seat numbers to us. thing is, the entire frigging cinema was EMPTY, besides us and the 3 of them. so anyone with half a brain would simply move one seat down. but noooo, besides coming in late, she had to keep asking about her seat, AND see our tickets, AND shuffle around somemore without apologising.

by then, maryam and i had missed the entire natalie portman chunk of the film, which left us fuming for the next ten minutes. by the time we got back into the Mood of the Film, she proceeded to ruin things again by giggling at every. single. damn. intimate. scene.

by the time she giggled the loudest at this especially poignant scene of an old couple leaning against each other, i swear i could strangle her with her stupid frilly ah tiong skirt.

---

okay, on a happier note... =)

maryam keeps influencing me to become a fangirl because she shows me videos of cute korean boys i.e.

=))

off to malaysia for the next three days with only my video-loaded ipod and japan guidebook to get me through. till then!

listen... to you - kyuhyun

2010-01-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

lazy lounging days at home need a nice soundtrack. to go with the heady afternoon heat that makes you want to do nothing but schlep aimlessly around the house. something acoustic and laid-back and summery.

just a sudden moment of gratitude. because, this time next year, i'll probably be trudging up and down those notorious ntu slopes in between lessons, and the only soundtrack playing in my ear is that of the buzzing heat and me cursing under my breath.

hills and tropical weather and the heavy, polluted Western Air don't go well together. i think heat in the east can pass off as sunshine. but heat in the industrialized Other End, especially within those stifling concrete walls, coupled with the cocoa smell and extremely slow shuttle buses that leave you melting underneath the bus stop...

try all of the above plus cramps.

okay enough. i'm sure i'll miss ntu. like when i'm freezing my ass off over there, and can't communicate well enough to buy myself a hot drink, with a long queue of people behind me wondering who is this alien.

anyway this got me very excited when i googled "soka university" for one of the first times. but apparently it's the wrong soka university - this is the one in california, which looks like a parliament house.

the tokyo one is alot humbler, but whatever thumbnail i could find of this obscure school shows sakura-lined streets, which is pretty amazing. just like in akai ito. tee hee. i can collect three sakura petals before it falls to the ground and make a wish and it'll come true. its called an omajinai. i really learn the most useless japanese words ever.

fb pictures from everyone else in other parts of the world are even more amazing. ivy-covered brick vistas and snow-capped narnia lands. it's just quite exciting to think of us scattered around the world. and since cs currently doesn't feel or look like cs, it's like a whole new world for everyone this sem.

dear soka/japanese immigration office,

2010-01-24T07:50:00.001-08:00

please send my acceptance package over soon, because

i am checking webmail 6 times a day in between my korean youtube marathon.

and i actually read every. single. damn. email. even the spam.

i am stuck at home all the time because going out = spending money and i have no money.

i daydream too much about going to apgujeong, seoul.

i hate the feeling of having everything left hanging in the air and unconfirmed.

and i wanna get out of here now.

but i secretly love having my 3-month holiday pushed forward, bumming around, not waking up to the shrill ring of an alarm, having the day stretched luxuriously in front of me, learning japanese at my own pace without the dampening stress of deadlines and exams, curling up in bed watching sappy dramas and mad variety shows and having the freedom to really LOL.

unlike in public, when i watch videos on my ipod, i struggle to stop myself from smiling stupidly at the screen. very difficult you know.

i spent the entire afternoon at kino that day, reading seoul and tokyo guidebooks (for free, hee hee).

this is the tokyo subway map. i tried searching for hachioji station until everything became a blur of red, blue and green.

then i realised that i was looking at the wrong map. apparently tokyo has many mrts. like one isn't madly complicated enough.

i even google satellite-d the school and all i see are trees and white spaces. then i googled ewha. and i see mazes of roads and blocks and blocks of buildings, like in sims city.

now i have this mental image of my school being in the middle of some vast, ulu, snow-covered fir tree land.

amusing incident of the day.

2010-01-22T08:38:00.001-08:00

Today, at the bus stop outside my house, i got picked up.

By a mat.

In school uniform.

In school uniform shorts.

I got picked up by a 13 or 14 year old. Dunno if it's funny until suay, or suay until funny.

two months is too long.

2010-01-21T06:11:00.000-08:00

The guanaja cake from rive gauche is crazy divine. Rich dark chocolate, fluffy chocolate sponge, the crispy hazelnut biscuit base. Like a dark chocolate version of ferroro rocher. Or an endorphin shot in a spoon.

So much for running, so much for dieting.

Just finished watching the drama version of akai ito today. So melancholic, bittersweet and starkly realistic.

I can now say the most useless japanese phrases, like "do you believe in destiny?" and "yes, i believe."

idle is an understatement.

2010-01-13T02:43:00.000-08:00

if i continue watching more super junior, i'm sure i'll end up at comics connection buying laminated photos to put in my wallet. and 0:50 convinces me that i'm in love.

i'm beginning to hate how i sound here. flat, whiny, almost jaded, like someone who is just damn bloody sick of life. it's even crossing the acceptably-emo threshold, until i feel annoyed with myself and my ranting repetitions and unhappy posts. don't i have anything remotely optimistic to write about anymore?

words used to be able to come out so naturally and logically. now everytime i write, i pause and stiffen, like i'm trying not to sound like a self-pitying, ungrateful brat, yet there's no other way to express how i feel. what happened to all the small moments that made me smile? is it buried somewhere under this dizzying load of worries, this chronic sense of being lost and aimless?

which is why i feel i really need to get away from everything. perhaps it's for the better, being alone for the next 5 months. perhaps i can find myself again.

post xmas.

2009-12-28T05:25:00.000-08:00

had a very fulfilling holiday at jakarta and bandung. sinfully good food. especially the avocado juice omg. cold misty mountains that looked exactly like in twilight, pine trees edward cullen and all. the gorgeous resort with its cozy log cabins, koi-filled lake and personal sampan. the hygienically-suspect roadside stalls. the damn atas al fresco restaurant with the wonderful view of the night skyline and the worst service ever. unbelievably palatial villas with yachts parked in front, venetian-canal style. a few streets down, child beggars, policemen beating kids up and a startling social disparity that reminds you once again how sheltered we are here in singapore. and, the craziest company ever, reminiscing those tj days when everything was cozier and simpler. who knows when the next holiday will be, with all of us going different ways and being so wrapped up in our different lives, but it's some comfort to know that despite months of being apart, we're still the same great class when we're back together again.

looking through the class album, i can't even recognise myself sometimes. since when did we all grow up so much, and so quickly. maybe it's just me, but i feel worlds apart from who i was before. and looking back, i feel really thankful for friends who never failed to be there at my most difficult, insecure and lost moments. which, i remember, were pretty frequent and possibly bordering on annoying self-pity and emo-ness. maybe being thrown into a new environment forces you to be stronger somehow.

christmas was, as usual, spectacularly unexciting but happily spent with important people in my life. which is especially meaningful this year when so many of us are flying off to different corners of the world. and it seemed like only a while ago when we were at the benches and discussing instep like it was some faraway thing.

instep. all the money, all the effort and all the sacrifices made. it kind of forces you to make sure it's all worth it. leaving iro today after reading more info sheets and stuff made maryam and i rather lethargic all day, weighed down by one million and one worries and unsettled things. most of all, money woes. sometimes it just hits you like a ton of bricks, some things that you usually take for granted.

so the good news from the TF scholarship was really, really a godsend. it isn't much at all. but at least it's something.

and, oh man, the thought of tomorrow makes me sick to the stomach. i need to get out the house and do something crazy-fun because i might plunge into sian-ness after midnight tomorrow. i HATE clicking the stupid button and seeing your entire fate unveil in front of you like that, but i guess it beats sending result slips to your house and having your parents get to it first.

please, please, let 2009 end on a good note.

back!

