The circus has come to town

Everytime I see any kind of leader in the media concerning Malaysia, I click on the link or turn to the page with a reluctant yet morbid curiosity to see what other forms of idiocy we have been put on the map for.

"Putting the malaise into Malaysia" in last Thursday's issue of the Economist has done us no favors. Forget about choosing our first teh-tariking astronaut via a popularity competition, after reading this article not only are we still living in treehouses but we're going at each other with our kerises as well.

Isn't it great

Picadilly Circus at 7.30 in the morning is God photoshopping out all of the crowds that jostle for space and laying a thick blanket over the steady stream of traffic flows weaves through the warren of streets leading away.

Picadilly Circus at 7.30 in the morning tastes like the whipped cream on top of a peppermint mocha bought on a whim and implied need from one of the strategically placed Starbucks that litter the area.

Picadilly Circust at 7.30 in the morning might just about bump Hyde Park in spring time from the top of the list of my most favorite places in London, nevermind that it was also the site of a complete massacre of self esteem brought on by one question booklet, a twisty pencil, and some bits of paper.

Just add genius

I have to write a story. Not now, so don't worry, it won't be as long as the last post.

Keep it short, he says. One or two main characters revolving around a single issue, he says. It has to be dynamic, he says. And write about things you know, he says.

I could write about things I know, I reply, but it would be a story about impending deadlines of doom, why I want to work in the finance sector, and why I want to work for yet another bank that isn't really very much different from the last, which would make for a very boring story actually.

So I appeal to you. Inspire me.

Like. Seriously. Back. Off.

It's frustratingly hard to communicate your exact feelings with words, but the advent of MSN forces us to practice this daily, so much so that we've skipped the words and are now fluent in the language of punctuation.

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine...

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine.

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm. fine.

Sometimes we omit it completely, but a full-stop means so much more than an indication of the end of a sentence. Whether it is used in trios, singly, or at the end of every word, the simple full-stop has now become yet another subtlety in the language of mankind.

The translation is provided below.

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine
(I'm fine)

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine...
(I'm not so fine, but I'd like you to be there)

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm fine.
(I'm fine dammit, stop asking me if I'm FINE. I'M FINE. why would I not be fine! I'm totally fine!! GAAARRRGHHH!!! i.e. not fine and Boy should probably run like hell in the other direction.)

Boy: Are you okay?
Ger: I'm. fine.
(Go die you stupid, stupid Boy.)

The comma has still retained its designed use but whether people actually know how to use it still remains to be seen. More exciting punctuation are the question and exclamation mark.

Ger: What was that?
(Control sample)

Ger: What was that??
(I myself am not clear on the use of the double question mark, but I believe it conveys either the quizzicality or excitement of the questioner.)

Ger: What was that?!
(I use this one myself and it's usually when someone's told me something and I'm like wtf, or I've just been insulted and the Boy answering that better tread carefully.)


And then there's the exclamation mark. People who use this should be shot, especially when the reader has a bad headache or is hungover. In general the exclamation mark seems to replace every other known form of punctuation.

Boy: Hi! How are you! Totally! Yeah! Wasn't that awesome!!

I personally hate reading conversations like this. In fact, I would say that the proportion of exclamation marks to my irritability is an exponential function of sorts.

Using punctuation to express yourself is an intricate dance. Wrap sarcasm into that and it's a trainwreck, especially when the Boy you're being sarcastic at doesn't get it. I think that's about it. No one's figured out how to speak the language of the semi-colon or where you're supposed to even use it, and no one will ever teach you this in grammar class.

That's what it's all about

While my uterine lining does the hokey-pokey, my psyche is tottering drunkenly down the thin line separating bubbliness and blinding rage. It's not doing wonders for anyone at home who are all poised like rabbits. So I hide behind my online alterego, a pirate called Fruitloop, who's days are spent haunting the taproom in search of people to swordfight. I know, there's probably too much similarity between us for her to be considered an alterego. Ooh.

Apathetic

I feel so blah.

I'm surprised I care enough to write about it.

Creative Writing

The title of the post is somewhat misleading. None of the writing here is actually creative, it's about my Creative Writing course.

I had the good fortune to get a place on this 20-person course, seeing as my writing's suffered tremendously since all we ever do is mathematical reporting. Well I was smugly congratulating myself until I saw the syllabus and the reading list. At two hours every week, that's more than all of my other courses, and it runs for the entire year. Insane.

But now I am once again thankful that I'm on this course. It rocks. Only two weeks in and my vocab's like. way out.

Retractionary statement

Those in search of something to read (slow readers may be here a while), Joel's latest thesis on life can be found here. I take back what I said about not writing much. Posts should have a word limit.

Then again, that's just the jealous talk of those who have very little to say, wish they had something interesting/clever/witty to talk about, and would've split up aforementioned post into three separate posts just to get a little more mileage out of it.

Oh, sweet download speeds!

In a joyful moment of pure ecstasy of the sort that only a working internet connection in the comfort of your own home could induce, I'm back to tell you exactly that. We have internet.

And now I can resolve my state of suspense and find out what happens to Appa after he was kidnapped and sold by the Sand Benders on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I can also pay more attention to my FF team which has shamefully slipped to third (I think) after getting my 30 point margin wiped out in one disastrous week.

And Weng Yew, who just about comes close to Cheryl in the talking-stakes has started a blog too. Remarkably, for people who talk so much, they write surprisingly little.

Just because the tagboard died

The first week of uni's been wonderfully slack workwise, but all hell's broken loose inside my head. With all the firms that present at LSE hoping to talk some of the brightest minds in the country into applying for graduate jobs, Weng's been running off to presentations every other night and bringing the pressure home. Argh. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life four years ago and I sure as hell don't know what to do with it now.

Home is good though, lots of space for everyone, and a cute dining table in the kitchen. I've been to Ikea three times over the last five days. Our mission was finally complete with Godwin and I lugged home his 23kg desk and a 15kg dining table. I can now concentrate on other things than home decor.

Home is also very noisy. Cheryl doesn't stop talking except for when she's asleep and when she's concentrating on walking. It's brilliant having her around.

Fix the dog

You'd think that a whole seven days of bumming would leave me at least enough time to gather my thoughts. Apparently not.

Last weekend was a blur of things at church. I spent a total of twenty minutes at home before having to rush off to Cheras. It felt like I was at church the entire weekend from Saturday afternoon through to Sunday, although technically I did manage to go home for seven hours of sleep.

On Monday I chose a pair of glasses and got my eyes checked.

On Tuesday I must have picked up that pair of glasses as well as a pair of sunglasses, although I don't remember much of it. Oh wait, yes, now I recall - it was also the morning I had a blisteringly painful facial; and I haven't had a chance to use my new sunglasses properly because everyday after that has been generously overcast.

On Wednesday I completely humiliated myself on the badminton court filling in for one of the aunties that couldn't make it.

Thursday went by with the intention of getting some exercise in that was quickly surrendered with the deluge that filled Thursday evening.

And today is Friday. I took my dog to the vet after we concluded that she wasn't play acting with the limping. It turns out her kneecaps have a tendency to click out of place, fortunately for now they can sorta be clicked back in, so the day was filled with empathetic cries of 'Fix the dog!'. Poor Perdy.

Not about work

It's so hard to put something up that doesn't revolve around work seeing that it takes up 9 hours of my day.

I have to mark a very special and probably very fleeting moment in Yahoo! Fantasy Football 2006-07:

And so it's come

It's my last week. At the beginning, I never thought I'd get this far, but it's been a fast and furious time here.

The various social abilities, such as talking to non-engineers, have come back to me. It was a painful journey undoing all that which Mechanical Engineering has done in the last 3 years with regards to my social skill set. I can safely say that the number of "What the hell are you talking about?" looks have dropped significantly.

This sense of loyalty is running so deep that I know when I start my job applications, a little part of me is going to twist in agony when I suck up to the other firms.

I still have so much shopping to do here though. You better book quickly, my dinner slots are filling up fast.

My most used word of the ten weeks here: pending. My favorite word of the ten weeks here: Friday.

It's been great, but I miss my dog.

Nombor yang salah, wei.

The following conversation was carried out in Chinese from her side and English on mine, but for the sake of my embarrassment regarding the level of my Mandarin, it will be reproduced, to the best of my ability, in English.

Woman: Ah mei, have you eaten?
Me: Hello?
Woman: Have you eaten?
Me: I'm sorry, who are you looking for?
Woman: I know your voice, I know it's you. Have you eaten?
Me: Hello?
Woman: Hello.
Me: I think you have the wrong number.
Woman: Oh very funny, I know it's you (lah)! Have you eaten or not?
Me: No, seriously, I'm not who you think I am and you have the wrong number. Goodbye.

Then the phone rings again.

Woman: Eh, I know who you are, I listen to your voice and I already know! Have you eaten?!
Me: I have no idea what you're talking about and who you want to talk to, but you have the wrong number.
Woman: Eh, don't play! I'm getting angry already! Have you eaten?
Me: What? Sorry? Huh?
Woman: I'm angry! Stop saying you're not you, I know who you are!
Me: ...
Woman: Have you eaten or not?

Then I hung up.

She gets 10 points for persistence and stubborness.

In no hurry

The tiny island of Singapore doesn't feel so tiny when you're trying to cross it on public transport. I have more transport rants. You have been warned.

