subtle propositions; ver2.

forever the name on my lips

2011-11-14T22:07:00.001+08:00

moved to here.

i think i might miss this template after all. while i do love the simplicity of the tumblr layout i really like this current blogger template. maybe when I have more free time and all i'll get down to customizing the tumblr one.

music: last kiss; taylor swift

so you can hear me crying

2011-11-11T20:00:00.001+08:00

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://linusofhollywood.bandcamp.com/track/where-are-you"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Where Are You? by Linus Of Hollywood&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>
gem of a track i chanced upon today.

seriously considering moving to tumblr so it's legitimate to post short entries.

music: where are you?; linus of hollywood

is that right, rambo

2011-10-25T20:53:00.002+08:00

listening to this makes my day instantly better!

i know this isn't what i usually listen to or what i usually recommend, and i doubt it would mean much or seem particularly nice at all to you guys, but somehow i just feel strangely happy listening to this. which is never a bad thing! so give it a try i guess. i don't know, it might work the same way for you. and it might help if you watched the movies (both the first one and this second one) too. by the way, no, that wasn't a subtle hint for you to go watch the movies. i really enjoyed them, and thought they were really funny but i get that they might not appeal to everyone. they're very funny though! but so replete with cusses ("get your stupid fking rope." haha! okay no one else is going to get this.). after watching both movies in a row it takes genuine effort not to curse. i usually make an effort not to, or not out loud in any case, but i curse so much more in my head now after watching the two movies.

doesn't help that they have such cute irish accents! although they do slip into normal american accents sometimes. i wish i could do accents too. it's such a useful talent.

anyway i think being on exchange makes me think a lot more about what i could do alone. okay this seems like an abrupt change of topic, but it's kind of related. it's not "what i could do alone" in general really, more like "where i could go alone". i've been watching a couple of movies and all these few days and sometimes looking at all these places i feel like there're still so many places that i should go to and experience by myself. i know, it's not exactly reasonable to feel this way when i'm already alone here in a new land and all. it's not as if i particularly hate travelling with people, or that i dislike being around people or anything, but exchange has really made me appreciate being able to be on my own a lot more. like i mentioned previously, the first few days i think i really wasn't prepared to handle so much on my own, but now i feel like i've underestimated myself somehow. there're still a lot of things that i can't do, or can't do well (*cough* cooking *cough*). but there are a whole lot of other things that i can do, and which i previously imagined i wouldn't be able to or that i would have a hard time doing. maybe it's all just got to do with adapting. but i'm surprisingly a lot better at adapting than i gave myself credit for.

so yes, i've really been thinking about all the places i could go to alone. travelling alone does bring a lot of inconveniences, but it's so much freedom. and with all that freedom you could really delve into whatever interests you in some place or another, instead of having to accommodate everyone else. i really do enjoy family trips and all, but my memories of wherever we go to seem to be mainly limited to the meals that we had. because it's only during mealtimes that we're really all just seated together and enjoying the company. like when we went to China. i really don't remember too much of it, or where we went (aside from the Great Wall and Xitang, and only because they were pretty hard to forget).

although i know it's quite improbable (parents, sigh), but i want to go off travelling alone so much so that i get sick and tired of my own company. when that happens i'll go back home, and then i'll never go off alone again. wouldn't that be nice.

but we all have our own obligations that shackle us, i guess.

anyway, since this exchange is probably one of the last times i'll be able to be so free and unencumbered i'm going to really make the most of it and stop shuttling between my dorm and my classes. except on mondays, because that's when TWD episodes become available. (:

by the way, i was listening to that theme song (the blood of cuchulainn -- please don't ask me how to pronounce this haha) while typing out this entire entry. wonder if it shows! the happiness the song makes me feel, i mean. it's so uplifting! or maybe it's the general effect that tuesdays have on me, because tuesdays mean that i'll be very free for the next two days since i only have like one class on each day. and true to my decision to make the most of exchange and to stop being a hermit in my dorm room i'm going out both days, and on the weekend too! grocery shopping tomorrow (yay more chances to experiment with cooking) and then i'm headed to shinjuku for thursday. please be nice murphy, and don't let it rain!

music: the blood of cuchulainn; the boondock saints ost

the sound of your voice

2011-10-05T21:32:00.002+08:00

first rainy day in japan, and i got drenched! yes i know i sound mildly happy and it's weird to be happy when you're soaked to the skin and shivering in the cold but it was really kind of fun. it's been raining since the morning, and you hardly ever get rain that lasts so long in singapore. just to prove that i'm normal, i was really quite miserable when trudging back in the rain, but i think one of the nicest things about rainy days is how comfortable it feels to be sitting inside, dry and out of the rain. it's only when i'm actually caught in the rain that i don't like the rain. really hoping i don't fall sick though! that's something i definitely don't want to experience when i'm here almost all alone.

the wet clothes are really a bother though, because i hadn't planned on doing laundry till the weekend. usually i fold up the clothes to be washed and stack them in a pile in the closet, but because they're so wet i can't do anything to them yet. now they're just hanging around and i'm hoping they'll become relatively dry! my poor gap pullover is also very wet and i'm a bit worried about washing that one because the colour might run. maybe i could wash it with the jeans or something.

it's apparently also going to rain tomorrow, and i really don't want to have to go out! but tomorrow's the only free day i have in common with my tutor for this week, so we'll have to go out really early in the morning to open a bank account. i think i'll chance it wearing my flip flops haha although it gets bitterly cold when it rains and in the morning. bringing my doc martens was such a mistake! i baby them so much at home already and refuse to wear them if i'm going to be doing a lot of walking or if it's raining because i don't want to get them dirty. here i doubt there'll ever be a day i decide wearing them will be safe. maybe when i'm absolutely sure it's not going to rain and when i'm only going to walk to the language centre next to my dorm haha.

placement test today went okay, i think. at least i got into the level i wanted to get in. crossing my fingers and hoping that it'll be mappable to japanese 6 back at nus. i really don't want to take japanese 6 at nus because i don't think it'll be with nagami sensei and i'm way too used to the way he teaches and the pace of his teaching. classes start on friday and i think i'm kind of looking forward to classes actually. i feel like such a nerd haha but i haven't been a student for almost five months! you know how they always say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. so not having school work makes me miss school work. it's really logical! i'm not weird. honest.

maroon 5's how is on repeat this week! it's not as well-known a song from their hands all over album, and honestly i hadn't heard of it until we got the album for my brother. it's a really good song though! adam levine's voice is amazing as usual.

love the lyrics too. (:

music: how; maroon 5

can't you

2011-10-02T20:10:00.000+08:00

haven't really felt like blogging for the past few days although i did have quite some free time. finally more or less settled in my room now! it feels really strange to call the room mine though, since i've never really had a room to myself. feels even stranger that it's supposed to be "home" for the next few months. and i thought it'd take me a relatively long period of adjustment and all, but by the second day i already caught myself saying stuff like "when i get home..." in reference to the dorm room.