2009-12-23T09:10:00.000-08:00

from four days of blissful ignorance and escape from life.

the first thing i did when i got home was to check webmail. but boo, nothing from soka. spare me already.

holidays holidays.

2009-12-19T04:51:00.000-08:00

can you feel the festivities? walking down orchard road with its lights and caroling makes me feel christmas in the air! =)

flying off to indo tomorrow with people i haven't seen in a million years yet i know i can have a great time with. second time there in like two weeks? hall trip at batam was really different from last year. didn't really feel like a hall trip because everyone was just within their own comms and participating in the perfunctory bonding activities. but it was fun all the same. forgetting about time and spending the entire day at the pool, napping in the sun and doing DIY facials in the room.

and now another lepak trip, hopefully better than the batam malls where the only thing to do was to buy chewing gum and shoot hoops at the arcade until our arms were sore. shopping at jakarta, resort at bandung where we have to dayung sampan from the lobby to our cottage, cold nights and wine and good food.

goodness knows how much i need to relax this december before i start job hunting in january. in retrospect, this semester has been kind of hellish. gpa and all aside (omg 29th december), so many things kept pulling me down, even till now. i need to get everything off my mind, even if only for a while, and be happy again. i'm sick of being worried/emo/frustrated/stressed/helpless for like 70% of my time.

siao liao.

2009-11-26T03:53:00.001-08:00

today i learnt that red bull can only do so much when you get less than 8 hours of restless, interrupted sleep. in 2 days.

and today i truly know the feeling of going in and being completely blanked out, of struggling against the lead-heavy feeling in your head, and desperately trying to remember stuff that you know too well you have studied for.

screw exams.

2009-11-13T04:53:00.001-08:00

insecurity is more lonely than loneliness.

it's not even funny.

only the truly insecure would know that it's such a haunting and lonely emotion. it's no use telling anyone about it because people can only say two things. "but you're good enough what", which you know is only the case either because you have successfully masked your flaws in front of them, or because they just want to make you feel better. or they would say "just live with it, nobody's perfect" but you know too well how damn difficult it is.

it's something only insecure people understand but telling them is worse, because they just compare and try to make their lives sound worse than yours, which is quite useless in the end huh.

so you end up ranting to yourself, which is pretty sad.

stardee time.

2009-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

8.30 am at LWN.

as if i'm not shit-scared enough.

20

2009-11-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

The '2' in 20 front sounds frightfully old. i don't feel i grew up a lot from 19 to 20, yet it sounds like such a big gap in between. just like how in primary school you stare at the big secondary school students with their loud voices and cool roxy backpacks, and you feel you'll never be as old as them, but before you know it, you are.

to every single person who remembered my birthday, who surprised me, who made the six birthday songs (and six birthday wishes!) possible, it was completely unexpected. i don't know how to say it without sounding corny, but it really meant a lot to me. =)

---

everything now makes me want to run away. two weeks of school left before the exams and i still don't know why i'm pretty much perpetually in a screw-life mood this entire sem. i need to get over it, get over myself, and start studying.

just look at the videos

2009-10-20T07:57:00.001-07:00

because no, you don't really need to read yet another whiny rant about schoolwork and how much it sucks and why my life is suckier than yours. as if whiny ranty msn nicks aren't bad enough.

and i hate every post to be so damn bloody gloomy, but

i complain so much but this time, i really feel like i'm drowning.

filming the entire weekend. overnight. with cinema studies term paper due the same weekend. and imc presentation on monday. 3 of my biggest core assignments in one weekend. plus one million documents to submit for instep, medical checkups.

it's not about getting it done. getting it done is not even a question. it's about submitting something that you know you have done your best for. but now it's like, i know i can do so much better, if only i had that extra bit of time and energy.

it's almost midnight and it looks like i might have to be in school till very, very late. i know i need to stop complaining and just get through it and start all those self-motivational talks about how lucky i am to even be here getting an education, but all that's in my mind now is, screw everything, i'm so sick of being so tired and unhappy everyday just because of three stupid numbers.

the only thing that makes me vaguely happy now is -

so unbelievably pretty and talented. the world is damn unfair right.

i can just listen to this on repeat mode everyday.

This is EPIC. It makes me feel insanely smart, which is what i really need right now.

and this is pure ROFLMAO. the womanizer cover is even better.

i actually find the scrawny guy quite endearing, sparse tufty moustache and all. hey, at least he brings happiness to people. which is so much more than i can say for myself, being the huge-ass grinch i am now.

fml.

2009-10-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

fml moment, and such moments seem to increase exponentially every day, every week.

it's like.. burnout. which is even worse than pure stress, because part of you is so bloody sick and tired and you just want to not give a shit, yet the other part is panicking big-time.

my disgusting bedbug bites look like a crop circle. because it's one row of swollen red welts, neatly in a line from my ankle to almost my knee. and it is farkkkkkhing itchy, no joke. i cannot sit still.

i don't even know why i bother to write about this except that it is some form of emotional catharsis. because if i look back at this entry, i would only remember how shitty this feels and it's really not something i would ever like to remember.

the only good thing about this is, you can sit back, say fml and wait for it to reach it's lowest point because things can only get better from there.

AND omg i realised i have an emergency box of royce chocs in my room! goodness knows how much i need that shot of endorphins in my bloodstream.

instep!

2009-10-06T06:41:00.001-07:00

doing alot of damn ma fan admin stuff now for my application package. sometimes i get random moments of excitement when i have nothing to do and imagine myself flying off to somewhere i've never been before in 6 months' time, but at other times there's so much to worry about, like the subjects, the money, leaving everything behind for 5 months..

nothing else interesting, except that having more free time makes me muck around even more with the false reassurance that i still have time left. like now.

i need to get my neon-pink mac out of sight, bury myself in the study room and start working on my 225 script.

recess week.

2009-09-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

watched fame during the bocelli outing on tuesday, probably my only day of fun so far during this sad, sad recess week. would be a pretty blah movie if not for the fact that i'm such a sucker for musical-style, live-your-dream movies a la hairspray, step up and dance subaru. especially when it includes smashing dance sequences and some romantic chick-flick side story. so predictable, but i fall for that formula all the time.

maybe it's because watching such movies kind of make me wonder, if i happened to have a bit more drive and passion for dance, maybe i won't be taking this usual path. maybe alot of us won't. oh well. spending the week stuck in hall trying to catch up on boring, boring work just kills me.

=.=

2009-09-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

of all those horrible nights, sitting under stark fluorescent lights with heavy-lidded eyes, a caffeine-addled mind and the hollow realisation that studying all night won't save you from the inevitable fate of walking out of the LT knowing you completely screwed up your gpa - tonight trumps them all, hands down.

225 is making me fat.

2009-09-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

From kai's tumblr. LOL.