1. Why does the person sitting next to me always nod off in my direction?! On a good day, it's usually the one on my right. On a bad day, I have two heads dodging in and out of my field of vision as I try to make myself as small as possible and avoid unnecessary human contact.
2. Public transport has made me shun human contact. The last thing you want at the end of a humid day is to have someone step on you, sleep on you, or back into you with the lurch of the halting vehicle. Now I wonder if the concious aversion has developed into an unconcious reflex. Weng might be in for a surprise this weekend.
   
3. Why are the seats so small?! True, 50 percent of the population might be size 4 and female, but what about the other non-Lilliputians.
4. The estimated times on the bus schedule regarding frequency can be converted using a complex mathematical formula with several variables, all to the power of a gazillion.
5. After six weeks, I have learned that the only way to avoid injuring everyone else around you during the rush hour ride is to keep your knees loose.
6. By the end of my six weeks, I would have spent at least 90 hours trying to get to places. That's almost four days of bussing and MRT-ing.
   

I'm going home this weekend! Yay!

Stupid bus

I had the worst luck with buses today.

Sat at the bus stop outside HCJC for a bloody eternity, singing stupid songs to myself since I couldn't be heard over the roar of the traffic, keeping my eyes wide open against the glare of the millions of headlights in search for bus 67. It took it's own sweet time, during which:

1. Bus 154 came twice
2. Bus 156, three times.
3. Bus 170, 171, and 174 appeared no less than four times, each.
4. Bus 66 (almost but not quite bus 67) came twice.
   

So you can guess that by the time bus 67 came I was very angry, near blind, and half of Singapore were on that bus. Half of Singapore, I might add, smelling like a full day of hard work.

Finally got the CCK Interchange and then waited again, for the supposedly frequent shuttle service. While I waited again five 67's popped by, two 300's, two more 302's, and two 190's. I was not impressed.

Take a breath

It's been such an immensely hectic week. Here we are on Racial Harmony Day. SOC are so so fun that the other interns wanted to join in, on the day we had the MAS talk as well. The Atrium people are usually a lot more casually dressed than the CLQ group - who look like real bankers.

LtoR:Eunice, me, Godwin (love the hat and skirt), and Joanne

LtoR: Ishani, Melissa, Rafidah, Me, and Mabel

Monday I saw Chris and Jer, who was on transit from Melbourne to KL. That was fun, SMU is amazing. I believe that Singaporeans are closely related to the mole.

Tuesday I went to hiphop with Fi who loved the class so much she wanted to dance all the way down City Link mall.

Wednesday was a Mid-week Martinis farewell kind of dinner at Giraffe, which was awesome too. We were snapping pictures all night, and Giraffe isn't a particularly big restaurant. Pictures will come.

Now it's Thursday, I'm happy to be at home, doing chores, not eating out, and getting enough rest for tomorrow.

The world gets smaller

I've been meeting people non-stop. My four weeks in Singapore has seen me swimming in names that I've been struggling to remember. When I see someone I've met, it's a race as I sort through the list of names I've heard to pick a likely candidate and hope that I don't embarrass myself.

Today I followed Melissa to her church, Church of the Resurrection, Melissa is one of my childhood friends. When our parents met, they would sit us together on a chair, dress us identically, and take pictures of our confused-baby faces. At COR, I met Zach. Zach got on the same bus as me on my way to Bishan. On the way there, I found out that he is going out with Alex, one of the summer associates at HSBC, and that he also visited London quite recently. During his visit, he stayed with Chong Wai, who, we both agree is an amazing squash player.

Over the weekend, I talked to Jacob, who told me to visit his blog. On his blog were many pictures, one of which featured Chris, another SA at HSBC this year, who went to Harrows with Chi Meng's cousins.

Then there's Raminder, yet another SA, and close personal friend of Sach, my coursemate.

The more people I meet, the more connections I form, the more it feels like someone's closing the purse-strings on my already shrinking world.

Four weeks already

Surfing the net on dial-up is more of a plodding sort of motion. I can't imagine going back to England where pages load at warp speed - I'll never complain again. Giving up on the internet, I've been watching t.v. all day, everything from Remmington Steel to Star Trek, Lost, and now Singapore Idol Encore.

Last night netball was amazing, and if you've talked to anyone in the last twentyfour hours who has spoken to me, they'll know that netball training last night was pretty much the perfect end to a pretty awesome week.

Hiphop on Tuesday was horribly embarrassing but surprisingly addictive. I struggled through the entire hour, pulled several dormant muscles that punished me mercilessly for the rest of the week, and only got the routine down about two hours after the class had ended when I was lying in bed thinking about it. I'm so going next week!

Wednesday was Racial Harmony Day, where everyone in Singapore Operations Centre (SOC) switched traditional dress. Naturally most of the morning was spent taking pictures.

Then Friday I was running around with a team that plays in the National League. It was so much fun. Some of the girls haven't only made the national team but have been playing so long they've actually stepped down already. They helped me along tremendously with lots of tips and plenty of support, especially when I kept messing up the drill. I can't wait for next week either.

Just when I thought I had had enough of this place and was seriously considering going home for the weekend (which I know would've destroyed the rest of my time here because I'd be even more homesick), God gave me encouragement.

Mid-week Martinis: Games night

Taboo and pizza on a Friday night

The mascot of the evening

Things to do, places to go

I haven't had a single original thought in weeks. It's very depressing. I think it has something to do with the hours and hours of energy expended making work for myself. Then again, I also get messages like "Hi hunny, we just left Switzerland on the way to Germany. Switzerland was beautiful!" while I'm sitting at my desk, next to my supervisor, I might add, endeavouring to look furiously busy, while being furiously bored.

I also sent my sister home yesterday. I told her to go back because I didn't want her to stay here and be miserable, so she went, and Mum called to ask what the house is like without Cheryl. To be honest, not much different, because she spent much more time with her beloved laptop anyway. Besides, she only had two weeks left to work, and she didn't look like she was going to get off her butt and volunteer or something.

The shopping has been amazing here. I want to shop more. It's been almost four weeks so my working outfits have been on a very rapid rotation, especially since I barely have enough for one. I think the sale ends this weekend.

No life outside the office

After three weeks, I'm well accustomed to the hiss of the train in the morning, the uncomfortably warm press of bodies on either side with their blank, uncaring faces, and the even more uncomfortable mix of odors from the various walks of life that grace our public transport. I spend about an hour every day, each way commuting from what is almost Malaysia to Singapore's CBD.

The people at work are still such a great bunch, even after three weeks of my incessant questions and failed attempts at tracking. They bear it all with admirable patience, even the mild dressing downs that my supervisor (and their boss) gives them for not helping me enough. - not that they aren't helpful, it's more like slowness to learn on my part. I'm learning a lot about different managerial styles, figuring out what is effective and what isn't.

My other interns are great fun, from the likes of Princeton, Yale, and Columbia, NUS, SMU. They are a seriously talented group of people with what, I'm sure, are sparkling CVs and even brighter personalities.


But the tiredness, oh the tiredness!

I get up in the morning feeling like the walking dead at the unholy time of 6 half in order to be on the bus by 7.15am. If I'm lucky, I'll be in the office by quarter past eight, with just enough time to run to Wang Jiao to get an upsized milo or tea. On really bad days, I fork out SGD5.70 for a Starbucks mocha which keeps me coherent until about 11.00am, at which point I start obsessing about lunch. Back in the office by 2, I last about 40 minutes by which time I'm fighting to stay awake, so I carefully count out 20 cents to get me what is effectively a shot of coffee from a vending machine. If I work carefully, expending as little energy as possible, it gets me home, through the mad compression of human traffic, back to my corner of Singapore.

I feel like a whale

Singapore's national past time is eating, and this is the land of the buffet. I must've eaten at least half my body weight in meat and then again in desserts. The dessert table at Melt was almost equal that of the starter/entree selection, complete with a six-tier chocolate fountain.

Godwin and Diona bought my sister and I dinner at what can only be described as glutton heaven, and they drove us home too. We had an amazing time, they're such a beautiful couple inside and out.

I'm going to explode with more weekends like this. Thank goodness lunch tomorrow's been changed to a single course meal at Wen Hann's instead of the planned Indo a la carte buffet at Suntec. Singaporean women defy the laws of dieting - how can anyone eat like this every weekend and still wear a size 0.

I've decided that the fruit diet starts Monday. This is it boys, this is war.

It's been like so long!

This summer seems less about the work and more about the socialising to be honest. While the job's really important of course, I seem to find myself enjoying the company a whole lot more - the work culture here at HSBC is incredible, and of course being able to see so many old old friends.

It seems I've lost track of the years, so meeting people, especially younger siblings has made me feel really old. I still thought of Loong as the tiny fella with really round glasses and 'left' and 'right' printed on his colorful shoes. He's not so much like that anymore.

Okay, so I guess it's not really a whole bunch of old friends, more like the bunch of family friends who used to torture and torment me at gatherings. Being the only girl, I was easy prey for a dunking in the pool or being ignored on the basketball court. Good times.

Ming, call Wen Hann or Chris for my number. I don't know what your email address is!

I'm actually enjoying myself

Melissa, bless 'er 'eart, wanted to surprise Charles with a birthday cake since he turns 23 tomorrow. We planned it for Friday, which, when I say plans really just means we agreed it'd be a good idea (without asking him first). Then it got pushed to today because he wasn't around on Friday.