nothing will feel quite like home home though! i'm not exactly counting down to when i get to go back home to sunny singapore but i must say i'm quite looking forward to going home. this seems quite inappropriate given that it hasn't even been a week since i've been here. time seems to really slip away very fast though. it doesn't feel like i've been here six days. but i'm not moping around being homesick! although i must admit the first two days i was quite overwhelmed by all the things i needed to do by myself and was even starting to regret a little my decision to come on exchange. but i think the worst has passed, now that things are more or less settling into quite a comfortable routine.

the room's almost a little too quiet for me though. good for studying but i get restless much more than usual now. i never realised it before, but back home there was always some kind of noise in the background so i think i'm way more accustomed to noise than to complete silence. plus if i were a sim my social bar would be very low now haha. i'm really glad rachel is here with me though! don't know how i would have coped if i had been here alone. but we kind of both agree that even though we're right next door to each other once we close the door and go into our rooms it feels like we're completely isolated from the world outside. it was really hard to get used to this the first two days, but i think now i'm a bit more habituated to the silence now. maybe when i get back home i'll find home too noisy!

anyway school stuff will kind of officially start next week, and i'm half looking forward to it and half dreading it. as usual! i'm forever in two minds about everything. i'm a little worried about the placement test and whether i'll be able to get right back into mugging mood though, because i had such an extra long holiday i'm afraid i'm a bit too complacent about everything now. yesterday and today i tried to study for the placement test but like i mentioned earlier now i get super restless very frequently. i did manage to make a little headway though! just not sure if it'll be enough. if i'm not able to get into the module mappable to japanese 6 i'll have to take it again in nus and it'll be such a waste of time.

yi xiu comes to join us tomorrow and rachel and i are both hoping that she won't be too appalled by our way of life haha! we're seriously leading such unhealthy lives now. i'm kind of missing home-cooked food because all we've been having is convenience stores meals, instant food and meals outside. and in an attempt to eat more healthily we had to actively look for fruits to buy. so far we've bought apples and bananas! i'm very tempted to get kiwis since they're one of my favourite fruits but neither of us have knives so we can't have kiwis yet. can't wait for the bazaar on the 19th. apparently they sell cookware and utensils and stuff for much cheaper prices than outside so we're waiting for the bazaar to stock up on pots and pans and all sorts of cooking stuff. maybe after that we'll finally be able to eat more home (or dorm) cooked meals and less unhealthy instant stuff! now when i get food i find those meals proclaiming to fulfil one-third of our daily requirement of vegetables so appealing.

going to get my temporary alien certificate tomorrow morning. i think i'll bring my camera along so i can take some pictures of the campus to show you guys. it's actually a very pretty campus. and the trees are all gradually shedding their leaves now so i should take pictures before they all become bare. even then i think the campus should be quite scenic still. speaking of which, i'm totally here in the wrong season. apparently the trees lining the road at the back of the campus (which is what my balcony looks out upon) are all cherry blossom trees. imagine how pretty it'd be when they all bloom!

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

more than goodbye

2011-09-21T22:46:00.002+08:00

blogging because i feel very accomplished today! making a list really helped to show me how much i needed to rush things i think, because i felt so motivated to do work today. updating the list now! thought of more things that i needed to get done anyway.

- ~~finish 2 more transcribings~~ just 1 left
- ~~finish lek's data analysis~~
- ~~finish tarn's data analysis~~
- study for the placement test ):
- ~~open a bank account~~
- pack
- ~~meet my sister for lunch~~
- ~~get my brother's birthday present~~ giving him money because i can't find the cd he wants
- meet the pooks for dinner on thursday
- meet the interns for breakfast on friday
- meet wynne, sam and rab for dinner on friday
- meet su kie for lunch on sunday
- get bags for the cameras :D and a screen protector for oly
- get random stuff i need for the trip
- ~~exchange money~~

data analysis jobs aren't quite done yet but they haven't given me new things to do yet so i'm going to just strike them off first.

i think i will put packing off until at least saturday or sunday.

----------

"what marks his plays is the way things get so mixed up the characters are trapped. do you see what i mean? lots of different people appear, and they all have their own situations and reasons and excuses, and each one is pursuing his or her own idea of justice or happiness. as a result, nobody can do anything. obviously. i mean, it's basically impossible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over. and then what do you think happens? simple -- a god appears at the end and starts directing the traffic. 'you go over there, and you come here, and you get together with her, and you just sit still for a while.' like that. he's a kind of fixer, and in the end everything works out perfectly. they call this 'deus ex machina'."

--- watanabe describing euripides in norwegian wood

kind of disappointed with norwegian wood actually, because i was half-expecting it to become an all-time favourite given the rave reviews it had gotten. it's sadly quite flat on the whole when you consider the book in its totality, but where it shines is in little moments i think. like that paragraph i just quoted.

sometimes i feel like we're all just really stuck in the middle of a euripidean tragedy.

----------
wish the typhoon would just go away, seriously.

music: just a feeling; maroon 5

no sunshine

2011-09-20T01:24:00.002+08:00

last week left here before i leave for japan and it's crazy how much i have left to do. actually it's not even a week, since it's already past midnight so that means i have 6 days left here. so, in a bid to prove to myself how i need to stretch these 6 days way thin to actually finish what i have to do, i'm going to list them all.

- finish 2 more transcribings
- finish lek's data analysis
- finish tarn's data analysis
- study for the placement test ):
- open a bank account
- pack
- meet my sister for lunch
- get my brother's birthday present
- meet the pooks for supper on wednesday and dinner on thursday
- meet the interns for breakfast on friday
- meet su kie for dinner on sunday
- get bags for the cameras :D
- get random stuff i need for the trip

and i think there's more stuff that i can't remember at the moment. i just know that there's a lot i have to deal with now and i need to finish them all before i leave so i won't have to rush everything in japan.

need more timeeeeeee. ):

music: just a feeling; maroon 5

for the first time

2011-09-13T20:48:00.000+08:00

stab me now.

apparently my transcribing job is not yet over. ):

music: soundscape to ardor; bleach ost

it's the way he seems to stare right through my eyes

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

-- number9dream; david mitchell

imagine having a library like that. actually just imagine being in a library like that.

oh and this is probably the first photo from the new camera that i'm showing you guys. although i am tearing my hair out and cannot begin to comprehend why sometimes numbers just keep flashing at me and why the camera refuses to take photos i am still having a lot of fun with it. too much fun, really, because it's a major distraction when i should probably be revising really hard for my placement test.

anyway to take that picture i accidentally made a new crease in the spine of the book. ):< don't know if i've told anyone else before (i know i told my sister though) but i really like my books to be nicely kept. it doesn't have to be completely pristine but i really don't like books with random creases down the spine or folded corners. that said, however, if it has to be old and well-read i'd rather it be extremely so. just not somewhere in the middle. okay i know i'm weird that way. stop thinking i'm weird i already know i am.