Anyway, this is what i googled: According to some studies, people who don't get enough sleep tend to have increased circulating levels of appetite-stimulating ghrelin, lower levels of appetite-suppressing leptin, and -- you guessed it -- they're more likely to be obese.

I am living proof of this. In fact, our entire COM225 group is, because the 4 of us completely polished off 8 packets of hokkien mee, or luak, char kway teow and carrot cake for dinner last night. This is what you get when you spend two entire days filming with only two hours of sleep, and lug insanely heavy equipment everywhere. I'm terribly guilt-ridden but my hormones dictate otherwise. =(

And recently, I am also living proof of Murphy's Law.

Oh well.

♥!

2009-09-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

dnd is finally over.

i'm officially free of any school and hall commitments. ending my term that night felt quite emo. but i'm glad it ended in the best way anyone could ask for, and that i spent a year with the most upz comm ever, and the past month with the best pigeons any PC could ask for as well. things can be a bitch sometimes when i'm so tired and stressed, but everything's worth it in the end.

anyway, say hello to my new uber-coolz macbook pro. it's in the most gorgeous shade of neon pink and you can see it from a mile away, which is not very good when i'm trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible during lectures. and, the thing about using a macbook, and a pro one at that, is that it makes a tech-noob like me feel very, very outsmarted by my own computer.

and, instep results are out. i got offered soka. it's in tokyo. tokyo. but there's so many things to think about, and so many things to consider. oh well. i shouldn't whine about it because i got my first choice, just that it's yet another thing to think about and somehow i feel i have too many things to think about already.

the apple club.

2009-08-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

com207 started at 1100. at 1130, i was still frustratedly trying to open the lecture slides from edventure. apparently that's too much for my pc's 1gb ram to handle.

i think, that was when enough is enough. in the midst of the lecture, i ordered my brand spanking new macbook pro.

i have now joined the league of apple snobs who do that two-finger-scroll thing and walk around with a macbook tucked under their arm and a smug, creative-student expression.

zzz.

2009-08-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Apparently, subway stations in japan have this.

Shopping is a social problem there. I think i found my motherland.

And, i feel so. Damn. Blearghhh. Sick and tired. Please please please let me have the energy and enthusiasm to get through this and do the best i can.

week three.

2009-08-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

and counting.

it's madness, but when september 5 comes, please let it all be worth it.

The other DND that i could just go and have fun and not care about anything else. It was such a pretty, glamorous night - the fairy lights strung around the almost-vintage, wood-paneled interior of the boat, the open-air deck and harbour lights. and, such an apt theme. so gossip girl okay, i can almost imagine blair waldorf and her posse, sipping Cristal and dripping with diamonds and It Bags.

but, back to reality, i'm stuck in hall with eyebags and a hacking cough, trying to scan my way through 207 notes and pray that i can wake up in time tomorrow, because it seems that i have this annoying habit of waking up fifteen minutes after class starts, every single bloody day.

bahh.

2009-08-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

the first week of school left me sitting here on a friday evening with a headache and sore throat, feeling too exhausted to go for night cycling, damn bloody homesick because i can hardly go home and it's only week 1, mind you, with a string of worries clouding my sleep-addled mind.

camp, schmamp.

2009-08-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

off to hall camp. and i'm trying my best to make my appearance less sporadic than for the previous hall camp when i conveniently retired in my room anytime the seniors told us to change into dark coloured clothes, or gave any other hint of an impending strenuous and/or messy activity. i must be one of those really annoying, nua-sai freshies.

because there's only one week left to school, and i usually am quite happy about going back, but this time, the thought of it brings this sullen thunk to the pits of my stomach, i don't know why. i can already imagine my glum face on sunday night while driving through that foresty, shadowy stretch of jalan bahar road.

a hallmark moment.

2009-07-26T22:59:00.001-07:00

i knew that, even with an early-morning flight to catch, my parents would be staying up till i got home last night.

sometimes, i feel a bit guilty, simply for growing up. it's something we all know we cannot help, just like growing old and dying. but it doesn't make it any easier sometimes. they complain like hell everytime they have to fetch me out and stuff like that, yet somehow, they seem to be smiling more when they're complaining. maybe a parent's greatest fear is to wake up one day and find that you are not needed anymore.

every parent-child relationship is so nuanced - the typical asian dad, the working mum, the housewife, the househusband. but i guess some things run like an undercurrent, consistent underneath all the complexity.

still time to shop

2009-07-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I shopped at a total of 6 places in one day, from tampines to the expo to raffles city to queensway shopping centre, and am feeling damn happy. like, unnaturally happy. the kind of happiness that ranks up there with green tea & red bean ice cream. or even higher.

it's all because i went from completely penniless, like two-digit-number-in-bank-account penniless, to significantly but deceptively richer when the NAC pay came in. and, because not all the money belongs to me, i'm not as rich as i imagine myself to be everytime i instinctively hand my NETS card over to the cashier.

i need to be chained and locked up at home, because everytime i enter a shop now, it's like in the shopaholic movie all over again, with seraphic singing, mannequins beckoning and everything glittering temptingly.

on a completely different note, i still cannot decide if i should continue doing... stuff. because i think i'll feel this sudden void when i suddenly have nothing extra-curricular to do. yet i want to see how it feels like to have more time to do other things i want to do, things that i've been unable to do for the past year, or past few years.

and, it's a nice sunshiney sunday morning. i think i'll go pop in my breakfast at tiffany's dvd, eat ice cream, and make the best of what's left of the glorious, glorious holidays.

and why do movie adaptations of books always have happier endings? i remember how capote's novella had this hollow, more realistic & rather sad ending that made me go, 'huh? end already ah?' but the movie is so happily-ever-after, your typical mainstream hollywood cinema ending. oh well. nevermind, i still ♥ chick flicks. that scene is immortalized, i mean, i bet i'm not the only one to stop and stare longingly at the display outside taka's tiffany & co lor.

never say never

2009-07-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

I like sundays because of sunday secrets on postsecret.com.

I read the god delusion by richard dawkins yesterday. And it actually, logically, makes sense.

Then again, I guess some things cannot be explained by logic and reason alone.

But it's so difficult to believe when i only see it dividing, not uniting.

ho sai lei.

2009-07-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Watched this a long time ago, probably on analogue tv when everyone was still in love with james lye, but got reminded about it again today.

maybe it's how the characters are quirky to the point of dysfunctionalism, yet so easily identifiable, which kind of reminds you once again how dysfunctional we all are in some way or another. or, maybe, it's because in reality, relationships don't climax to an ending - but is left hanging there, or interrupted by another story, yet somehow, something remains.

and sia lahh, i miss hongkong man. the random, grubby-looking streetside stall with the best handmade fishball noodles in the world. the glitzy neon signs everywhere. and how every dark corner and dimly-lit alley in mongkok seems to hold a story in itself. it's almost parallel to singapore, yet darker and grittier in some ways, and more opulent in others.

speaking of hk, while i was at the sentosa recce last week, i could have been at good old jurong point, face-to-face with HIM:

the very guy behind the motivation for all 4 of us to burst out into his wonderfully pensive canto song everytime we took the ferry from central to tsim sha tsui.

tsk. the colossal sacrifice i made.

alright, off to work tmr! despite the fact that it is just a one-day canvassing event, saying i'm off to work just makes me seem less of a bum. (:

bocelli!