So we all cut out a little early for lunch to wait for him while Melissa and Raf went to get the cake, only to find that he wanted to eat lunch in the office, by himself, sitting at his desk with his vegetables. We had to beg him to come down, brought out the cake, sang him a big song, then waited for some kind of reaction.

It was hilarious because there didn't really seem to be one other than a thank you and a bemused smile. But that's Charles.

Um other than that, I get to play netball tomorrow! Yay!

Gulliver's travels

Everyone in Singapore is like a size 4. If it weren't for all the angmohs that come here to shop, they probably wouldn't stock anything above an xxs.

I'm melting

Because I don't get out much, I have a lot to say when I finally do.

This morning was probably the worst "first day" I've had in a long time, besides primary 1 when my mom left and the first day of A levels when everyone was staring at my strapped knee and crutches.

I stepped out of the house, dressed to kill, and then died of dehydration on the way to the bus stop. My carefully applied makeup and neatly pressed clothes (thanks to my aunt) felt like a soggy mess. Sat on the bus for an hour, which gave me enough time to dry up but left me at Plaza Singapura five minutes late, only to then find out that I was in the wrong place, which made me even later.

Fortunately all the managers and officers I've met at HSBC are so unbelieveably friendly and patient. My fellow interns, at least the Atrium gang have been so accommodating and welcoming - I've yet to meet the Collyer Quay group, or as they say the "Kolicky Gang" (it took me two hours to figure out what they were talking about), but that should be fun.

My feet are killing me. It's like that feeling when you stick your finger in the top of a bottle and it swells and turns purple and then you wonder whether you're going to lose your digit, only then try standing on two of those.

I'm so tired. I was desperate for a coffee. I've never been desperate for a coffee. My 20cent cup got me through the whole afternoon. Good stuff.

But you know what is even better, coming back to the energy of two furballs, my entertaining 2 year old cousin, and my grandma's mouthwatering cooking. So good.

I miss everyone at home so much though. I think I'd be less tired packing. My contact lenses have transferred themselves to the inside of my eyelids.

London - KL - Singapore

London
We spent the last few days, no, hours to our departure frantically packing. To be more exact, 'frantically' would probably only apply to the two hours before and 10 minutes after our cab pulled up, the other days were spent assuring Weng it would be okay, there'd be plenty of time to get everything into boxes.

Got to the airport without much mishap anticipating to be well underweight baggage-wise because it seriously didn't feel that heavy, but ended up having to smile very sweetly at the check-in lady while our luggage sat on the conveyor belt 2 kilos over.

Threw up on the way home for like the first time in my life, then had to hand the warm and surprisingly heavy sick-bag to poor Weng while I found a wet wipe.

KL
Landed to extended cries of "Oh my gawd, you're so fat!" In my defence, no one wanted to help me finish all the icecream in the fridge. Otherwise, it's been good food, clockwork weather, and even more packing. We're due to move 'up the street' next week. Thankfully the packing is about all I'll be involved in, since I'm buggering off to Singapore on Sunday.

It's good being home. I've been shopping a lot insofar as the term refers to walking around various malls for hours. As to the actual buying of things, it took me three days to find a handbag and a pair of shoes, but the victory is sweet.

Singapore
Promises to be a funfilled ten weeks.

It's come to an end

I'm sitting in my room, surrounded with storage boxes, waiting for some guy who's going to pick them up in the next half hr or so. It's also going to be my last day here in Southampton (apart from graduation day in a month's time) and it's sad to leave. Three years just went by and when I try to remember the first day, it seems so far away.

On a brighter note, I really appreciate all my friends who's braving the early morning to help me move my boxes down 8 flights of steps from my tower (with no lift) and also for dragging themselves out of bed. Thank goodness I only have 4 boxes that should weigh, technically, no more than 30kg or else I'll have to do some pretty intense repacking.

Anyhow, after this I still have to go through another bout of packing in London with even more stuff to put away. In between that I got to make it to the train station in Southampton with two suitcases and my backpack, get some much needed sleep on the train *because some flatmates of mine decided to throw a party till 4am*, and await help at Waterloo from Weybridge. I hope the late night DOtA-ing at Tish's doesn't bring with it withdrawal symptoms. Lol.

Here's saying goodbye to my undergraduate life and the start of postgraduate studies.

Conditional on a 2:1 of course *fingers crossed*.

DoTA Wintermaul

Weng, I have found this unbelieveably fun map to play in DoTA where you just run around building towers to stop the monsters getting through. We played it so much that I also know that it gets bright at 4.30am.

It's so so fun.

Some thrilling stuff

The last few days have passed on a Civilizations-4-soaked blur, only halted by the fact that Weng had to bring his computer back with him to Southampton. He's back there in his tiny, superheated room dredging up the motivation to study for his third paper (of three, I might add).

Daniel and Doris, having seen most of London armed with stamina, a different time zone, and one bottle of water, are now somewhere between Stonehenge and Bath.

I've been pretty much by myself for most of the day, something I'm not good at. I amused myself for most of the morning by crying over a Singaporean soap with English subtitles. I had to watch 20 episodes before it started to pick up, it was only then did the characters start to get self-sacrificing, back-stabbed, and misunderstood.

But there's only so much I can take in one day, which amounted to about six 45 minute episodes, and I'm now reading Jane Austen while figuring out a way to tell my cousins that I'll be legging it to Weybridge for a night and won't be here to see them off tomorrow when they leave for Paris.

I'm supposed to be packing - I've done some but haven't figured out what 30kg feels like. I'm probably going to have to repack everything anyway when Weng gets back all a-sighing and a-tsking, so I thought I'd save myself the trouble of doing it twice and just wait.

So tired

I have a problem. I know I have problems, but the only one I'm prepared to admit to today is that I get nightmares sleeping in any bed that might have a mirror in front of it. That's why I tried to join Weng on the floor in his sleeping bag and subsequently got chased back to my own bed.

I had nightmares about extremist saints out to purge the evil (me) and then about a rugrat that I pissed off, only to be chased by her little tribe (like in Recess) for four hours during a house party. Serious, don't-screw-with-me nightmares.

Then I also wanted to say that I love strawberries and that I'm looking for someone to go with me to the British Museum.

I swear it was Saturday

Over lunch the other day we were laughing about how one of my friends got the date for meeting her friend at the train station wrong, which resulted in her friend going all the way to Paris and then back again.

Today wasn't as disastrous as that, but I did mess up. I can hear my mum's 'Aiyo!' echoing in my head. Daniel called me. Looking at the '+65' number that flashed on my handphone I thought he was calling to tell me they were about to board their 13-hour flight to London, and I also thought, 'Oh, how considerate!'

I answered with a cheerful 'hello' and then my stomach dropped straight through Australia.
'We just landed at the airport, we're going to take a train there, so we'll call you when we get to Gloucester road?'
'But today isn't Saturday.'
'No, I never said it was Saturday...'
'I thought you guys were arriving on the 3rd! Saturday!'
'Um, we're at the airport now. So we're going to take the train in, right?'
'Oh right, Gloucester Road, okay. Picadilly all the way, no changes. Yep. Okay. See you soon.'

Crap. (There were more suitable words that crossed my mind in that instant.)

That two minute phone call was followed by 45 minutes of hardcore bathroom and room cleaning. Weng and I set a new record today, especially given that I hadn't cleaned either area for almost two months - exams, projects, you know how it never ends.

Thankfully God saw Daniel and Doris safely to London, looking pretty good considering they had just flown half way around the world. They also made it to 10.30pm, although it was getting pretty hairy on the way back from the supermarket - I thought we might have had to carry them home. But they're safely in bed. A clean, comfortable one at that.

It's been great folks

Third year has ended in a bit of an anticlimax, partly subdued by the fact that Weng's first paper is today and that there's a horrendous amount of tidying and packing to do. Lester looks like he stayed up all night (as he usually does before a flight, so I've heard), and his room is empty, which is a little depressing.

The project ended well, although the person chairing our presentation was a little bit of a whiny cow. I think the external examiner enjoyed himself though. Our poster didn't win anything, because of the only graph on the poster apparently offended one of the judges. Um, okay. Tom won though, Tom always wins - that guy is a graphic genius. The board was a massive success.

I should have brought my camera to take a picture of the amazing paint job Mike coordinated. Arctic camo has been redefined. Anyhow, it seemed like most of the year got on it at some point, including several of the department's esteemed lecturers, and the security guard, and whoever else happened to be walking through the foyer at that point.

I guess it was the coolest project there, in the sense that it was essentially a toy and very noisy, but no where near as scientific as a rolling rig, or as helpful as a percussion drill or plastic recycling unit for Africa.

And yea, I know I promised a movie of my board actually flying, but that got lost so I only have clips of my supervisor and assoc. supervisor being goofballs on our hoverboard. Unless you want those.

I have a whole bunch of errands to run that can't be put off anymore with excuses of too much work, not enough time. It feels weird that I don't have to rush into school and spend more time stressing at the team (which they handled really patiently). Projects are good for me, I lose weight, and my thighs and butt are pretty trim from all the power walking. Now it's time to get fat again.

Our hoverboard

It remains nameless because we couldn't come to a compromise for like the first time in the whole year of working as a team - not like the project was full of compromises, but at least someone won outright.

I think it looks like a 'Kermit', even if it's currently being sprayed arctic-cammo. Dhruv has very unofficially christened it Marty, after Marty McFly from Back to the Future, and Mike and Charlie wanted The Hovertron 3000.