i hope this post works out to be a long one. yes, this is my attempt to prove that my brain is not yet completely twitterified and i can still think thoughts that are more than 140 characters long. actually, does anyone else find it difficult to encapsulate everything into 140 characters? i frequently find myself going over the limit and having to go back and type everything in short form or rephrasing everything altogether. and then it doesn't even feel like something i would type any more.

i'm not sure when i started typing in full sentences without abbreviations and all and with (dare i say it) decent grammar even for things like text messages and stuff online. but i think it's a good thing. at least it stops my language ability from degenerating any further, i suppose. although i guess it's probably not very good for people receiving my texts because they routinely end up several pages long. speaking of which, does anyone else find obscenely short messages annoying? this is not directed at anyone in particular, by the way. i don't think i have friends like this it's usually just people from school. anyway i just find really short texts very frustrating. it's like talking to someone who doesn't want to talk and just grunts in reply. especially people with iphones and blackberries. you know how the text message screen is styled like a chat window so in addition to obscenely short messages they send you several at one go. so for people like me still using ancient nokia phones i'll be halfway through typing my essay to you and i get 3 more messages.

okay i don't know why this is shaping out to be a post full of complaints but i didn't mean for it to be! anyway i realise i never really plan my posts at all. i usually have just a few things i want to talk about but then they're usually very disparate stuff so i end up with very disjointed posts that ramble on about nothing in particular. like this one that started with a library and that has ended up in complaints.

but it's not all bad i'm actually very happy these few days. (:

alright cliffhanger ending where i don't tell you why i'm happy.

music: just a feeling; maroon 5

aim for my heart if you feel like

2011-09-05T00:08:00.001+08:00

still finding it kind of surreal that in about three weeks' time i will be leaving for tokyo and leaving all that i've ever known for the next few months at least. wonder how the first few days there will feel.

thinking of migrating to tumblr because i'm finding it harder than ever to write lengthy posts. yes twitter, i blame you.

very random i know, but moves like jagger, just a feeling and out of goodbyes have reminded me all over again why maroon 5 has got to be one of the best bands ever.

this post is the epitome of disjointedness. makes me think of that jasper fforde book where everyone has lessened attention spans.

oh no now i think like a goldfish!

music: moves like jagger; maroon 5

half a life.

2011-08-24T17:36:00.002+08:00

i feel super super ultra ultra completely hypocritical now. ):

making excuses for myself, really, but it's so easy to get swayed to one side when you don't have any contact with the other. but thinking about what i've said and what i've done i feel like i'm a completely two-faced monster.

sometimes meaning well isn't enough i guess.

okay. lesson learnt. reserve judgement. especially when i don't know the full story and when it really doesn't involve me directly at all.

music: jar of hearts; sam tsui

who do you think you are

2011-08-12T16:20:00.004+08:00

very overwhelmed by the extent to which i am affected by things outside of my control.

is it morbid to be anticipating an end to this smooth cruising high? it's not as if i'm imagining what would happen if the fall did come, but instead i'm thinking i should enjoy this while it lasts because the fall will come and it's just a matter of time.

music: jar of hearts; sam tsui

before you go.

2011-05-28T21:43:00.004+08:00

i have survived a week of work! i know it doesn't sound like much of an achievement but it really wasn't easy. it's not like the work is hard or anything, though. in fact it's really quite the opposite i think i've really just spent the entire week reading journal articles so if anything it's like school all over again. sometimes i catch myself almost wishing for more concrete work that's set out for me to do. like write a literature review or something. so far my reporting officer has been really nice about everything and i think he doesn't want to scare me off with too much work. but i feel like i'm not able to help with anything at all. ):

most of the time he just comes by near the end of the work day to check on my progress but so far the two reviews that we've had have only been verbal so i don't even know (a) if my thoughts are structured enough when i say them and (b) whether i've been doing things correctly or not. and i think i haven't been reading academic articles for too long it takes me three rereads for some articles to even understand a little what it all is about. but it's good practice i guess! especially since what i'm doing now is related to what i'm doing in school anyway so it'll all help in the long run.

the worst thing about work now is the time i think. because it's so far away i have to go out and take a bus at 6.30am and since it's not bus 10 there isn't even anything to look at but expressways. and i don't know why but somehow i'm always so tired that i fall asleep almost immediately after i get on the second bus at the interchange. even when i had to go take bus 10 to school for my 8am tutorial it wasn't so hard. and 8.30am to 6pm is really tiring i'm always horribly drained by the time 6pm swings around even if i really have only been sitting in an air-conditioned office the whole day. there's just something about it that totally drains me.

before this internship i really never understood why people were so against doing office/deskbound jobs because i always believed that there would be a kind of satisfaction that came from mundane tasks like filing papers or something. even something like doing up excel sheets. it might be boring but at least there would be some semblance of order in your life. but i've had a change of mind already i think after this internship i will have had enough of being at a desk the entire day. it's funny how doing something so sedentary will make you so tired but i think even a busy weekend at whathewants wasn't as tiring as one day of sitting at the office.

but i was counting the number of days for the internship and i realised if i only count the workdays it only lasts 7 weeks. so i'll make the most of the 7 weeks and try and contribute as much as i can! plus everyone at the office seems so nice. they try so hard to make me feel more comfortable and i really appreciate their efforts. but being so socially inept sometimes all i can do is smile and then i feel bad because if i were them i would think i was being patronising/not even really listening.

someday i should go take a course/get one of those self-help books on how to be a great conversationalist or something and save myself the agony.

anyway i just realised i'll be working away the entire GSS again ): i have no luck with GSS at all i'm never able to shop when it comes around! the next round of summer holidays i swear if i work at all i will go and do some slack part time job that won't take up so much time. i should take time off as a student before i graduate and start work and there's no longer any time left to do anything but climb along slowly till we all fall down.

baek ji young's live rendition of that woman. she has such an amazing voice. and she's really pretty when she smiles! like right at the start. even her eyes crinkle up into smiles as well. it's the kind of smile that's so infectious and i realise this would sound more normal if i were a guy or if i were describing a guy instead. ahem. anyway if anyone reading this has watched secret garden i think that sit-up scene at the beginning of the video before she starts singing is one of my all-time favourite kdrama scenes. it's so cute! :D i feel like rewatching the drama again. hyun bin! :D

music: that woman; baek ji young

you who couldn't even be average

2011-05-20T14:04:00.004+08:00

it worries me that what i'm most concerned about in the days leading up to the start of my internship is what i'm going to wear. i feel like such a bimbo for thinking about things like this! it ought to be stuff like "will i be able to do what they want me to do?" or "do i remember enough about statistics to help with their research?" or "will i even be able to add value in any way at all to their work?" or "such a wonderful opportunity for gaining experience this is!" that should be swimming around in my head right now. but no at this moment all i can honestly say is that i'm only thinking about what to wear.

if i were my employer i'd be seriously reconsidering my decision to hire me now.