2009-07-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

back from WKWSCIFOC09, in one piece! =D

which dispels the common perception that i cannot survive for more than 24 hours without shopping.

this won't be a usual post-FOC msg, simply because this camp is so much more. i expected to go, have fun, make friends, yes. what i didn't expect was to go through this upheaval of emotions, especially on the last day, when i felt like laughing and crying at the same time.

honestly, i went for camp feeling a bit wary. at camps, i'm always the one to relak one corner, i can never be unabashedly self-high, and i suck at camp games. i was really scared i'd be the most useless agl in the history of cs.

so you all don't know how much it means to me, when i received an sms from one of you to tell me you felt closest to me during camp. and those times i went into the girls' chalet before bedtime to htht, and it could have been awkward for a random senior to come butting in, but you girls were amazing. each private conversation i had with every single one of you, especially those who usually do not speak much. it meant alot to me.

it's because of freshies like you all, that i don't have to be someone i'm not and yet am still able to connect with each of you in another way besides rah-rahing and cheering. every single one of you rocks my socks lah. (:

i can't say everything went perfectly. but then again, without the bad, the entire experience wouldn't be as fulfilling.

a big thank you to everyone - my awesome gls, the wonderful seniors, and most of all, the best freshies anyone could ever ask for.

get me out of here.

2009-07-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

I have seen more than 10 FB albums on my home feeds of people going to the most gorgeous places in the world.

I don't want to sound whiney but it sucks to be stuck in crummy singapore, with pore-clogging weather and zero exciting things to do. I either stay at home in blessed shelter against the heat and watch dramas online all day, but incur a string of forbidding warnings about dying of overexposure to computer radiation. Or i brave the weather and go out, but end up going to the same old places and spending money. Anyway, there's no pleasing someone as bored and cranky as me, but i think i am, nevertheless, secretly enjoying having no life while i can.

WKWSCI FOC from 6th to 10th. I'm usually not a very camp person, because it involves

1) getting sweaty and dirty

2) lousy/nonexistent shower facilities

3) unappetising packed food all mushed up together and i have to painstakingly separate it, bento-style

4) mosquitoes

5) sleeping on the, quote, cold hard floor.

and let's not get started on the lame cheers, painful small talk and embarrassing forfeits you have to do in the middle of orchard road.

yep, all this done voluntarily, and you even have to sign a form to say that you can't blame anyone if you happen to die a horrible death.

but i'm doing it again this year because last year's foc was admittedly, incredibly fun, even for a camp-adverse person like me. and it's not the fun and craziness you'll remember the most, but the people. when i think of last year's circle of trust, i remember how lucky we were to have seniors who brought us together, and i hope that we can do the same this year, corny as it sounds.

i just need to stock up on spf130 sunblock and insect repellant.

rant.

2009-07-01T09:42:00.002-07:00

it's amazing how one slip-up can escalate to a hell lot of screw-ups.

my timetable for next sem is a MESS. i can't get the PEs i want, my timeslots are a mess, my UEs are even more of a mess, and that's because missing registration by an hour means that i can't get the cores i want, which means i can't register for the UEs i want because it all clashes, and it just becomes worse and worse.

do you know how sian it makes me feel, to be so uncertain about what i can or cannot take next sem, to be staring at the stars planner for hours trying to figure out plan B and plan C in case i can't get this or that, and thinking of the consequences if i cannot clear a certain number of AUs especially since i took so few mods for the past 2 sems, and just having this nagging worry in my mind all day, on the train, in the bus, wanting to go home and check my email to see if this stupid, stupid problem is solved.

JUST ONE CLICK, and she can solve ALL my problems! ONE CLICK. but noooo. i have to wait in agony because of the usual protocol, and all i can do is get angry with myself for being so damn stupid.

stars, schmars.

2009-06-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

with every semester comes a perfunctory rant about stars. maybe it's because the trial-and-error of fitting in mods into that blue grid, trying to avoid the red clashes and anything past the 5pm line, all unpleasantly reminds me of some matrix (is that why they called it matriculation?) and anything this mathematical is beyond me. maybe it's because of the minor cardiac arrest i had when i totally missed registration, or the flutter of apprehension when i'm left with lousy timeslots and foresee a semester of trudging gloomily to lessons at godawful times. or maybe, just looking at it makes me feel a little bit sian about the impending semester ahead.

on a side note, mcdonald's garlic chilli is back, YAY!

jobless and very penniless.

2009-06-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

the moment i sent the cherry orchard people off at the airport, i felt weird - like part emo, part lost, that this job has ended just like that. it just feels funny to be so busy and kancheong, and then suddenly so damn eng. but ok i'm not complaining now when i spend everyday watching ridiculously idealistic shows like boys before flowers.

few pics of the wonderful people i met from lin zhaohua theatre studio. didn't get to take picture with jiang wenli because she got whisked off to the premier lounge, huge movie-star shades and all. but i just had to include this photo of her, to show how gorgeous she is. like a cross between rosamund kwan and joan chen.

didn't get to take a picture with lin zhaohua and and his super nice and grandmotherly wife too. OH WELL.
anjun, whom i sat next to and had a really interesting conversation with during the entire bus-ride to the airport.

cheng cheng and jojo. spent alot of time with jojo during this entire week because she's the in-charge, and we went to shop at suntec during her last day. she is super nice, always giving me food and taking care of me more than i'm supposed to take care of her!

and the really funny guy who kept giving me funny faces everytime he sees me!

now i don't mind going to beijing because i can look for jojo and anjun to be my tourguides this time round, and from the pictures i saw, beijing actually looks quite pretty. AND, the SGD$1 shopping jojo was talking about!

i have to admit, meeting them made me change my perception about PRC people. so far, the only PRC people i have met are the AT scholars, who are often very in-their-own-world, and people from shenzhen and zhuhai, who are more... err, rural, i guess.

but the cherry orchard people are all so friendly and warm, and yes, well-mannered. so much more well-mannered than your average singaporean. they hold doors open, and thanked me for every small thing i did, and they are the only people who helped me when i was carrying the cartons of bottled water up, and even helped to arrange the bottles. even though it is my sai kang job that most artistes would never think of helping with, especially when they are so busy and all. very unexpected.

unfortunately, maryam adillia and i agreed, it is disappointing how the people that gave us problems during this job are not the artistes, as we were warned, but the singaporeans. a hell lot of problems too. and these people are the ones who just love to look down on people they think are uncivilised country bumpkins, when they are in fact so much worse. despite being so educated and rich.

and, looking at STARS makes me kind of dread another semester of mugging and being stuck in school 24/7. i think, next sem, i will do nothing else but study and whatever nonsense i like to do, instead of being such a busybee.

wanderlust & escapism.

2009-06-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

one last week of work, for the lin zhaohua cherry orchard production. i'll miss this job. ugh, life will be so darn boring after this, going back to school and entering my self-declared hermit-break mug-my-ass-off semester.

all those kancheong spider moments, lugging the welfare stuff around, running here and there, it beats a desk-bound job anytime. meeting people from all over the world, dancers and famous actresses and the directors, somehow it just makes you want to get out and see more.

really, sometimes i just feel ashamed of singaporeans' attitudes. especially those in the service industry, whom i meet everyday. not only the taxi and coach drivers, but the manager of a 5-star hotel and all the so-called big shots and upper management people. i can't even begin to describe how anal and inflexible they can get, and how they simper up to all the foreigners, angmohs especially, and treat other people like dirt, and how they just love to look down on people from countries they deem inferior - whose manners are, unfortunately, so much better than their own.

you know how in parliament they always talk about those typical ungrateful singaporean youths who always think that the grass is greener on the other side, and that's exactly why we need foreign talent, blah blah. okay then, i guess i might be one of them, because i really would love to get out of here asap, and i agree it is quite a cause for concern since i'm obviously not the only one.