From top left, clockwise: Me, Mike, Dhruv, Charlie

Apparently I pose "like a girl". Like that's a shock.

15 minutes later...

As he approched it, treading with a heavy heart and holding on to a glimmer of hope, he picked it up. Looking it over with a sense of sadness, he gingerly flicked the switch up, hoping for a miracle.

*GASP*

A steady but weak hum penetrated the silence of the room. It had come back from the dead!

=D haha, my shaver's back! It works, omg! No more bleak caveman days ahead of me or the fear of manual razors. Sadly though, it has advanced to the third stage of 'shaver cancer'. It no longer emits a light indicating it's charging. I guess the poor thing only needed to be on life support for a lil bit longer than normal.

I'm wondering now, just whether there is another stage to go to, or the next one will be 'the one'. Come on, three more weeks left only!

It died

Today did not start out that good. My shaver has 'kaputed'. I'm goin to look like a caveman in a few days *sigh*. I'm praying that it'll miraculously come back to life. There were signs in the last few weeks that it was slowly dying. First, my cover shattered into two. Second, it no longer works without being connected to a socket. And now, the little indicator that shows that it's 'charging' is devoid of light =(

In other news, I got offers for all my Masters applications, so yay! The bad news is that I'll have to come back to London before the 4th of September to sit a one month pre-course in maths that's examined at the end of the month. All of a sudden my summer break no longer seems long enough. The last time I did maths was in uh, A-level. That's a WHOLE THREE YEARS ago!@! I'm going to have to revise my calculus and differentiation and what not. Argh.

While everyone has more or less finish their exams or are near the end of it, mine's still to come. So while everyone sorta at the peak or winding down, i'm sorta just starting to climb the hill. It kinda puts "slow" in perspective.

But hey, KL beckons in 3 weeks so hurrah =)

A flying success

We were close to tears, two of us were hung over, and this day was proving to be longer than "we'll just slap it together and have it running". Two hours turned into seven, and at about 4pm, I was all ready to go at the next person to call my idea stupid with the wire cutters.

And then it flew. It actually flew, in a rush of saw dust, an incredible amount of noise, and a whole load of exuberant screaming on my part. Our baby flew!

I'm allowed puns, a whole year of hardwork has just come into fruit. I will definitely put pictures up at some point and a clip. There will even be a clip.

A flash in the pan

How could I not comment on the final?

Arsenal's 10 made it look like 11 vs 11 until the last 15 minutes when heavy rain and fatigue made it look like 7 against 11. That and some not so awesome goalkeeping.

The plagiarism thing? I checked out at 2% +phew+ "squeaky clean" Dr. Crofton said after making us suffer collectively while he scanned it.

Otherwise the DMT report is pressing on my mind. I gotta make a move.

Moronism

After years and years of plagiarism warnings, someone messed up. The guy that has brought the entire year to a grinding halt in a fit of sheer stupidity should be shot. The entire 3rd year's literature research reports have been recalled for plagiarism scanning, something our nerves cannot handle right now.

As testimony to the stress and paranoia Flat 31 is currently experiencing, we've conducted extensive research into the available plagiarism software, and have gone so far as to find out that Imperial College are running Turnitin, which is by far and large impregnable. The free German software came up with nothing helpful, most probably because none of our reports are written in German, and I am very sure that all of our thoughts lie with the ninkumpoop, no doubt thoughts that revolve around some form of violence.


And I had a good grade on that assignment too.

Eyes on the screen

Gosh, I've been slacking quite a bit since I've handed my dissertation in. Been watching episodes of Prison Break and Grey's Anatomy for the last three days and I've gotta say that I've gone through quite a bit =p Since there's only that many episodes online, I've pretty much seen uh six episodes of the former and one season of the latter, plus an episode of Desperate Housewives and another of House M.D.

Which brings me nicely to a point where there's nothing else to watch. So... I've had to find some old stuff and lo and behold it's Thundercats. Lol. Nice short 20mins clips with that theme song you can't forget... There's even Macguyver. Too bad there's no Airwolf...

Wah it hurts

It's been two months since I did any real running around, 6 months since I held any sort of racquet, and 18 months since I last played squash.

It was awesome though. Chong Wai is amazing. He plays the game with such an incredible efficiency, completely different from the rest of us that hurtle around the court, bouncing off the walls in a flailing wheel of limbs, out of breath, and always chasing the ball.

24 hours later, we're in pain. Well most of us. Godwin admits some ache, but not the crippling, oh-no-not-more-stairs sort of pain. Lester explained it as 'muscle ache', meaning that you had to have muscle in the first place in order to experience the associated ache.

And that was only about twenty minutes.

It's okay, I have Grey's Anatomy to see me through, and DMT of course.

Grey's Anatomy

+sigh+

The Lord provided

The last paper of my 3rd year was unbelieveably doable. 16 of the 25 short answer sketches were from 2004 or 2003. I'm hoping this grade's high enough to pull up all the other papers that stunk.

Despite 4 hours of sleep the night before, the euphoria of finishing kept me going through a wonderfully rewarding cell, several games of cards, my third of a bottle of wine, and two games of progressively hilarious Guillotine.

As the seniors wrap up what could possibly be 'the last exam of their life', I'm suddenly struck by how much we owe them and even more by how much I'll miss them. There won't be anybody to go to for help on tutorials, for advice on how to go about projects, about life even, no one to watch football with, or play DoTA with. It sounds so horribly selfish but they were such amazing role models, they enjoyed their time at IC and nailed those grades without so much as a second thought and never turned you down. Next year will feel so lost.

Whatever they do go on to do though, I wish them nothing but the best things. 88 just won't be the same anymore.

Imbecilic invigilators

Statistics is always misleading and vague, especially demonstrated by the fact that the marker of that paper will be able to use my script to shore up his henhouse. I left my reinforced answer booklet on the table, the sense of mild frustration dulled by the excessive amounts of solvent abuse and insufficient sleep.

The guy sitting next to me left after the first hour of the three, and to make the most of the empty desk, the invigilators took turns in parking their bums on it, dangling their legs in the scant three feet of aisle space between their desk and mine. Handling double negative conclusions supporting numbers that I didn't exactly have the highest confidence in was made even worse by the distraction of their huffing as they hauled themselves none too gracefully onto the waist-high desk.

Furthermore, I don't understand why they give us only one answer book to start with when they know full well we'll definitely need another one and graph paper for all those compulsory questions. Then when you're trying to flag them down with utmost urgency, they take forever to respond, like they couldn't feel your eyes boring into the back of their head, before casually sauntering over in their own sweet time, which you don't have much of, only to look at you blankly while you try to indicate that you need more paper without alerting the candidate in the corner over there on the far side of the room.

Happy birthday Bryan

You grow older and older so quickly. Sometimes I still think you're that short, chubby, dimple-faced little boy then I'm presented by the harsh reality everytime I go home that I have to do my bossing around in a more upwardly direction.

Happy 16th, I love you a lot even though you can make me want to rip my hair out and run around screaming.

Postscript

I'm surprised at myself being able to write that post, especially since I've only been indulging in three main forms of communication over the last week, namely greek symbols, freaking out repetitively, and grunting.

A few days ago Weng held out his hands, his fingers forming his trademark "W" and I immediately snapped, 'Omega.' Today when Godwin popped into the kitchen to throw something away, he said, 'Hello' and I went, 'Gnrh.' At all other times it's been "Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness."

Sentences = good.

In the thick of it

Weng and I are doing some simultaneous stressing. He's the most amazing last minute person I know. With his dissertation due tomorrow, he's still working on it and he has his brother proof-reading it in a different time zone all at the same time. I admit, he's fortunate to have his brother because I could not think of anyone more suited to correct it.

As for me handling exams and all. Wednesday night was sleepless because the weather's suddenly turned KL-hot and the impending doom of the fluid mechanics paper weighed heavily in my mind along with all the equations and carefully drilled proofs. All this cramming makes me feel like a dumper truck - a vehicle for facts and figures, working on holding it all in my sieve-like memory until I can hit the exam paper and release whatever's left in a mess of scribbles, tipex, and varying degrees of panic.

Fluids wasn't as bad as it could've been and certainly better than Stress Analysis and Machine System Dynamics (I think). I really hate second guessing my grade because that just sort of jinxes it.

I can't believe I have time to blog.

Statistics tomorrow. They've changed the format this year from a very charitable 'here are 8 questions, choose 5' to 'here, do all five'. I think they're just cutting printing costs. The lecturer had to produce a sample paper, which he did by taking the exam from the year before, omitting three questions, and changing the instructions on the front. I feel so unprepared.


My sister texted me instructions from my mother asking me to find out if I'm registered to vote. I was like, "Um, what me? But there's like only one party, isn't there?' I don't live in Singapore enough to have opinions about which group of school-uniform-wearing men are qualified enough to lead the country. So far they've been getting along perfectly. Besides political opinions have to be approved and cross-checked before they can be opined where I come from. Free speech? Nah, look where that got America.

2 paper, 5 days, not half way yet

If the first two papers are anything to go by, the next one and a half weeks don't look good at all. There seems to be a recurring theme this year in subjects that apparently have little to do with each other i.e. a lack of continuity. This year's papers are nothing like the year before or the year before that, and I was lulled halfway into a state of security by the patterns of questions that ran from 2002 through to 2005. But not this year. Oh no.