but it's really a very important concern! someone told me that a friend was fired on the first day because of inappropriate attire. by the way, i am really sorry if that someone is you because i have horrid memory for who says what i only remember the what and not the who. it happens for everyone because of my amazing ability to only remember parts of stuff and not the whole. i have a brain like a goldfish. which, incidentally, has only a memory span of three seconds. bet you didn't know that. and i don't know why i remember only silly facts like that.

anyway it's a pressing concern for me because even though this isn't my first job it is the first one in which i have to be dressed more presentably since for the other two dressing really wasn't that important at all.

so in short i think i have legitimate reason to feel concerned about this. yes i'm really just trying to justify my acting like an airhead. please don't point that out let it just sit in my subconscious. at least i'm going to be proactive about it and go out and look for more work-appropriate clothes!

i am sorry reading this has been such a waste of your time because this has been such an immensely frivolous post. i just feel obligated somehow to blog because i don't want my blog to die just because i've got twitter now.

new baek ji young song! if you're a kdrama watcher i'm sure you've heard her songs before they're always used as drama osts. this one grows on you the more you listen to it even though it's not as much of an instant favourite like her previous ones were.

always meeting average guys

always loving averagely

in an average looking house

with average children

only feeling average pain

only feeling average happiness

just wondering which is better -- to live so averagely or to put up with intense pain to feel intensely happy at times.

music: baek ji young; average

i can't get any closer

2011-05-17T15:19:00.004+08:00

there must be something to be enjoyed even in just being swept along by the turmoil of everything happening around you, but lately i just feel very tired by all these expectations. today has been the first day in a while that i've really been able to sit down and not feel pressured to do something. but even then it's not exactly a whole day to myself since i only managed to sit down and not do anything about half an hour ago. (and the second i finished this sentence my mum came back and called for me to go type a text for her -- see what i mean?) it bugs me that i get so impatient with everything that i seemingly have to do or am obligated to do but honestly is there anything bad in being selfish once in a while so i actually have some time to myself? but then right after all that fuming i start thinking it's really just small things so it shouldn't warrant such an explosive reaction (even if it's just internal and anyway with my temper i'm sure it shows externally as well). it's just that all these small things add up. trickle by trickle and bit by bit they take up so much of my time and some days it just irks me so much all i want to do is shut myself up in a room and wish everyone away.

sometimes i feel like everyone is just using everyone else.

it's so disheartening to feel this way because then it means nobody just wants me there, and it's always because they need me to do something that i'm even around at all. i know this may not be the case and i'm probably just misunderstanding other people's intentions (and overestimating myself) but sometimes it's just really hard to shake this feeling. especially when i know i'm guilty of it too, which only makes it even more apparent that other people do so as well.

okay angry irritable mood over.

music: lee sun hee; fox rain

the most beautiful lie in the world

2011-04-24T23:25:00.004+08:00

slaving away for the finals for the past few days! so tiring. okay i lie it's not really slaving away if i still find time to watch random shows and um, play pokemon. yes i'm revisiting my childhood and you can't say it's before i'm halfway through my first because my first childhood is definitively over. ):

anyway i really only wanted to share this because i think it's very cute but i doubt anyone would agree. and since i think it's been a while since my last fangirl post...

makes me happy every time i watch it.

music: words that freeze my heart; wheesung

i climbed the tree to see the world

2011-04-10T13:22:00.004+08:00

my social psychology tutor has this habit of playing music before she starts the lesson, because it's an 8am tutorial that half the class is late for every week. usually i reach really early, so i always get to hear the songs that she plays at the start. but because it's also my busiest day of the week when most of my assignments are due, i normally rush to get some work done so it becomes just background music to me. some time ago -- i think the tutorial two or three weeks ago -- she played this song.

three seconds into the opening piano segment i stopped what i was doing and sat and listened to the song, completely absorbed.

sometimes i find music truly, truly amazing. although i guess some people might disagree, i like that you don't have to be technically versed in music to recognize a beautiful song when you hear one. i don't know if it was just me who felt the song this way; most of the other people in the classroom seemed oblivious. if you listen to the song i hope you find it as beautiful as i did.

lyrics if you couldn't make out the words -- i know i couldn't until i specifically listened for the lyrics because i was too preoccupied with listening to the piano and the way his voice turns (there must be some technical term for this but i don't know how else to describe it).

out in the garden where we planted the seeds
there is a tree as old as me
branches are sewn by the colour of grief
ground had arose and passed its knees

by the cracks of its skin i climbed to the top
i climbed the tree to see the world
when the gusts came around to blow me down
i held on as tightly as you held onto me
i held on as tightly as you held onto me

and i built a home
for you
for me

until it disappeared
from me
from you

and now it's time
to leave
and turn to dust

music: to build a home; the cinematic orchestra

i wonder if you know

2011-03-30T20:05:00.005+08:00

on the bus today i suddenly realised i now have a relatively clearly formulated answer to "what do you think is your greatest weakness" type of interview questions:

i dwell too much on compliments, because i try too hard to please.

i know for some people it's walking, but for me it's bus rides that make me super self-reflexive, which is also why i normally enjoy (prefer?) long bus rides alone.

i'm turning into more of a social recluse every day. i just tire of people sometimes.

-----------------------

that previous sentence makes this song i want to talk about so ironic. anyway i like this much, much more than the tamia original.

times like this when i have more than one song i want on constant repeat make me wish i had a player that lets me create playlists on the go. but i still love the one i have now even if it's almost embarrassingly old; at least the battery doesn't die on me even if i use it everyday without charging it for a week. and yes, that is a dig at all you swanky apple users and your constant need to charge up haha.

music: officially missing you; geeks

i miss you even more.

2011-03-23T23:24:00.004+08:00

i shouldn't be here because what i should be doing is typing my japanese blog post instead. but i am stuck because i honestly have too many thoughts in my head now to be able to sift out the relevant ones. it's a very strange topic anyway; what can you say about marriage/men and women?

i should just translate dane cook's brain ninjas stand-up skit. but that is going to turn out waaaaay weird in japanese.

やめたほうがいい。

since i'm here anyway, i'm going to try and make this a decent post so i won't disappoint my ardent readers (that means you, sam, since i think you're just about the only person who comes here anymore haha. and yvonne of the yukon too).

very pleasantly surprised by japanese and intercultural communication midterms, and when i say very i really mean very. but then media writing had to come along and dampen my spirits. but no matter at least there're rewrites for media writing! not that they help very much but any help is good i guess.

and i think i'm finally beginning to really appreciate the morning bus rides to school every wednesday even if it means i have to wake up at ungodly hours. when i'm not drifting off to sleep (and hitting my head really loudly on the window pane -- so embarrassing -_-) i get to see the first rays of morning creep up and light up the sky. i'm sure it'd be so much more picturesque if there weren't that many buildings in the way, but even the light filtered through the spaces between the buildings is pretty. and when you go over the bridge and you see the marina bay area it really almost feels worthy of a postcard. i would take a picture to try and show you guys what it looks like, but (a) the smudges on the window would kill the scene, (b) probably wouldn't be able to take a good picture on a moving bus (thank you mr. bus uncle for always driving so fast and getting me to school in good time), (c) a picture wouldn't be able to fully capture the light and how it hits the ground and surfaces and (d) someone might make off with my camera while i'm asleep.