=D

2009-06-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

today i watched the worst movie, ever - blood: the last vampire.

you know it's a very, very bad movie when it's meant to be either emo/shocking, and the entire theatre laughs instead. awfully cringe-inducing.

but it's okay, because i am now in a happy happy mood for a damn stupid reason but i don't care hahahahaha!

dance subaru!

2009-06-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

went to watch dance subaru with dillia, and i now declare it MY favourite movie of the year.

japan AND ballet, my two LOVES. gorgeous dance sequences, tutus and pointe shoes and full tulle skirts, adorable child actors, drop-dead pretty girls, drop-dead handsome guys, i swear we melted into our seats everytime yuta hiraoka appeared, and the DBSK cameo, zomg. lots of touching teary moments and a happily-ever-after ending. basically, your usual fairytale chick flick, just in a japanese context and with lots of dazzling dance shots. not the most intellectual or thought-provoking movie around, but both of us can seriously watch it again and again and again, which is not very healthy since we are already so impossibly idealistic and it's precisely such movies that landed us in this state.

the movie also mentioned rudolf nureyev, which made us sit up in the gleeful knowledge that HAHAHA, we know his protege! and he is unbelievably NICE and so super charming and attentive for someone who was once danseur etoile for the paris opera ballet!

THIS is him. amazing, especially at the end. the precision.

it just makes me miss those years of ballet even more. one more exam and i would have completed the RAD graded examinations.

and dance subaru just makes me wanna go japan even more!

random pics from anna karenina!

Robin, whose angelic, straight-out-of-an-Enid-Blyton-book exterior belies his hyperactivity and tendency to unhesitantly sprint across a pitch-black backstage filled with potentially lethal wires and props, mid-way during the performance. And i get a minor heart attack everytime i have to stumble my way through the dark and run after him.

The funny guy who makes wisecracks throughout the entire performance.

Yusuke-san! Along with the other japanese dancers Mai and Maki, who are all so super nice. =D

Minna, who showed us a picture of her two adorable daughters, is the nicest, most motherly dancer around.

The prima ballerina, Minna Tervamaki! Who, despite playing Anna Karenina, is one of the most down-to-earth people there.

And our farewell gift to them, which Hanna assured us would be hung somewhere prominent in full view of everyone! Heart with the hidden meaning and all. =)))))

openly sneaked into the esplanade today with my pass, and watched the cullberg ballet's full-dress rehearsal! =D they're good too, but very different from the FNB. very contempary, while the FNB is very traditionally classical. usually i prefer classical, having been trained in it for almost a decade, but then after watching the cullberg ballet - the lack of opulent sets, larger-than-life props, and the beautiful, lavish costumes, headdresses and makeup; their use of stark lighting, the plain, almost dowdy costumes, and the very provocative, unconventional choreography with all the awkward angles - somehow it makes you appreciate their amazing technique even more because you just focus on their dancing and nothing else. it's a good change i guess, although i'm still a sucker for traditional ballroom scenes with the corps-de-ballet, the girls in their swishy glittery ballgowns and the guys in their princely officer uniforms sweeping gracefully across the stage along with a live orchestra.

i realise in contemp, the dancers are also so different. for the FNB, the corps-de-ballet have to all look alike in a way, all fair-skinned and around the same height and small-boned. but for cullberg, you have big-boned female dancers and very small-sized male dancers, and the kind of dancers that can't be in a corps-de-ballet that requires a certain sort of conformity. but they are still so graceful and nimble, it's really wonderful watching them.

today dillia and i walked past some random guy who gave us this grin and said hi, and after he passed, she told me he's iskandar ismail. the guy who arranged and composed music for the likes of andy lau.

we both turned to each other and went, i love my job.

!

2009-05-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

finally getting off my lazy ass and officially starting work tmr!

it's quite exciting working in the finnish national ballet's production, anna karenina, and getting to watch them rehearse and all, in that lovely sunlit esplanade studio. and and and, the former director of the bolshoi ballet will be there too, zomg! being there, watching the entire production process, the pretty tulle costumes, stage make-up and pointe shoes... i think i'll be quite nostalgic about dance once again.

it's quite daunting too, speaking to a bunch of ang moh strangers, especially when i'm the first and only one to fetch them from the airport tmr.

oh well. finally i'm doing something, besides vegging my life away.

musique pour toujours

2009-05-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

My 4th TJCO concert in a row!

From 2006... The year we did our crazy screaming RC cheer onstage.

To 2007. Check out my ultimate fugliest hair ever. There's a reason i made all the photos so small.

And 2008, before entering uni.
And now, in 2009! We all look so super different!

Pre-concert.

Makeup-less, hair unstyled, and last-minute learning of songs that we have not seen before.

Then, camwhoring before the concert bell rings, during interval, and after the concert!

The most important people in my TJCO life! yee ning, my fellow 06/07 comm member. bixia, the only other cellist in the same batch as me, and my super tehhhh successor yinglin. The SYF Gold with Honours, famously broadcasted 'chio & zai' batch! =D

Not forgetting my other juniors, cheryl wendy nanxiao amanda & yinyue - who learnt how to play the cello from scratch within one year, which is really quite an amazing feat.

And the unforgettable things we do as a section that is so distinctively cello&bass. Before this, it was all that NAFA & Orange nonsense. This time, its us all betting on that question, with the usual embarrassing consequences, and our eyecandy-ing and bagua-ing. Even though we only meet once a year, our times together are always filled with these crazy wacky moments. Love you all lotsss!

The 4 06/07 batch girls with huangsheng!!

Our senior, Ivan, with his cool floppy fringe, and how he eventually poked me into swaying with the cello. And our bow-sparring games during co pracs!

And, post-concert supper at lau pa sat! There was this actor sitting behind bixia, I forgot his name, but we all think he looks really good in person! =D

Our failed attempt at looking stuffed to the extent of queasiness, which we really felt after all that sinful greasy food.

Musique pour Toujours 2009! =)

Going back to TJ after a year, and seeing how, as every year passes, the people keep changing and getting more stranger to us... also makes me realise that actually, some things don't change. Like the friendships you made during those short 2 years there, and the experiences you take away. Uni life for me is an entirely different world from the smaller, perhaps more cosy and closed-up world within that small TJ campus that we practically lived in.

Everyone said I changed alot after entering uni. I guess if you knew me in JC, as compared to knowing me now, I think I might seem like quite a different person. I guess i'm always reminiscising over my JC years because its the 2 years where so many things happened, so many decisions were unconsciously and consciously made, and going back and seeing certain things, certain people, just makes me reflect a bit about the past.

Especially when the people I know and am closest to in JC are so dispersed all over the world right now. Like my lao po, who randomly texted me a few minutes ago, just when I was writing this entry down.