Godwin's prediction that he'll have plenty of time in today's paper on account of not knowing enough to stay busy writing answers came true for me. I spent the first 2 hours making up explanations for concepts that I had filed under "Because the lecturer said so" and the last hour worrying about the common sense or lack thereof in my haphazardly spun tales. In the local lingo, I was trying to 'smoke' my way through the paper praying that it wouldn't later be picked out and awarded for sheer stupidity by course's lecturer who, I swear, pleasures in memorising what unfortunate students have offered by way of answers and then using them as very effective teaching examples in his classes. It's always entertaining when it's someone else's mistake.

But the day didn't end all bad. Lester seems to have become Godwin's personal pep squad because the poor guy's taken a beating after this week and isn't accustomed to coming out of an exam feeling like the paper completely bombed, unlike me. So we went out for dinner - which was such a good break. Weng came down and although he's physically here, the rest of him has been swallowed by Garth Nix and his necromantic fantasies - he hasn't put the book down since getting here. I also got Cheryl's mail - the pencil survived (it's so hard to find a good mechanical pencil nowadays) and arrived with a note asking me to bring it home safely because it's only a temporary loan, and a disc with some video clips from church and six episodes of Prison Break.
Thanks to the genius of modern technology, I could share in a 90degree-turned view of Cheryl's baptism, and she's filled my dinner times with hope.

One down

It totally. fully. sucked.

And Action!

So it has begun for so many across England, except for, I think those in Durham who started a week ago (is that right?) and those in Warwick, York, and Southampton who won't be starting for several more weeks at least.

The gravity of the situation struck earlier this morning, having spent most of Easter moseying along in an on-break state of mind, I pulled out the relevant inch or so of notes for the first paper on Wednesday, and it was like what that iceberg did to the Titanic.

It is time to see exactly how much I've accomplished during four weeks of extremely hazy holiday. I fear that these exams will be something akin to running blindfolded across the M25 on a Friday. I take small reassurance from some of the MSN taglines that grace the names of my peers as they sign in and out with the various emotions that the approaching exams stir up, most of which stem from desperation, unpreparedness, or that ball-shrinking, all out fear that you feel when you're standing at the edge of an abyss.

In the scant days before the start of the papers, during which time I'm supposed to be tying up the loose ends across all my subjects, stay tuned for exactly how much of that precious time will be spent panicking right here on 'The Simple Things'.

I think it's time to change the title of my outpourings. 'The Simple Things' is too much like 'The Simple Life'. Which is just so demeaning. Have you seen that show?

I feel better though, thank you for listening.

Santa seeks to encourage favouritism

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is a highly unrealistic song besides the fact it's about reindeers. I'm talking about this from a purely behavorial context. The first part of the song tells you that because Rudolph is different, the other reindeer don't want to play with him, then when he saves the day, although I'm still not sure how one light-bulb-like appendage managed to sort out heavy fog, they're suddenly his bestfriends.

Oh wait, I can see how human that is, but surely the song should either mention that they're all hypocritical farts, or just go on to say that their animosity grew even further because they were all upstaged by this, this mutant.

You're right, I've got virtually nothing better to do except study.

I almost forgot.

There is football tonight, and all is well that does not touch exam prep with anything less than a ten foot pole.

For once in my life, "Go Arsenal!"

The exit light's already way behind me, ladies and gentlemen

Are you as surprised as I am? Statistics has relased me from its enthralling grasp for a moment long enough to assure people that they have not heard the last of me yet.

I wonder if convicts lead a more well-rounded life than we have in the last week. The entire building is deathly quiet (a cunning pun there, did you see? Exams, death, haha). Exercise, pah, what exercise? Sunlight? Only hurts my eyes. We are forced to go outside when the food runs out.

As you can see my communication skills have taken quite a hit, as well as my ability to put together complete sentences. That's what a month of note-making does to you. Point form, don't waste words, paper, time. Anyhow, fluid mechanics doesn't talk back, even if it did, it wouldn't be speaking English at any rate.

Artemis Fowl rocks. I want to be like Captain Short!

It's April

It's two weeks into the Easter holiday. Two weeks of slacking and messing around. And now I got two weeks left to do all the work that I had planned for four weeks. I'm just so efficient at cutting my time down.

I just read a blog somewhere, a rather lengthy one and I cringed at the end of it. It felt so superficial and fake, sorta like putting way too much icing on a cake with the aim of making it look tastier but instead ending up with a disaster. Maybe I'm too cynical coupled with the possibility that I'm biased against this person, with the mindset that whatever is written is to be taken with a pinch of salt. Thoughts of immaturity and an over eagerness to impress springs to mind. Makes me shiver just to recall what was written.

Then again, maybe it was all written with sincerity and honesty. Maybe if I didn't know this person I would have been inspired by the writings. Sigh.

Sometimes it's hard to be unjudging of others. Especially if it so happens that you have had a terrible experience with them before. One can try though.

Happy Birthday Kheng

Happy 21st, Kheng, and congratulations that you're finally at the legal drinking age! Not like you're a stranger to alcohol though. Here's wishing you have an awesome party and a great year ahead.

Back in London, reluctantly

This year has officially been an unsuccesful year for presents. The Amazon e-voucher Tish sent me hasn't arrived yet, but the paper version came, only having arrived after it expired. Hsiang, Nat, and Tom (thank you so much, btw) bought me a pair of beautiful boots, unfortunately they were a size too big, and when we tried to go back to get them changed, lucked out and came away with a voucher instead, which I will probably use to get a pair of serious "work" shoes for this summer, far more practical and useful but much less exciting. As you can see though, it's no one's fault, if anything it's made this year so much more memorable. It'll be the year of the 'almost' birthday gifts.

I just got back from Tish's. Every holiday we're here, Tish's is a must do like spring rolls and "chow main" at Chinese Restaurants for angmohs. I realised a lot of things during my stay at Tishen's these couple of days, which are presented below, in a list, because I like lists.

1. It's really hard to leave. Every single time, we resolve to come back to London after 24 hours and end up staying 48.
2. Your old old friends are always going to be old old friends that will laugh hysterically with you at 2am in the morning over Boggle.
3. Tishen's karaoke machine loves Aaron. Even if he doesn't know the song and is making up the tune as he goes along, he'll still chalk up a 97.
4. Young's voice has still stayed so wonderfully musical since the very first day I met her.
5. Tash will always be my oldest, sweetest girlfriend.
6. Cranium initiates an automatic division of labour according to our individual skills, and the girls always win.
7. I do stress analysis questions much better on four and a half hours of sleep.
8. I really needed that break.
   

Civ4: Just when it couldn't get any better

When the last Friday of the Easter term rolled around, we grabbed it with as much enthusiasm as the ones that flew back home to their loved ones. I promised myself three days of nothing but R&R, anticipating long walks in the park, a visit to Borough Market, and lots of sleep.

Then Civ 4 started, and before I knew it, it was Tuesday morning with the break over and the studying timetabled to start. We had spent the last three days block booking Weng's computer in turns to finish our solo Civ missions in stretches of 6 hours. His poor Vaio hummed away 16 hours a day under our urgent clicks and much practised keyboard shortcuts.

Fast forward to Wednesday night, we were still pretty much in the same position, only managing to squeeze studying in between the Civ time slots, promising myself that once I win this campaign, I'm going to stop. No seriously. I will stop.

And then we found Multiplayer Mode: Hot Seat. Mg, just when we thought it couldn't get any better, now we get the chance to play against each other. So that's where we're at now, completely devoid of social contact for almost a whole week.

Chelsea vs. Liverpool

The pictures have finally been sent in true Malaysian timing i.e. a month after they were taken (jk, thank Ti!) and I can finally show you how amazing it was.

I've never seen Fulham Broadway so crowded, and there I was thinking, 'Thank goodness I didn't wear a Liverpool shirt!' as I fought my way through the crowds to the stadium. So we posed for pictures.


And took our seats...


Oh, I was so excited because we were sitting courtside! I mean pitchside.


So then the rest of the game was okay.


I mean we lost, but what a day, hey?

Overdue and overrated

All my birthday presents have straggled in a little late this year, apart from the scarf and Tishen's brithday message, everything else has been delayed.

Ti's birthday message came with the most hilarious warning I've ever read:

"Happy 21st Birthday! Unauthorised copying, duplication, and sale, public screening of this video is strictly prohibited. This disc is programmed to self-destruct if used with the intent of causing harm to the reputation of its production company (TT Ltd.) or in any circumstances that even remotely resemble the act of blackmail. View responsibly. TT 2006."

After watching the video, I was relieved to discover that Tish isn't just TT, but TTP, the total package, ah ha (yes ladies, he has absolutely everything), but also horribly disappointed that I could not share my hysterical joy with the rest of the world. No matter, I know we're in good company should we ever decide to go to a wedding reception or golden 50s dinner and dance.

On Monday Weng and I braved the wind, and I'm so not kidding about the wind, gale force you know! And headed to Fenchurch St. way way on the other side of the Circle Line, and bought a printer! We now co-own a beautiful Epson DX4200 All-in-one (I changed my mind and decided not to cash in my birthday present ticket just yet) that promises to do everything short of laundry.

Yesterday, Rudy sent me my birthday present - a very sweet testimonial that I refuse to post on account of being too selfish to share his writing. Some of his lines are worthy of an Oscar, they are.

Earlier today I found out I will be spending most of this summer in Singapore, "conspermed", as Lester likes to say (thank you so much!), so thus begins phase one of my netball aspirations. After looking at the average height of the Australian team which stands at about 185cm, I was panicking slightly, but my fears were unwarranted when I discovered that the average height of the Singapore team is 170 (that's me!), so I have a chance I reckon.