use your imagination, kids, like spongebob always says.

or you can just wake up to take the bus at an unearthly time like i do.

music: alex ft. jane, if i could turn it back

i didn't know at that time

2011-03-19T21:27:00.005+08:00

i wish i'd been able to find one with english lyrics, but i guess japanese will have to do. choice lyrics are translated (poorly) into english because i love the way the lyrics were written. give it a listen if you've got the time, and you should find the time to because it is a really nice song. do it so when zombies overrun the world and you're about to be eaten alive you can feel happy that you were able to hear this song at least once.

by the way, hyun bin in the movie looks awesome as usual. so you've got both visual and aural goodness in one single video. how's that for multi-tasking and making the most of your time? wish the movie would be screened here as well, but i shouldn't get my hopes up for that. should just wait for the dvd to hit stores and maybe buy it online or something.

lyrics:

그때는 정말 몰랐어요

あの時は　本当にわからなかった

at that time i really did not know

우리 두 사람 참 아름다웠죠

僕たち二人　本当に美しかったんだね

the two of us were so beautiful

찬바람이 불면

冷たい風が吹くと

when the cold wind blows

그대 더 그리워 지네요

あなたがより恋しくなるよ

i miss you even more

겨울이 추운걸

冬が寒いことを

the coldness of winter

그 땐 몰랐어요

あの時は知らなかったんだ

i didn't know at that time

...

(not sure how to translate this bit line by line because it doesn't seem like it would make sense)

내주머니에 항상 있던 작은 그대의 찬손은이젠 뒤져봐도 없어요

僕のポケットにいつもあった小さいあなたの冷たい手は今ではくまなく探してもないんだね

no matter how i search for it your small cold hand that was always in my pocket isn't there

(why does it sound so morbid after i translate it -_- it's supposed to sound romantic -- you know how in dramas the guy always takes the girl's hand and puts it in his pocket so she isn't cold anymore -- that's what it's supposed to be and not some crazy serial killer with a fetish for hands)

...

가지말아요 날 버리지 말아요

行かないで私を捨ててないでください

please don't go please don't abandon me

---

sounds awfully cheesy in english (probably just my bad translation) but in both japanese and korean it sounds beautiful.

while i'm at it i might as well include wheesung's new song too. (: makes me happy to have good music at least.

music: if i could bring you back; alex ft. jane

you will never know

2011-03-19T19:50:00.004+08:00

upset over many little things because so many things are not going the way i intend them to.

i was writing my study group report for japanese, and was trying to describe the frustration of not being able to say what i most wanted to say in japanese. but then i realised it happens even for english now -- sometimes words just fail me. and it's doubly as frustrating when it happens for english. it's not like i was amazingly eloquent to begin with, but i've always taken some pride at least in being good at english. i wouldn't mind as much if i couldn't convey what i wanted to say in chinese or japanese, because i would expect that. but nowadays i take so much time going over a sentence agonizing over how to put down what i really mean into words. it's happening so frequently now it scares me. i don't know how language ability can just vanish so suddenly and swiftly. or maybe it's because i'm just beginning to take notice of it now, and it has really always been this way?

sometimes i even catch myself explaining something in japanese -- or worse, in (bad) korean -- to myself. maybe things are starting to leak out of my head because it's filled to capacity, so the more things i learn in japanese the more english and chinese i forget. but it's really frustrating, especially when you want to say something and you can only remember how to say so exactly in some other language that the person you are talking to won't understand anyway.

it's like enforced silence. because i can't say what i really want people to know i figure i should just not talk. but not talking isn't the solution either. there'll be a deluge of reports for the next few weeks, so writing will be a problem too. i can already foresee so much frustration in doing them.

exchange might be cancelled, because of all the problems in japan now. i really don't know how i'll react if it really is cancelled. if it really is cancelled i hope i get the news when i'm home and alone. i've been looking so forward to it that it almost seems like it's already a done deal and that i'll just have to count down to the trip. but now everything's hanging in the balance. don't count your chickens before they're hatched, right? should have thought about that before everything.

not doing very well in my new media modules as well, so my cap is in danger too. but i've really been working hard, so the frustration piles up when you get back an assignment that you know you have really put in effort for and for which your grade is less than satisfactory. even my film and literature module for japanese studies isn't going well. and it really isn't like i don't try. i've worked hard for every assignment so i don't know what's going wrong. with media writing it just feels like i'm not cut out for writing simply. don't know if it's because i have convoluted thoughts or if it's because i'm just not good at writing.

work keeps coming even as i struggle to finish what i wanted to finish last week. i'm really wondering what the whole point is if you have to spend your whole life struggling to keep up. is there really any end to all of this anyway? this really shouldn't be the way to live. but i'm in arts, and it's supposed to be so much slacker than any other faculty. so it's really just a problem with me isn't it? you don't see the law or medicine students complaining very much, do you?

and then thinking about all the people in japan struggling with so much more than what i have to deal with now i just feel so superficial and hypocritical.

it's scary how all these thoughts just add on to each other and threaten to overwhelm me everytime i am not entirely preoccupied with something else. but i'm not depressed or anything; if i really had to describe my state of mind it would be something more like tired. i just don't understand anymore why everyone has to keep trying to reach for something their entire lives. you can call it motivation or ambition but it's really a never-ending race. you can keep running your entire life and there's no guarantee that you'll see the end even if you run so hard that you feel like you would collapse with the next step you take.

everyone's own problems seem the biggest to them. but there should be a way to look past all of this shouldn't there?

questions i will never know the answers to.

sometimes i think i make the smallest things out to be so much more than they really are, so i really just set myself up for disappointment. i have much too wild an imagination than what would be considered healthy. and because i imagine too much and ascribe too much meaning to small things i end up foolishly misleading myself to believe that certain things are true.

intercultural communication keeps going on about how we're separated from each other by the envelope of our own skins, so effectively we're always alone even if we're in a crowd and surrounded by other people. it's so fatally depressive that no matter how much you try no one will ever experience the exact sentiments that you feel. you can try and explain something a thousand times and ask"you know what i mean?" and the other person can NEVER ever really understand more than a fraction of what it is that you truly feel. on the flipside i guess it's also a good thing, in a way. it's like having a secret world into which you can retreat everytime you feel tired of dealing with the world outside. but to find someone who can understand you a bit more than that fraction that an average person would must be such a wonderful thing.

on a side note -- which totally encapsulates the warped nature of my mind -- when i typed 'we're separated from each other by the envelope of our own skins' the only image i had in my head was of pulling my skin out shred by shred in a woeful bid to have someone really understand. not going to happen, obviously, because i'm not twisted enough for that. okay actually the image i had wasn't exactly of myself; it wasn't someone i knew, just a vague sense of someone human doing so. i wonder if anyone's ever been pushed so close to the banks of sanity to contemplate doing something like that. i hope i never go close to that edge.

so glad that it's the weekend and i can at least slow down a little so i don't feel so suffocated by all the expectations. mostly they're my own expectations really, so there really isn't any pressure except that which i give myself to meet them. i just feel much more than usual that life is meant for something better than being just-so.

music: cruel fairytale; iu

if there are too many hopes

2011-03-12T16:09:00.003+08:00

many many thoughts but i don't know how to encapsulate them in words.

don't know how new media can still be called impersonal when it brings such devastation so close to you. wish there was something more i could do aside from just looking at updates that bring worse news each time the list jumps.

hoping huili stays safe, and that selfish as this may be, that no one in the department is personally affected by this.

music: we're very well; raymond lam

only i didn't know.