Hey dear, I don't know why you sound so emo nowadays, but i'm guessing its over relationships? I guess it's not convenient for you to blog about it, but tell me about it online or something soon okay. I have never seen you this emo since you left for perth. About the question you asked on your blog, whether you would choose to do a right thing that makes you unhappy, or the opposite, well, i guess we've both been thinking about the same thing - choices. All I can say is, just ask yourself what you really want to do, because the answer is definitely there, inside you. There's no such thing as a right or wrong choice. There are too many what-ifs to answer, too many consequences to weigh, and we can never predict what would happen tomorrow, a few months or a few years later. Sometimes, there are things you can never see because you are in the situation now. Maybe a few years later when you look back, it becomes clearer. But for now, just follow your heart i guess? I'll be here for you.

Oh well, but i believe that things happen for a reason. If some things happened otherwise, or if i were the same person as before, i think i won't experience things that i never thought i would dare to try out before, and my life now won't be as fulfilling i think. I'm still happy with the way things turned out!

Some pics at the arts fest opening at the super pretty marina barrage, with my very aptly-but-unglamourously-named convent club!

I'm gonna start work really soon!

%$@#!

2009-05-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

i thought that after hong kong, i could start going back to a normal diet.

but ytd at the concert, i ate a huge bento lunch and dinner. and finished that mountain of rice. then, we had supper at lau pa sat and ate satay, or luak & stingray. and, the best part of all, i ate 5 and a half entire slices of cake within the last 24 hours. One and a half slices of secret recipe's chocolate banana cake that gao lao shi bought yesterday, THREE slices of hilton hotel's swoon-inducing rich chocolate cake, and right after a huge lunch just now, another slice of some other hotel's cheesecake.

looking at it all listed down makes it even more shocking and guilt-inducing.

btw, more about arts fest and tjco concert later!

back!

2009-05-11T05:49:00.000-07:00

from 11 days of shopping, eating, and chillaxing. too lazy to upload pics of hk for now. but it was a good trip. came home penniless with an entire luggageful of wares, literally combed every single area of shopping in the entire hong kong, ate the best food ever, explored random outlying islands, went to the peak for an entire day just to wander around the sprawling estates and sketch the skyline...

oh well, more details later if i feel like blogging more about our trip.

the past few days have been spent as a flesh-coloured blob on my bed, watching lots and lots of tvb and other random shows online. but i eventually have to get up to attend tjco pracs and the concert is on saturday, zomg. with foc car wash on the same day. and signing the arts fest job contract and getting ready to work... at least it's not another desk-bound brainless sai kang job that bores you to tears.

anyway, besides slapstick hk variety shows and tvb blockbusters, i was watching this award-winning korean arthouse film, Beautiful, which is really quite a fascinating movie that is part social commentary, part parody, of eating disorders and the idea of beauty that we are so accustomed to.

hello hello

2009-04-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've moved out of hall and am back HOME!

Packing and cleaning the room is the singularly worst chore ever. The dust, zomg.

And my room looks so barren and forlorn now. Till the next inhabitant takes over!

Forget about mediterranean chic. Next sem, our room's theme is gonna be minimalist zen.
All my stuff almost couldn't fit into the SUV. It took alot of maneuvering and strategic planning to squeeze all the odd-shaped items in like some 3-d puzzle.

And the only thing worst than packing is unpacking. Am only halfway done unpacking and my closet is already quite full.

So everything is just lying on the floor like some karang guni warehouse. Including the illegal hawker bag that i conveniently stuffed all my clothes in.

And i'm back to super ulu Changi, which feels even more like malaysia than pulau ntu. But i kind of miss the fresh air & greenery & the away-from-it-all feeling.

& of course, who can forget him?

Am currently wasting my life away by eating alot, watching lots of drama serials, reading celebrity gossip blogs, and doing a 101 other useless brainless activities.

I need to get up and run, or swim, or something before my muscles atrophy.

ha ha.

2009-04-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

that's it.

at 4.45pm, i went to SRC for cbc801.

at 4.50+, i called linny to ask where is she and discovered that the exam is actually at NANYANG AUDI.

i ran all the way there and sat down just as the paper started. my head was pounding and i felt like i was gonna get a cardiac arrest just right there.

then i started doing the paper... WTH TOTALLY SUCKS LA STAR-DEE SO MUCH FOR WHAT LOR SERIOUSLY.

my entire day is a joke.

star-dee too much already.

2009-04-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

last night i scrambled to chiong finish everything in time for my 9am paper, and i wasn't even close to finishing, mind you, since i happily spent my friday being in this blissfully chill, still-got-the-weekend-left state, and saturday was the pre-admissions talk. i spent entire night yesterday in a state of fidgety irritability and quite a bit of panic. i drank red bull, ate lots of low-glycemic-index carbs, and decided to open my last emergency bottle of chicken essence - desperately hoping that it would inject some much-needed caffeine, sugar and nutrients into my half-functioning, chem-addled brain. and i finally slept at 5am, with 2 chapters undone, woke up at 7 plus, showered, changed, was ready to walk to src, and then i went to check my seat number...

and my paper is at FIVE PM.

i feel like the biggest neh neh pok in the world man.

i ♥ cbc801

2009-04-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

it's a lovely sunshiney sunday morning and i'm stuck in hall, slaving over polar strastopheric clouds and other exciting stuff. but i won't let cbc801 dampen my mood, because the weather is just too cheery and summery to be moping around.

being spectacularly bored over chem just made me so thankful that i'm in cs. you know when harry potter has to conjure a patronus charm, he has to think of a happy memory - and one of my happiest moments was just exactly one year ago. with crummy a level results and the only acceptance letters i received were from courses that i really didn't want to do, i was already imagining 4 years of doing something i don't really like just to get that degree.

and then one day this letter came in with the ntu letterhead, and i opened it, already expecting to receive a rejection for my appeal, because people everywhere were telling me, "a bit difficult la. my friends who went comm studies alot all 2-3A's one."

i had to reread the letter one gazillion times to actually believe i got in.

yep, so i can't even begin to describe how thankful i am to be studying here. especially since i know i kind of deserved my lousy a's results, not doing a single tutorial for the entire 2 years there and all that nonsense.

the wkwsci pre-admissions talk ytd got me thinking about this. when i saw some of them fretting over not getting their letters yet, and coming to the school, experiencing all that PR jazz that our school, especially, is so adept at doing - what with all the amazing atas food and the celebrity alumni talks and pictures... i think it just makes you even more kancheong, like whether you can be part of this place or not all depends on that one letter winging its way towards you. i can totally feel their anxiety all over again.

btw, diana ser was there to deliver a speech. she's so gorgeous, and so amazingly poised and articulate. and her speech is really quite inspirational. and i helped her to hold her macbook and we took pictures with her! omg candy and i were superrr fangirls yesterday.

ok ok. back to the banalities of life. CHEM, ick.

TGIF!