Going back a couple of days, I found out my most favorite icecream at Bar Ciao is the Strawberry Sundae. The basics are always reliable, although I do want to try the Peach Melba. Took Tom to Belgo's at Covent Garden, that place is so impressive the first time, then not so afterwards.

That's about as far back as my memory goes. I'm still waiting for my sister to send my stuff over, for Tish's e-voucher for Amazon (whee!), and our long promised trip to the British Museum.

I wasn't born a fish

Commonwealth being streamed through BBC has been amazing. It's let me follow pretty much everything and has given me a solid excuse to spend most of my day glued to a 2.5" by 4.5" screen for most hours of the day, except for 2 hours of suspiciously poor selections of sports - like boxing - between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. I've watched the incredible success of the Malaysian divers and badminton players, the fortunes of the mostly China-Chinese-but-now-Singaporean paddlers, and a lot of netball.

I'm going netball-crazy, I now have aspirations of making the national team. Netballers don't retire all that young and I think that gives me about 10 years to get into it. The last time I was so strongly inspired was after watching Fame which left me thinking, I want to dance. I can still hear my mum, "Dancing is such a sleazy job."

Anyway, so while being forced to watch the British nations in every sport they have half a chance in, i.e. boxing, bowls, and badminton, I clicked on the article bearing the title "Are you born to swim, do you have the body for swimming", and was horribly dismayed.

Key characteristics as listed by Dr. Kevin Thompson, physiologist at EIS, are wide shoulders, slim hips, large hands and feet, large arm girth, and high arm span to height ratio.

Wide shoulders. Okay, yea I have pretty wide shoulders. Okay, fine, very wide.

Slim hips. No way, these hips are built for breeding.

Large hands and feet. Um, I don't think so, I cannot palm a netball and I take after my dad in shoe size.

Large arm girth. I don't really know what this means to be honest, where are they measuring around? Forearms? Upper arms? At 14 years old, I was doing endurance sets of bicep curls, tricep curls, and obliques with 5 to 10kg. At 21, I can barely lift three, much less repetitively.

High arm span to height ratio. I know for a fact that my arms are disproportionately short. Louis Tan kindly pointed that out to me during a squash session about three years ago.

So no, I'm not built to swim. Damn.

One more

Yes, I know what you're thinking, omg, pictures. Here's one more that didn't seem to want to join the others.

A princess for a day

The party didn't really get started until about 4pm when Weng arrived. It was one of the surprises of the day, although somewhat unsuccessful. I was almost convinced nothing was going to happen until I called him earlier. We chatted for about five minutes and he managed to hide the background noises well but in a split second of silence, the ding-ding-ding came through followed by the announcer's voice that betrayed his location and placed him on the platform with the arrival of the 1408 to London Waterloo.

He arrived with the promise of a special dinner, so we spent the next three hours and fortyfive minutes of Wednesday afternoon like this:

Where are we going?
You'll see later.
Okay, what do I wear?
Well I'm going in a t-shirt and jeans.
What kind of food is it? Chinese?
No, not chinese, but it's very near by.
It's Carluccio's isn't it? Where are we going? You can tell me! We'll still be going anyway.
You'll see later.
Can't we go earlier? I'm hungry.
No, the reservation's made for 7.45pm, you can't go earlier. It will be really crowded.
No, London people don't eat dinner so early, it'll be less crowded at six. I'm starving.
No, we can only go at 7.45.
Only at 7.45? Who are we meeting?!
What makes you think we're meeting anyone?
We must be meeting someone, it wouldn't be so exact otherwise.

I was so totally on to him. Even more so when he refused to leave until 7.47 when his phone buzzed with a missed call. It such an awesome dinner with my nearest and dearest in London, minus Tash who was caught up in Cheltenham with her mum.



Ti's mum made me that lovely scarf! Tish, you totally look like a tourist, and I don't know why Terence looks like a bouncer, but thank you guys so so much for coming!

Then I got home, saw the brilliant surprise my unbelievably amazing housemates had got me and wished very strongly that I didn't have that tiramisu for dessert.


We are such an attractive bunch.

Anyway, I think Weng's going to take my shopping for a printer this weekend. I know, so practical right? I asked for it, because I feel bad bugging Lester to print stuff out for me, and I think a scanner/copier would come in handy too. I'm 21, I've had enough of teddybears and trinkets, give me something I can use.

My absence was not exciting

The prospect of finishing level 1 Italian for good was one I looked forward to with more enthusiasm than my fast approaching birthday.

Now it's finally over and my brain no longer feels saturated with verbs, the language is actually coming more easily to me, certainly more easily than during my oral, where finding the right gender, the right pronoun, the right whatever was like grabbing mist, all on top of having to fight off the random urge to alternate my answers in Malay and Mandarin.

Anyhow, it's over, and now that I have the time to do anything I absolutely want, I am completely and utterly deprived of entertainment. The Commonwealth Games' reruns feature some of the most boring sports tonight not to mention a looped episode that features 5 commentators analysing and reanalysing each one of Britain's athletic golds. Weng took his Civ4 back to Southampton with him, and the House detox regimen has to be handled carefully with only two episodes left for me to work around.

I guess I could study for the finals.

Oh, thank you so much Ah Yi, for the e-card (isn't my aunt cool, she's so up to date with technology), and for the birthday wishes from Rudy and later Cheryl, who pointed out that I am technically 21 on account of timezones.

But yea, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm 21 tomorrow. Yes Tish, tomorrow.

Like a week full of Mondays

I have such a hard time starting Mondays, and it doesn't help that Italian's the very first lesson. I spend most of the 50 minutes listening to my colleagues babbling in a language I'm supposed to be competent in after about 60 hours of contact time and with the final exam next week, but nothing. Nadda. Zilch. I might as well be sitting in advanced Finnish.

It's as if the part of my memory that's been carefully storing various verb forms and their English equivalents over the last two terms has been padlocked in a chest and thrown into the Mariana Trench.

I guess I'd better start looking.

Let me hear you say rawr

Thank you guys for filling in my Johari window, you're all so sweet - well I suppose it's only because there aren't really any negative adjectives but you're still all so sweet. It's funny that people think I'm confident because I sure as hell don't feel it a lot of the time, and organized. Oh yes, that's me.

End of the week +yay+ and about 50 more skirt segments to go.

Growing up

*sigh* Teenagers and their hormones.

Do my Johari!

Right here.

So far no one (out of three) thinks I'm patient and Weng laughed hysterically at 'organised'.
Tish is taking forever.

Aiyo, so d-duhr

Ash: Hey person A and person B were holding hands today!
Weng: Holding hands? As in everyone's holding hands? Or just them both?

At least you brought me some entertainment during the walk home in the pouring rain.

Tuesday brings crappy weather

Thinking back, it seems that quite a while has passed since I stepped foot on UK soil to begin uni. Being under 18, I had problems getting things done. For one, I couldn't open a regular bank account like everyone else but had to apply for a 'Young person's account' and subsequently change it when I was of age. Only found this out 2 weeks later when I received a letter rejecting my initial application. You would think the bank would have checked my particulars or informed me of that problem when i first handed in the form.

Then there was the time I got asked for ID buying some sparkling grape juice that was NOT alcoholic. I was too stunned to question why I was being asked. Thank goodness Ash stepped in. It didn't help that I was almost 20. Had to endure countless days of teasing after.

Now almost 3 years along, I feel so much has changed. However, it's hard to imagine I'm graduating before 21. How can one feel so old and young at the same time?? Sometimes I want to just go out and work, earn a salary and see what lies beyond university life. Other times I'm content to just stay where I am, worring about what to cook for dinner, wasting the day away watching some TV series or being glad that I can sleep til 10 the next day. However circumstances, obligations and responsibilities is closing the door on the latter. It's gathering pace and seems to be just a matter of time before it'll be closed forever.

In other news, Champions League tonight! =) so I'll be temporarily putting those responsibilities and what not on hold for 2 hours.

...and ended with guilt

I should have done some work today. *sigh*

Monday started with death

The suspected charred remains of an unidentifiable insect were found today after gloom descended in a spiteful fizz of failing circuitry. It had apparently kamikazed in the bowl-shaped section of an Argos "Burnished Bronze" floor lamp, taking the light out in the process. All that remains of the toasted invertebrate is a lingering odour not unlike that of a Chinese medicinal herb shop.

Five ants lured by the honey glazing on my rice puff cereal also died violently in the bottom corner of the bag of cereal today when the walls of their polythene tomb closed in on their unsuspecting heads. One panicked and tried to escape, but failed horribly in the attempt, expiring (also violently) one centimeter away from its friends and approximately 748 rice puffs from freedom.

New friends, old friends, and six degrees of freedom

I learnt my lesson after last year's London Games - 1) don't ever referee, and 2) when you disapprove of things, don't make it obvious.

It was so much smaller than last year and the year before that. Some put it down to the last minute-ness in letting all the other colleges know about pertinent details like what sports were even going to be offered - LSE, the organising society, had the biggest turn out.

It was freezing and I suffered painfully from wind burn, but there's nothing more fun than watching KCL with their telepathic sisters and UCL in all their gung-ho aggressiveness steamroll the rest of the competition. The second each dainty foot hits the court, you do not want to mess with these women.