2011-03-04T22:54:00.002+08:00

i regret taking my media writing module so, so, so much.

1) the assignments just keep on coming.

2) which wouldn't be that bad because it's really one assignment a week and probably a manageable workload, but every assignment is a pain in the rear since you have to do so much preparation for it. how am i supposed to know what counts as a meeting/speech/breaking news that is newsworthy? do speeches at nus open house count? is a focus group discussion a meeting? it's not like i randomly have board meetings i can sit in on.

3) the writing is so plain and so stark it's honestly stifling every time i sit down to write a media writing assignment. i'm not trying to say my normal writing is grandiose and eloquent and rich and immersive but media writing is like lifeless writing. it's so stuck-up with all its rules and requirements that need to be stuffed in a corner somewhere so someone can go grow mushrooms over them.

i know complaining here doesn't do a thing -- it doesn't even make me feel very much better despite the ranting. and because i know (hope?) i'm not the only weird person who googles module names in the hope of reading complaints/reviews from people who have taken the module before, DO NOT TAKE NM2220 INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA WRITING because you are courting death if you do so. or at least looking to spend an entire semester completely shackled under the binds of rigid writing rules. or looking to become totally sapped of energy with all the looking for things to write about. you have been warned.

music: the story only i didn't know; iu

if i continue this way will you love me

2011-03-02T21:56:00.003+08:00

even a little comfort is enough at times.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

her heart is timid

2011-01-24T00:33:00.005+08:00

charles warnke, thank you.

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
-- http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/dont-date-a-girl-who-reads/

i think this honestly qualifies as one of the best bits of writing i have ever read. it's not just the words he uses it's even the way he writes his sentences so they fit exactly what he's talking about in that sentence. there are so many lines in there that read so perfectly you couldn't imagine a better way to phrase them. i made them bold, but i hope that doesn't affect your reading of it.

he puts me to shame. he encapsulates all the thoughts that i wanted to get out in writing so elegantly.

to be a girl who reads.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

will you love me if i continue this way

2011-01-21T23:43:00.004+08:00

mum's been doing random bouts of spring-cleaning (i help too i'm quite the filial daughter you know) and it's kind of scary how much stuff we have haha.

these are just one half of the shoes we have. there's another half further to the right that i didn't include in the frame because they weren't as neatly lined up. but i swear, most of the shoes belong to either my mum or my older sister. i only have... eight or nine. but in my defense, they're all different kinds of shoes! it's not like i have five pairs of black heels or something.

the wine collection. there're probably some bottles in there that are older than me.

and, while my mum was unpacking the cupboards outside she found a whole bunch of old photo albums. not just our childhood photos but my parents' childhood photos too heh.

see the i-don't-want-to-take-photos-syndrome just runs in the family.

and i realise old photographs kind of look polaroid-ish.

ahahahaha i laughed my head off at this photo. look at the bazooka!!

guess which one's my dad. can't believe how young they look in the photographs.

anyway while we were looking through all the old photos i was thinking how with parents you would never think to imagine that they really have been young once. all your life they're always the older, wiser ones so even though deep inside you know that obviously they've been your age before it's just difficult to fully realise what that means. it scares me a little, getting older. especially now that we're on the threshold (or already crossed the threshold, depending on how you see it) of adulthood. or maybe we're just forever stuck in emerging adulthood (japanese studies really has some practical uses haha). i cannot imagine how things would be like a few decades later.

and it also got me thinking about how parents always seem so infallible and invulnerable when you're young. there's just this mindset that no matter what happens they'll be able to handle it. but as you grow older you begin to see that's not true, and that they're really just humans after all. if there's anything that i hate most about growing out of being a child it's probably this. i know it's probably not fair to expect to depend on your parents forever but sometimes all you want is the knowledge that no matter what happens they'll be there and they'll be able to take care of everything. i know there's freedom in independence but sometimes i'd really rather just not have to think about anything at all and relish that experience of being totally dependent.

alright work work i'm so happy i'm finally up-to-date with readings although i should get my summaries done up as well. but there're all the assignments to do too ): i will never take three new media modules in one semester ever again the workload is insane even though they're all level-2000 modules. i think i had an easier time last semester even though i was taking three level-3000 modules.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

how much longer

2011-01-13T23:18:00.003+08:00

you just know you've taken the wrong module when in the first class of the semester the lecturer gives a 2000-word assignment to be done within a week.

not even done with the first week of school and i'm already swamped with so much work i can't keep up. readings are piling up even though i'm really diligently trying to make my way through them as fast as i can. and assignments keep on coming in too. some of them i can't even do because i don't have the textbook with me and i can only get it next week.

and there's all the administrative stuff to get done too. gaps module classification (which gives me a headache because now i can't count the new media exposure module as part of faculty requirements since it is now under my second major so i need to find another exposure module to take) and tutorial registration and all the documents to get ready for exchange which are due in about a month.

tired! but so much work to do i am going to have to sleep really late tonight again. looking forward to all the random gatherings planed in the following weeks, but then again with all the work piling up i might not even be able to go.

music: keu namja; hyun bin

like the wind

2011-01-07T00:56:00.004+08:00

suddenly seized by a very active personality -- never knew i had one in me -- and hence i've been very strangely enthusiastic about signing up for all sorts of stuff. i blame re-reading ouran high actually; i think i'm kind of channelling tamaki and his senseless unending optimism. sam, about volunteering for the blood drive, it's okay if you don't want to! but i'm really keen on applying for that research assistant position for new media. it's ridiculous how i haven't even sent out the application yet and i'm already hopeful for a positive reply.

and i'm surprised how calm i am about jumping into a module with no one i know taking it. see, that's why i should have just taken media writing earlier on when most people would be taking it instead of now when everyone else has already taken it and passed. i'm already envisioning sitting alone in lectures and tutorials but somehow that thought makes me relish the experience instead of dreading it. could i be turning into even more of a hikikomori? oh the horrors. i'm sure i'll start regretting this decision soon enough though. its one saving grace is the fact that it doesn't really have group work. from what i gather it's mostly about individual work so i guess it's an unsociable module in itself that won't make much of a difference whether or not you take it with a friend or not. and i can always make friends. or not.