2009-04-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

because the worst for me is overrrr. 3 down, 2 to go. i would like to rant about 206, but i think i might end up being annoying because my mistakes are kind of trivial. so forget it, it's over!

oh no, it's deceivingly feeling like the holidays already! (hkhkhkhk in ELEVEN days!)

anyway. i was reading ohsofickle and from there i saw this other sponsored blogger. and it got me thinking how the the blogosphere now is just filled with blogs of girls who are younger than me, take many many close-ups of their latest LV/Gucci purchase in every conceivable angle, and even more annoyingly, many many close-ups of their own faces, also in every conceivable angle.

i secretly think that blogs like xiaxue and ohsofickle fulfill our guilty bimbotic-indulgence moments, just like chick flicks in a way. because they actually have some substance - like in-your-face, i don't-give-a-damn kind of bimbotism, real-life rants, and most of all, some level of individualism. blogs with girls who get sponsors just because of an overload of camwhoring photoshopped pictures - well, i have nothing against it if they want to be fodder for horny NS boys. i just wonder what's the point of a personal blog if it's just another dawn yang/nira copycat. are people that unimaginative nowadays?

just a random pet peeve. since today is pet peeve day and it's hot and humid and i'm feeling a bit snappy - i'll tell you my other major pet peeve. when people tell me, usually with this worried expression that could barely hide a certain smugness, that "mass comm cannot earn money one la". and i just want to tell them, wait till i earn more than you or your precious high-achieving children.

so i found this, and that's how you deal with all the know-it-alls who think they're an expert on your life and just love dishing out so-called advice.

okay so i finished ranting and everything's good, i'm gonna nap now before studying for cbc801!

btw. reading postsecret again, and i thought this was really sad.

scintillating semiotics.

2009-04-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

i am not super-emo, just a bit tired and zombie-fied. who isn't? i just need to rant, that's why i sound so kan cheong. when i'm actually daydreaming/doodling/facebooking/blog-stalking. ranting just makes me feel slightly less guilty about my moments of distraction. when ironically it is yet another distraction. ok whatever, two-oh-six is making me all muddled up and now i see SIGNS everywhere.

and just a random thought. if aliens came to our world don't you think they'd be highly amused at this biannual communal ritual of bleary-eyed, caffeine-dependent undergrads slaving away under harsh fluorescent lights till the wee hours of the night?

i hate thinking of titles.

2009-04-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

com208 in around 7 hours' time. i'm surviving on green tea and red bull. i don't know if it's stats or the caffeine giving me a headache, but either way it sucks.

what is worse than being scared to death for tmr?

totally not being scared, studying late only because i know i should, and fb-ing and blog-hopping while i should be studying.

maybe it's cuz all the million and one projects before this made me kind of crash and burn, in a way, so the exams don't seem like such a big deal anymore.

it's only exams. it's only your GPA. and i know i'm only saying this now under the influence of drugs, because i'll freak out, sooner or later.

you know what. i need to stop sounding so emo in here. this is becoming some dark abyss of unhappy thoughts and repetitive rants. all it lacks is gothic poetry about death and destruction, perhaps some grainy pictures with abstract captions, before it becomes a full-blown emo-kid blog.

OKAY STUDY.

because we all have secrets

2009-04-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Instead of mugging like I really should, I'm blogging a hell lot more about random stuff and reading postsecret.blogspot.com. Some are hilarious, others are just very, very sad.

peace out, man.

2009-04-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

4 days to exams and i have not really done official studying. so yes, it's time to panic.

and look, the whole bloody world is stressed. you tell me who in the world isn't stressed? the point is, the world doesn't revolve around you and your problems.

my tolerance level isn't too high when i'm stressed. and i'm quite surprised i managed to control myself. but then again, sometimes you don't have a choice but to pretend to be in control. and pretending to be in control forces you to really be.

it's so easy to dissolve into tears and fits, and so much harder to clench your fists take a deep breath and stop being all psycho about it.

well, of all people to say this, i know. but at least i just keep it to myself and not go around ruining everyone's mood.

last day of lessons!!!

2009-04-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

haha i dunno why but when our video was screened just now, i felt damn kan cheong, it being amplified on screen like that, and waiting in anticipation for the audience response.

all those reshoots and sheer frustration and one bloody gazillion takes because, if you realised, the entire video was taken in one single shot. so any shift, any tremble, any wrong framing, and you start all over again. ahh, results out in a week, i think i'll be hyperventilating in front of my comp.

but i'll REALLY miss com206! =( every single thing about it. lugging the dslr around to take photos, and then you start to notice details that you usually don't, like the angles and the colours and it's as if you're looking at the world for the first time again. and orientalism, how can i ever forget, 6 entire months on it for my KI independent study, and studying it all over again, it's just as fascinating. even the readings are interesting. and the movies during lecture, and the tutorials where we go around taking random shots and thinking of damn cock explanations to make it look abstract and arty-farty. somehow the entire subject just fascinates me - don't you think its amazing how images have this invisible hold over people?

photo montage (:

& the 6 stills!

trawling the entire bugis for images, and sprawled on the adm field under the hot sun just for those shots. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, it beats the stupid wiki page ANYTIME. It's due tomorrow, the horror of it.

and yep i put bcs. instead of pr. i never expected to do so, but i just felt like it la. i think it was more of an impulse thing, like, i just felt like i'd much rather do this instead. but oh well, its not as if its set in stone. i can always change if i decide to do something more, ugh, practical.

argh stats.

2009-04-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

it's officially killing my brain cells off, one by one. its apoptosis at its most cruel. i can imagine each cell rupturing in sheer exhaustion at trying to grasp concepts that should not be made humanly accomplishable and just left to computers and other non-sentient devices that are unable to feel the pain of it.

when i see anything numerical in nature besides store discount signs, i think my brain cells automatically shut down to protect themselves. not that i wanna make myself sound stupid, but the fact is, i can't do math to save my life and THIS, it's beyond me.

i'm complaining too much about this for my own good, when all this time could be spent on at least attempting to do something about it. but then i think i don't care because of the indignance that i have to go through this torture again, as if a level math wasn't lethal enough.

so i just give up on chapter 15 and go to facebook.

lose your mind

2009-04-07T01:52:00.000-07:00

is it just me, or does everyone's lives include some certain sort of dysfunctionalism? maybe abnormality is normal.

okay that sounds rather sinister. just a thought, when random things that you go through/discover make you stop for a moment and wonder.

and, the primary reason why i'm in cs is so that the only math i'd ever need to do is to count change. all that standard deviation and t-tests is too much for my mathematically-dyslexic mind. com208 is such a pain in the ass.

3 weeks

2009-03-29T06:48:00.001-07:00

just 3 weeks, to 3 months of liberation, AND AND AND, more importantly, going to HONGKONG, yet again, with my dear loomies and pris. for a glorious 11 days. 11 days! that means i have all the time in the world to slowly wander through streets and laze around at night watching tvb, and go out for suppers at some random cha chan teng, and just RELAK.

it's my 3rd time in around 1 yr+ visiting hk, because i can stay at my uncle's place. i feel bad freeloading all the time there, and i'm really thankful for it - because going there without worrying about accommodation just makes me able to stay there for long and really get away from this hot humid and stressed-up place.

goodness knows how much we need this break. 3 of us were just sitting there on a sunday night, and we spontaneously decided to book the tickets and await the consequences of spending a whole 11 days there later. my mummy and daddy were really nice about it though, paying for my air ticket and telling me to go take a break. just being back in hall tonight makes me miss home already.

i think i'm actually coping better this sem compared to the last, yet i think i feel more unhappy being in school. its more SIAN than stressed, i guess. like, i'm just counting down to friday everyday for the past few weeks, and having random bouts of pure sianness, like i don't even feel like doing anything anymore, but i just force myself to keep getting my work done like a robot. and i have to go to the study room, which is all stark and cold, but it beats just sitting here in my room - i can't even lift a pen to get work done with my bed next to me. like now.

the ONLY thing that gets me moving is the thought of 3 WEEKS FROM NOW.

okay i spent like 2 hours blogging and talking to my lao po and reading her blog, which has something very sad on it. it makes me want to just snap out of this sluggish i-hate-school mood and do more with my life. -_- and look what i have left to do - 206 video which we spent two entire days filming, 202 wiki page, 208 assignment, 208 quiz......... and i haven't even started studying for exams.