Lester kindly offered an opinion on the way home that you had to be butch to be good at the sport. I disagree, you also need to have a good set of nails, a backside with which to covertly bump other players out of the way, and all the cunning and wile of ... of a cunning and wiley thing.

The girls did great, I love playing with ICSS because they're so much fun, and when we found ourselves hopelessly behind, we swopped positions and had an awesome time running around like headless chickens. I generally played like a wuss, relying too much on the referee to call up the slightest contact like in league games, where even touching your marker pulls you up for a foul. To be fair though, the referees this year were a marked improvement in that they actually made some calls rather than stand there with the sole aim of starting the match, stopping the match at time, and avoid getting glared at.

Then there was I. The KCL-UCL final needed referees, and although two girls (both from LSE) were perfectly willing and experienced, i.e. more than 16 minutes of refereeing under their belt, KCL had issues about two LSE referees and I was taking my time leaving the court. So I tried my hardest, making a very lame show of refereeing - regulation whistle in hand (that was never used) - for 24 agonizing minutes. I badly wanted to cheer madly for UCL who were putting up such a good fight, and every foul I saw registered two minutes too late.

I really enjoyed seeing Hsiang, who had also made his way to Bacon's College to get thrashed, and I met Pui, one of the more experienced referees who plays for LSE 5ths, and Nicola, who used to play for LSE 1sts, who also knows Becky, Diane, and possibly Fong May (although I didn't ask). What a small small world.

I miss my mom's cooking

I feel sick.

Not because I'm down with some medical illness but because I just had a really salty take-away dinner. I miss my mom and her cooking *sigh*. I don't think we fully realise just how much time and effort goes into cooking a decent dinner until you live by yourself; well at least for me, cos I didn't do any cooking prior to the UK. It's so hard to cook something nice or often barely edible without leaving 3 servings worth of leftovers. It's a gamble. Every single one of my dishes taste the same.

Cooking for one person is tough.

Also you can't exactly recreate certain dishes here cos of all the time constraints that we face (which I strongly feel would be significantly less if I had a car) or the fact that we just can't get those stuff here - like tiger prawns.

I miss my teh ping. I'm addicted on that stuff. Going from 3 times a week to zilch for 3 months is torture and paying GBP1.50 at Mawar for a glass does make me feel slightly better but only for a very short time before I start to get withdrawal symptoms. Good thing it's that price - it keeps me away just long enough till I can go home. (I've only had it once)

The luxury of home-cooked food. Won't know what you're missing till you're actually missing it.

There were the ups and then there were the downs

My sister's finally completely disillusioned with the prospect of driving. I think she lasted longer than I did, and I fully sympathize, 3.00pm is always awkward.

Sheer stupidity on my part put an extra week in February, giving me a false sense of comfort that was quickly dispelled on Tuesday when that entire extra week disappeared with the realisation that March started on Wednesday. It was like God took a pair of scissors and snipped 168 extremely valuable hours (valuable, not productive, there's a difference) out of my life and my sanity, bringing a whole barrage of tests and deadlines crashing into each other in a catastrophic panic.

Among the tasks that I have to complete in the next two weeks are:

1. Italian coursework
2. MSD progress test
3. Stats coursework
4. London Games
5. About 4 backlogged weeks of MSD tutorials
6. 72 skirt panels for the hoverboard
7. Italian finals
8. Eating 6 Krispy Kreme donuts before the ants do - considering they're up by about 1 billion individuals, the odds are somewhere in that region too
   

The coursework is most definitely going to be among my most pleasurable tasks, but somehow we soldier through.

Last game of the season

Wednesday afternoon saw 7 of us following Naomi through the crush of people that seem to throng Victoria Station at all hours on the way to play GKT 4ths for our last league match. They've remained unbeaten in our league all season and apparently Jade was supposed to have said, 'I don't even know why we're making this trip'.

On the way there we talked, as girls do, and it seems a lot of people won't be around next year. I sure hope Celina gets 3rds captaincy because I think she's a wonderful motivator, if a little intimidating with threats of forcing her players to attend all socials for some game time.

But it wasn't too far. Despite initial worries when I wasn't able to find North Dulwich on the street map, it turned out to be in zone 2 somewhere. We arrived early for once, giving us enough time for a warm up, which I braved in proper uniform. The wind was unforgiving however, and as soon as we finished warming up, I had to slip my tracks back on. Game play was a lot faster than last week's disaster and we won it - a great way to end a pretty good season.

I was actually hoping the ball would get back up to my end faster so I wouldn't have to think about the cold or the 6ft-plus keeper, and when I thought it couldn't possibly get any colder, it started snowing. At least GKT looked warm compared to us IC girls dashing around the court in sleeveless dresses.

I'm already looking forward to all the friendlies, and currently trying to put off learning my Italian vocab for the test tomorrow. I told Tom a couple of days ago that I'd talk to him as regularly as I could on MSN in preparation for the final, but he hasn't signed on since. I don't blame him, the conversation was grammatically incorrect most of the time and agonizingly slow. E stato molto paziente.

Monkey see, monkey do

I just thought this is a very cute article. I know some of you must be thinking this is a post about something absolutely hilarious that Weng did but these monkeys are real:Expectant fathers

Otherwise, there's nothing big about 21, 20 was pretty big and so was 19, and 22 will be even bigger so don't worry.

It cometh

Buying a present is probably one of THE hardest things anyone has to do.

Getting the right one is even harder.

You would think that having lots of money would solve your dilemma.

It probably does.

Having to work with an exchange rate of RM6.7:GBP1 doesn't.

Buying for the big two-one just compounds it further.

House M.D.

The Winter Olympics came and went in a flurry of national anthems, dramatic wipeouts, and missed chances. I shall miss the live feed over the internet, but have found an incredibly good series to fill the void.

I hadn't taken Cheryl seriously when she told me how good House was, then again do I ever (jk), but with distractions running out as the closing ceremony drew closer and closer with the end of every race, I gave it a shot. Besides, after Lester admitted to watching 11 episodes in 3 days it came with a strong recommendation, and the only thing I've found him to be way way off about was Sin City, so it had to be at least watchable.

So you have the sarcastic one with perfect delivery and timing, the hot chick, the stubborn one, and the goodlooking 'foreign' one. What's not to like.

Oh, burned.

It appears that some culture's finally arrived on the tagboard. Thanks to the advent of web-based translators, we are all multi-lingual. Bravo anonymous, and I hope you get past your injuries.

Getting closer

I'm nursing slight bruises and strains in my wrists and ankles, one of which is self inflicted. You should not slap the back of your hands for warmth when it's bitterly cold and you cannot feel them otherwise you might damage something. It was so cold yesterday that when I stepped into the shower after my match, it felt like my hands and feet were on fire.

Last night's CL matches were sensational. Oh I would've given anything to watch all of them at the same time.

As for IP addresses, so far I know is that anon here is working off of mynow.co.uk, "next generation broadband". I shall definitely be comparing subscribers and I fear I'll be horribly disappointed in that person's maturity when I find out.

Yes, I'm getting closer. Closer and closer to the end of the week. Mwaha.

Did you know...

Did you know that the font Verdana was created by a British dude and it's suppose to be the most widely used font on the Internet? It's on that 'Vote a BBC British Icon' or something along those lines, which you can find on their website.

Did you know that, "Just because the word 'Finance' is in the title of a textbook, the publishers believe they can slap a 40+quid pricetag on it" - from my finance lecturer. I kid you not...I guess you could say they are pretty thick but still, c'mon. BTW I meant the book not the publishers.

*sigh* I'm outta interesting 'did you know's'.

Oh yeah, with reference to the first 'did you know', Tomb Raider/Lara Croft made it to the top 10 icons that's up for votes. Amazing. Along with Grand Theft Auto.

How much more British can you get?

On a side note, the first settlers to have landed on this land mass, i.e. UK, must have arrived on a nice sunny day.

Netball

They always pick the coldest days to play a match. Have you seen the temperature? It feels below zero and now I have to go outside and prance around in a lycra dress.

(GMT -5:00) Eastern Time

So here I am at three half in the morning, ignore what the time-stamp says - it doesn't want to change for me - in the hope that these indistinct hours that are too far past midnight to call midnight and too early to be properly morning will bring inspiration to my flagging fingers and long gone mind faster than my crappy internet connection calls up my theasaurus searches.

And past year exam papers, but don't panic, downloading them with intent to print and gather remains, at this point in time, purely intent. Come tomorrow, I may find that I have to spend more time renaming files as I seek to track and make sense of the various pdfs which I will proceed to save all over my hard disk.

Sleep evades me and I fear it will continue to evade me for the following reasons:

1. I don't have the constant sound of Weng's gentle snoring to lull me to sleep
2. It is bloody hot. I've set up my tiny desk fan that has saved me over the summer months, and I think I need to turn my heater off
3. This is the second night I've done this so I think my body clock is starting to switch
4. I have watched one too many CSI
5. I have read one too many disturbing books, disturbing in the sense that none of them ended happily.

Which brings me to my next rant.

Trudi Canavan argh. For all the trials and tribulations her heroes go through, nothing ever ends happily. Can she not, for once, just give the heroine the guy she's in love with or the family that she craves instead of killing off, crippling, and/or maiming every single person that she holds dear. Otherwise it's not a bad read, even if the book leaves you feeling a little unfinished with a nagging sense that Canavan could eventually come up with something as epic as The Belgariad if she worked a little harder.