lately i've been realising how much of a conversation killer i am. it's like a hidden ability that springs out at you after years of hibernation so it catches you completely unaware. i've never imagined myself the social butterfly kind of person but i've never thought the other extreme either. but following all the various gatherings i've been to this past holiday i've come to the rather frightful conclusion that i'm very much socially inept. conversation literally dwindles away into nothing if i'm forced to talk with someone. it's not that i don't want to talk to that person, or don't enjoy their company. in fact it's quite the opposite, i like being around people and listening to them. but that's just it. my favourite things to do around people don't include talking. and although i've always prided myself on at least being strong at languages (okay, maybe only written chinese stop laughing at my accented chinese you horrible people pffft) and especially at english but somehow these days i'm finding myself using the wrong words and making basic grammatical mistakes i would never have allowed myself to make before.

i think it was mr hsu who said it but i can't quite remember; he said something once about how humans couldn't master multiple languages. or maybe it was really an encouragement for me not to neglect english in my study of japanese, which i seem to have already done. it's like how water spreads out in a vessel and you can't have random spikes in the water level. maybe i've reached my maximum in learning ability and i have to start emptying stuff out to get more stuff in. i feel old.

finished so much for that in technically about a day; it's been a while since i really just read the entire day without doing much else in between besides eating and occasionally sleeping. it's a really nice feeling, and it's one i'd prefer to revisit more often if possible. but now that school's starting the chances of that look pretty dismal even if it was optimistic tamaki speaking. but so much for that was refreshing, insofar as you could actually apply that word to a lionel shriver novel. it was a good read, something i would be proud to say that i have read and would readily recommend to people around me.

taking the book in from the mailbox made me realise that i really like receiving parcels in the mail. although the process of retrieving it was less than fun, really. for some reason mr postman decided he would forgo that obnoxious 'beep beep' and stuff it in the mailbox instead. that mailbox is not built for easy retrieval of a parcel easily about five centimeters thick, so i had to stand outside in the drizzle alternating between pushing and pulling to yank the book out. worth it though, if only for the pleasure of seeing my name imprinted so smugly on the front and unwrapping the parcel (really it's not mine to unwrap even though it has my name on it because technically i think my sister paid for the book after she foisted cash on me for charging it to my amex first, and she was the one who wanted it i think). ahem.

book depository is such a happy find (thank you moses!). makes me feel like i'm one step closer to having an amazing library in my future house stocked from top to bottom with books like so much for that that would stand up to years of re-reading. but that will have to come later because school is starting and that typically means nothing extra outside of assigned readings. but i will work hard this semester even if it means i do nothing but shuttle between school and home because i will push my cap up so i can make the most of my time in japan.

hyun bin's version of that man! although i love his speaking voice i think wheesung and onew have spoilt me when it comes to male singers. but given that he is mainly an actor i guess his version is decent. and the fact that it is his voice makes up for a lot. okay actually if you plug in your earphones and listen to it one more time it sounds a lot better. at least he seems to be really putting a lot into singing the song and not simply depending on his popularity as an actor for the song to be a hit. actually it wouldn't matter much to him whether the song is a hit or not; the drama is already doing so well. i'm so glad it's picked up from its first few episodes in the ratings because it is a good drama that as many people as possible should watch.

and this is for sam! the picture i promised.

i remember sam saying the other day how dramas kind of ruin real life romance because real life guys never act like guys in dramas. which makes me think about katy perry's not like the movies. even if you wait and wait and that one half seems like he'll never arrive i don't think you should settle for. there was this surprisingly good article in today once about settling down versus settling for but in my usual fashion i never thought to clip that article. with the internet nowadays it's probably hiding somewhere if i search hard enough though. anyway. if it doesn't feel perfect, if it doesn't work out, if your leg doesn't pop a la princess mia then he's not him. although it'd probably get unbearably lonely perhaps waiting forever would be preferable to settling for a less than satisfactory partner which would likely end up adding to separation rates anyway.

will sleep and dream of wonderful ramen lunch date tomorrow.

music: keu namja; hyun bin

though you're far away

2010-12-24T23:20:00.004+08:00

funny how so many christmas songs are about white christmases, when that doesn't happen for so many of us around the world. or perhaps it's not so funny after all, since the whole holiday originated from that part of the world. still i guess it'd be nice to have a white christmas at least once. we were so close to having that in europe last year, but we ended up spending it on the train to paris if i'm not wrong. perhaps if the exchange to japan really goes through i might stand a chance of seeing one next year? if the exchange goes through, that is. i'm getting kind of jittery that they have yet to send me dates for the submission of documents. i suppose i should just get all of it done first, but the testimonials part is holding me back. i've never liked having to submit testimonials. adding to that is the fact that i have done absolutely nothing in my year and a half of university besides studying. and i don't have tutors/lecturers in mind who would be able to write convincing testimonials for me. i've been told that these documents are really just a formality, but even then it would be good to have a decent testimonial.

speaking of white christmases, kim joo won's house in secret garden is unbelievably and ridiculously beautiful. especially when it snows. everything seems like it came right out of a fairytale. it's the kind of scenery you could stare at for hours and hours, hoping to imprint it in your memory but failing so woefully because you could never capture every detail minutely enough to make yourself remember exactly how it felt like seeing it then and there right before your eyes. which doesn't make sense because i obviously haven't seen that actual scenery, but it seems like it would be that kind of scenery to me. i would put up a screen capture of it but i haven't found one that perfectly shows its beauty yet. you'd need a video to show that because fitting with his chaebol character it's also as ridiculously huge as it is beautiful. -_-

if i were a sim, that'd be my lifetime wish. to own so lovely a house i wouldn't want to leave it much. i'd fill it with a library of books and dramas and stay in all day. but i'd never find one here in singapore. here's much too rushed a place.

anyway there are way too many dramas called secret garden. there's another older korean drama, a taiwanese drama and now a new local one coming up on channel u. they really need to be more imaginative with their titles. oh but the channel u drama has tender huang anyway. you know, the one i mentioned in an earlier blog post some where.

and ouch my eye hurts i think i might have sore eye or something. my left eye is now so swollen it's half the size of my right eye. and it's completely bloodshot. and it twinges when i stare at something for too long. and the smoke from the family bbq we had earlier today doesn't help at all either. great timing anyway, murphy. you really know how to upset plans.

oh and here's wheesung's remake of michael jackson's you are not alone. i'm not a michael jackson fan, so i'm sure this is a biased fan speaking but i think i prefer wheesung's version. although he's more well-known for his r&b tracks i've always preferred his ballads and his softer songs. okay maybe softer is not the word. it's just the quality of his voice in the song. anyway i just thought it made for a good christmas song even though it's not directly related to christmas. merry christmas, whoever's reading this! (:

music: you are not alone; wheesung

yet another fool

2010-12-20T10:43:00.006+08:00

came online with every intention of changing the template, but then i looked at it again and realised i didn't want to change it any longer. it's still one of my favourite quotes ever, and it still applies so i guess i'll be sticking to this template for a while longer. it's just that i was looking through my photos from korea and there was a photo i wanted to use in a new template but maybe next time i guess, when i finally tire of this present one.