ARGH. i feel like exploding out of sheer boredom.

p.s
okay. what my lao po said, dying over school beats people in africa dying of hunger or disease, made me really think i should stop complaining. yes its bloody sian but i should be happy to even have this opportunity to be able to study right? its so easy to sink into this boredom and monotony and stress and its so much more difficult to count your blessings and try to be happy.

hello.

2009-03-12T06:39:00.001-07:00

seldom blogging here because my life is too boring for nice pictures and exciting blog entries.

and even if i blog, i blog it privately because i'm quite sick of people knowing a bit of me, thinking they know me very well, and start making judgments about me.

i realise, quite unfortunately, i blog only when i get frustrated/sian and need an outlet to vent it out. which makes my blog and hence myself sound very emo and whiney, when i'm actually not, well, most of the time.

its not like anyone reads this, besides my lao po - who just came back for a short couple of days and i'm not able to meet her! =(

when the stars go blue

2009-02-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

happy v-day people, less than ten minutes left of it.

read my lao po's post, and i know what you mean about the two worlds. or, more like, many worlds.

in school, in hall - it's this life enclaved in ntu, and when i'm inside, sometimes, and more recently, it feels as if i can't think of anything else. everyday it seems is just this rush to get everything done as best as i can, and sometimes i just feel very tired and i don't wanna bother talking to people already.

then there's all the other worlds - the 0906 people - especially my lao po. the gossip gang and our wii sessions. and home. sometimes i feel so stuck in ntu, i'm so removed from it all.

i'm so so happy to be home. at least i can spend v-day with the most important people in my life.

btw. working at the free-ice-cream thing was like, damn good money for dnd. and it's fun too, because singaporeans generally get friendlier when there's free stuff to take. oh, and there's this really sweet couple i remember. they look like your average, bespectacled singaporean couple with a 5-room-hdb flat and 2.1 kids - but they were so happy and loving and so sporting as well. so unlike those who waved the camera away and grabbed 4 cones at once. oh, and all the cute kids.

and boo, i can only spend like, a night at home before i'm back to hall in the morning. because i have 3 core assignments and a quiz next week.

i want to be a hermit during recess week, not give a damn about anything in the west corner of singapore, and veg around at home all day watching gossip girl/hk dramas.

happy cny, everyone.

2009-01-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

this cny is the ultimate dullest, with no hint of festivities whatsoever, and all the cny goodies that i'm carelessly snarfing is making me look like a barrel of lard, as attested by my post-cheerleading photos. back to running and yong tau foo diets after this sinful season.

you know what i want to do most during this precious holiday? just stay at home and do nothing. except watch gossip girl, and very reluctantly get started on the com208 assignment which is cruelly due on wednesday.

i'm getting quite sick of forcing myself to go out in the typical sweltering CNY-season heat. & subsequently stoning in front of the tv watching either bad reruns or some unknown china pageant. oh, and let's add in annoying gong xi fa cai songs in between programmes to liven everything up. mechanically reaching out for the pineapple tarts and bak kwa and making myself even fatter. and having to answer those standard questions about my school/course/relationship status. with a smile. oh, the joy of it all.

reunion dinner today was good though. i guess it just depends on the company. i just hate all the pretentiousness with people i can't really click with.

oh well, at least cny gives me a reason to shop.

HALL TEE DOUBLE-U OH LET'S GO, WE SAY.

2009-01-17T19:59:00.001-08:00

So cheer's finally over, which means i don't have a convenient excuse to skip classes and blame it on late-night practices and injuries. I'll miss those days.

It's week 3 and i still feel as if school hasn't really begun, and somehow i don't think it'll kick off anytime soon. Because all my lectures are so damn early in the morning, and during the rare occasion i wake up in time, i imagine myself facebooking and online shopping for 2 hours while the lecturer reads word-for-word from the slides, and i just plop back into my comforter.

I need to get out of this bumming-around state and start mugging to pull up my rather lacklustre gpa. Just that i'm so SIAN about everything now, help me.

hello oh-nine.

2008-12-31T22:40:00.000-08:00

i'm basically having a bumming-around day at home, which is a rare luxury despite it being the holidays, and indulging in alot of hk drama, because a good dose of escapism does us good once in a while.

so yay it's a new year, let's all make a resolution or two e.g. have less peculiar mood swings, be less cynical, lose weight, study more..

am not feeling too rah-rah during the first day of '09, perhaps due to the lack of parties the night before, and am not looking forward to the dullest-sounding modules next sem, and i wanna have some more couch-potato days at home instead of going back for cheerleading...

but i'll stop whining and enjoy today, because i can't think of any better way to spend my new year's day. =)

and there goes another year.

2008-12-31T07:14:00.000-08:00

2008:
The end of two very eventful years in JC, and the start of 8 months of wonderful, unfettered freedom.
Working for the first time. and despite having the dullest job and bitchiest superiors, the people there, especially my dearest ronnie mak, made those 4 months such crazy fun.
And going overseas with friends for the first time.
Getting back a's results, and knowing that i kind of screwed it up.
And yep i sure did, yet i managed to, against all odds, get into my dream course.
Had to say goodbye to my lao po when she left for perth, and everyone just split up - different unis, different countries and different lives. And realised that being apart actually makes no difference when you meet up again and know that some things don't change.
Started life at pulau NTU.
Staying by myself for the first time.
Grew up alot in this one semester.
And had one of the most fulfilling holidays, before 2009 arrives.

All i can say is, 2008 is the year of many changes and first-times.
It was a fulfilling one. (:
So let's herald in 2009!

happy post boxing day!

2008-12-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

actually, all i really want is for the people around me to be healthy and happy.

standard wish, but it's so important, you know? events that happened on x'mas made me realise that.

i don't really want to bring up things that make me unhappy. i just have one wish this christmas, please let it come true.

all i want for christmas is..

2008-12-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

1) havaianas slim is red, gold and dark grey. am very impatient to wait till march for my lao po to bring them home from Down Under. my silver ones just got stained with yellow-coloured antiseptic when pc got hurt during the softball match. but i will wait, because havaianas are wayyy overpriced in s'pore. ):

2) macbook pro!!

3) a longer holiday, because i have only one day to spend at home before i'm caught up in a flurry of activities all over again

and yay, lao po is coming over to ntu on tues! your name is written down with a big heart on my calendar - can't wait for our date!

4 days to x'mas

2008-12-20T20:04:00.000-08:00

...and i'm still stuck in hall.

DND peeps at acid bar last night. Less sober photos up on fb.

btw. it's not the alcoholic flush, i'm frigginggg sunburnt after supporting the softball match, and am sleeping on my stomach now. Super ugly tan-lines too.

I can't tan for nuts. People turn golden-brown, i peel and turn lobster-red. :(

It's gonna be x'mas soon, and i feel that i've been stuck at hall for an unnecessarily long period of time. I WANNA GO HOME.