Yea, I know I'm tired and I'm also thinking that love stories seem leave my head in a whirl especially compounded by that-time-of-the-y'know effects, and I should just reread "Does anything eat wasps? And 101 other mildly interesting questions for a slow slow Sunday morning" for its much more significant calming effect. (If you're seriously considering looking for the book, it's published by New Scientist and is just called "Does anything eat wasps?")

I hope this satisfies the people who might rely on this blog as a form of entertainment of any sort from time to time. Given the lack of posts across the whole blogspot front, this might actually get me hits and make Rudy a little happier although I don't see how it could live up to his news of having been making the dating rounds for the last six days (congratulations, I'm elated for you. Yes, feel it.)

Arhar. I think I shall try to sleep now, though I doubt I'll be making that 9am tutorial.

Pride and prejudice

Wow +sniff+ so wow

I'm hopeful, I trust

It's been quiet like anything on here.

It takes a lot to stop and look at where you're at in the year, in the term, and fight the urge to just carry on plodding through as the days slip past you. Suddenly we're in the middle of the term, five weeks or so from the end of year 3, not counting the exams that start immediately after the Easter break.

I have a lot of be thankful for. I'm enjoying this year so much more than last. They were right, it doesn't get any easier, you just get used to it. I've got wonderful housemates, a good bunch of teammates in school and out of, and Weng's been absolutely vital in away-from-home support through the last few months.

I only just shook off a two-week long, suffocating sense of depression on Sunday. Got my hair cut quite short - it's such a relief and so much easier to wash. It's amazing what a haircut can do for you. I feel so much more energetic and the curls were starting to get patchy anyway. Weng kindly 'gave up' his Sunday appointment so I could look neat for Tuesday's interview. Sunday was also the first time in two weeks that we were able to make it to church, so I can definitely say that God had a hand in giving me back some strength and positivity.

I'm really wary about talking about interviews. I don't want to jinx them and I'm far from confident. After putting so much time and effort into the application and the first round interview, it's horribly demoralising to come away from it with nothing.

But no matter, we'll see what the week brings.

So spoilt

It is impossible to watch speed skating on a patchy connection that's even slower than dial-up.

"You're watching the quarter finals of the team pursuit, and as the competitiors take their place... ch... a... you...ch..."
Ononononono.
"OH!!1! the Japanese have crashed into the.... ch... ii... ug..."
What?!
"They seem to have... cracking... sh... im"
Nonononono.
"And there are the results, the gold...ick...uj...na"
Argh.

I feel loved

Weng pulled off the surprise he didn't manage last year. He came in on Tuesday morning just after I got back from my interview bearing a gift, just in case the interview went horribly, and because it was Valentine's. He said he'd also planned a dinner but had to call it off because I had a SPAP exam the next day.

He makes me feel so loved, but I was so totally on to him.

I suspected it when I couldn't reach him at about 11am - there are almost no places you can be in Southampton where you'll get 'this person's phone is unavailable', so he had to be on the tube. QED.

I haven't really been affected by all the Valentine's advertising, having been completely engrossed in the Winter Olympics which BBC have so very kindly been streaming off their website. It's provided many hours of entertainment. Even curling is interesting, and probably the only sport in which GB has a chance. I also know why they don't have any iceskating representatives - the people used to make the 'Figure skating basics' video remind me of that Fantasia scene with the dancing hippos and crocodiles.

Life's starting to get more serious

More netball today has left me nursing niggling strains. We threw away a perfectly good lead, but credit to St. Georges' masterful tactics - every quarter saw players move positions and every quarter saw them getting stronger while we were flagging and panicking badly. It ended all square but it would've been ours if they hadn't wasted the last minute by knocking the ball out of court while we were on the attack.

There's no netball next week, but that's a good thing I suppose, with a test on Wednesday and a deadline on Thursday. Plenty of matches the week after.

I've been struggling with career decisions lately, not really knowing which field to go into. Competition is fierce for the 'good jobs' and those ultra-coveted internships, but I'm leaning more and more towards wanting to spend summer closer to home. Banking and finance looks like it’s drifting further and further out of reach and engineering or accountancy looms. All this pressure to land a job makes me want to just go home and be looked after. The Toys R Us theme plays on and on.

Our hoverboard's coming along beautifully on the whole and we're due to start designing it within the next week. The leaf blower we ordered is perfect, so once they've finished taking it to pieces and designing a mount for it, we'll order three more.

There are a lot of things to be happy about, but sometimes it gets difficult to see them.

So much excitement

I went to see the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game on Sunday at Stamford Bridge, courtesy of Tish and his family (thankyousosomuch), and as a first premiership game, it was incredible. I have to admit that seeing the players in the flesh felt more 'live' than real life. I don't know if that makes sense, but they're really big, like a different species of human altogether.

Watching them warm up was surreal, and shooting practice even more so since we were seated three rows from pitchside behind the shed end goal. The atmosphere was hellishly intimidating, and I think the away supporters spent a lot of time with their backs to the pitch singing songs at the Chelsea supporters, pausing only to hurl obsceneties at any Chelsea player that came within spitting distance, the mildest curse being "fat bastard", aimed mostly at Lampard. Then the first goal was scored. Liverpool seemed to deflate slightly, and the three sides of Chelsea crowd turned towards us and sang more songs.

It was really strange watching a match without replays. You never really know what's going on or why the referee stopped play, and I completely missed the part where Robben 'won his Oscar' because it was down the other end.

Yesterday saw me in my first game since the end of November. They weren't a particularly good team, so we were quite relaxed, maybe a little too relaxed at some parts, but it was great being on the court again.

Phantom of the Opera II

I thought I'd review our Phantom outing properly seeing as we don't get to go to musicals very often and we only get visitors from halfway across the world every so often, the last one being Cassie, who we also took to a musical.

We were ushered into our seats after five or six ticket checks (the theatre has over employment issues) and after the nauseating sense of vertigo passed, there I was squinting down at the stage hoping to high hell that the scenery wasn't going to stay like that because there was an incredibly huge grubby curtain obscuring everything but 2 square meters of stage. Thankfully I, in all my musical-going naivete, was very relieved to find out that the curtain was merely a prop in the first scene, and soon disappeared in a flash of lights at the chandelier was hauled up to the ceiling (i.e. level with us), to be replaced by several obstinate heads and the backsides of several more late arrivals.

After the first half of spectacular stage effects and so-so singing, we jumped out of our seats at intermission and lurked at the back until the ushers got lost in the confusion of toilet-desperate people before making a run for the empty seats three rows from the front of the tier. About six rows closer, slightly fewer heads, and from the opposite side of the stage, the supporting actor, Raoul suddenly went from looking young and gorgeous to tubby and old. The singing continued in the same vein but the effects just got better as the Phantom got hoisted up and down in a peculiar cherubic swing that descended from the ceiling. For someone who had the potential to generate Batman-like mystery and magnetism, it was a strange choice of vehicle.

The best scene in the whole show was the masquerade. The worst was probably the pivotal moment in which the Phantom appears behind the mirror in Christine's dressing room. From where we were sitting, he was just a hand. What an anticlimax.

Then when he ripped off his mask, I just didn't get it. How come the hair on his entire head goes all tufty and patchy? He just had a full head of well-greased hair that definitely wasn't waving around with his half mask - where did it go? And it's also really cool that he gets to play with a funky cane that spits fire, but he should just stop faffing about and zap Raoul's ageing ass.

I fully recommend it though. It's a must see, if just for the effects.

The Phantom of the Opera

Phantom was pretty good, very cool set with smoke and fireworks and everything. The first half was good, the second half maintained the momentum quite successfully, and intermission entertainment was provided courtesy of Jer and Weng.

Me: So how do you think all these performers break into these musicals?
Jer: Break in? Huh, what would they steal?
Weng: I think once the music starts, they go.
Tish: These guys are not a representative sample of Malaysians.

Tish answered with the above disclaimer followed by the very sensible answer, "They apply", but to be fair, we didn't give him an equal chance at an original, unbiased answer because I was laughing hysterically at the first two. At least you can't fault them for being helpful.

Welcoming the Year of the Dog

Ti's Chinese New Year parties are always wonderful. Good food, good company, good times, and not necessarily in that order. It's almost as much fun helping out in the preparations for the party as much as messing around when everyone arrives. There's always something to do in a household that does not sleep the whole weekend.

When ties are stretched by borders

We were feeling in a particularly argumentative mood last night, and while discussing the fall of another friend to the whims of another Singaporean (no, it's not Tish quite yet), I put forth the theory that Singaporean women are all part of a massive covert operation bent on the ultimate control of Malaysia, which they will achieve by mating with Malaysian men and thereby ruling the whole damn country.

Weng countered by saying that the 2 million or so Malaysian men that may possibly succumb to the siren-like charms of the women across the causeway are actually part of an even bigger movement to annihilate the island republic by joining with their women and then refusing to have babies, thus allowing the country to wallow in the mire of supporting their aging population, whom, I might add were originally Malaysians anyway, and eventually expire. He also went on to claim that those 2.5million sacrificial lambs will be honored in the annals of Malaysian history as martyrs bearing the slogan "prevention is better than cure".

The conversation wasn't that intricately phrased, we were dodging traffic on the way back from the supermarket last night laden with a week's worth of food, so most of it went "Oh yea?! Shaddup, you suck" and "Whatever..." while our frozen synapses struggled to come up with a witty rebuttal before shutting down again, but that was the gist of it.