this was from the namsan tower, which really has a staggering number of locks hanging from every corner. some people even resorted to hanging them from pipes because there wasn't any more space left on the grills. there's a similar place in florence as well but i must have misplaced my camera cable so i can't upload the picture (actually i do have that memory card usb reader somewhere but that is missing too i should pay more attention to where i put my stuff).

on a side note, i couldn't remember exactly where i'd seen the locks -- i knew it was either rome or florence or venice -- so i googled it and the auto-complete function came up with "locks of love" and "love padlocks". brings cheesiness to a whole new level, seriously. before seeing that i'd been quite fascinated with the whole idea, but seeing it encapsulated in words like that completely killed my interest. i know the basic idea is about locking up love and all but the idea itself to me was so much more than "love padlocks". sometimes words are just so lacking.

anyway because i can't find my cable i can't upload pictures of my cousin's wedding, but it was all really good fun. it was strange to hear from her friends because in all honesty i've never been very close to my cousins at all so i basically don't know them very well. it was like getting to know someone all over again even though you've essentially known them your whole life. very strange feeling, that.

-----------------

because i'm too lazy to organize my thoughts, abrupt change of subject.

my dad's having surgery at the moment, hopefully everything turns out well. life sure has a way of making fools out of everyone by taking away the things that matter the most. but hopefully his leg will heal nicely so he can go run/jump/do all the things he's been doing for his whole life.

and dawn's stuck at the airport because of snow. first time i've ever resented snow really, when all my life i've been hoping and wishing to really see snow. i hope that clears up fast too, and we get to meet up because it's been too long really.

-----------------

and abrupt change again.

i went to kinokuniya yesterday (bad choice, really bad choice because it was a sunday and there's no where else to go in singapore other than town) and finally managed to get my hands on a passably decent illustrated version of the snow queen. i wish there was a version that let the pictures do more of the storytelling though, because like i said above sometimes words are so lacking. which is strange because i usually place more more value on words because i'm hopeless at all things picture-y (i almost failed art) but recently that's beginning to change as well. anyway i felt kind of dumb for loitering around the children's section -- why can't non-children have picture books as well -_- -- so i tried to hurry up the process as fast as i could. but being dissatisfied with the english versions i ended up traipsing around the store i-don't-know-how-many-times shuffling between the english and chinese and japanese sections to find one i was happy with. in the end i went with the english one because i couldn't find any in the chinese and japanese sections anyway.

and in a ridiculous and completely unfounded show of confidence in my japanese ability i went and bought the japanese version of the little prince. i've always wanted to get a copy of the book for myself after lydia let me read hers, but right now i'm regretting it. the book says it's suitable for children in primary school and above, but i still have bits that i don't understand in it.

---------------

and in other news secret garden is really working up to be one of my best-loved dramas. okay i know what you're thinking it's fangirl-mode all over again. but it's really a nice drama and hyun bin is so perfect in his role as kim joo won. okay it's not like any of you would know what i'm talking about so suffice to say that it's a really good drama. plenty of priceless moments! i'd find a clip of it and put it here but it's not sufficiently well-known enough for people to make clips of it and put it on youtube. i'd do it myself but i'm a little lazy and anyway they're really coming down hard on youtube clips of unlicensed stuff so...

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ohhhh i remember what i really wanted to put up now.

i love foxtrot. usually i like peter more but jason just kills in this one. anyway i didn't understand the comic at first, but my brother (could you be a bigger geek hahaha) explained it and it was really funny. go wiki it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character) and you'll understand.

now i'm an ever bigger geek than ever, sigh.

---------------

sorry this is so disorganized but i was closing the pictures folder and saw this one and thought i'd share it.

it's not very polished, if you get what i mean. the way it's phrased and all isn't very poetic (i don't know if that's the best word to describe it) but i liked it enough to take a photo of it anyway. and it was in a fried chicken joint. speaking of fried chicken, i am sorely missing korean fried chicken. if i get to go to korea again i'm going to eat fried chicken like crazy because now i know there really isn't an alternative for it available here. kfc doesn't even come close. it's thaaaaat good. and the franchises here aren't the same either. i know bbq chicken has outlets in singapore but the menu is different and the chicken tastes different too.

okay strangely enough this entry kind of degenerated into an aftermath-of-korea-trip entry. told you my thoughts were disorganized.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

like a shadow

2010-12-12T10:40:00.003+08:00

don't ever wish your life was more like a hollywood movie/tv drama because seriously the excitement is more tiring than anything. excitement is quite the inappropriate word in this context though. i've just had enough with going to places not intended for frequent visits and are really uncomfortable places anywhere. there's always some kind of undercurrent of threat and death behind all that 'place of healing' idea. it's where people get healed but at the same time it's also where people get lost.

with everything that's been happening it almost feels like someone's out to get us or something. silly idea, i know, but you can't help but think this way after the disturbing frequency of accidents happening.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

two steps back

2010-12-09T09:35:00.002+08:00

back from genting/kl and back from things that i really don't want to have to go through again. whoever told you video games are bad for you lied. and thank goodness for my love of all things violence and gore because that at least means i'm not squeamish about blood. but make no mistake about it it was still terrifying not knowing what was going to happen, and lying in the dark too afraid to go to sleep and squinting to make out the slight rising and falling of the blankets with every breath. it's not something i'd wish on my worst enemy.

anyway back. genting doesn't seem to hold the same magic it did back when we were kids. the whole place seems more dingy and run-down than ever before, and you seem to notice all the hairline cracks and spots that you never saw before. the mascots are just people in frumpy costumes, and the rides don't even look half as enticing as before. guess it's all part of getting old. and i swear i will not bemoan looking younger than i really am any longer, because apparently i look old enough now to get into the casino. i was half a step away from going up to the security guard and saying "are you SURE you don't want to check my id?"

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

one step closer

2010-12-02T23:15:00.003+08:00

okay i realise how bad the previous post sounded. but i was delirious from studying.

anyway i'm not a flighty flooze of a fangirl no matter how much that previous post made me out to be alright. i think people must think i'm a total airhead. -_-

sometimes it bothers me that people think (or that i think people think anyway) that i have like a three-minute interest in things and that i switch from one fad to another without so much as a blink. okay, maybe i'm exaggerating but it's not true anyway. i know it seems like that but i'm really not that frivolous. or perhaps i should say i hope i'm not all that frivolous. it's like having many varied interests but i do take them seriously. it's not like i find a new thing to gush over every week and promptly forget the old one or anything.

i don't know how to put it and i think i'm just digging a deeper grave for myself. look how self-absorbed this post is haha count the numbers of 'i's.

alright just random ramblings. anyway i'm so glad my papers are finally over. so many things i want to do! but first i'm going to finally get started on fable 3 and brotherhood it's amazing how i managed to refrain from starting them before. alright abrupt end of post while i get to playing heh.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

so she learned how to laugh

2010-11-30T19:14:00.002+08:00

i am vaguely aware that i should not be here, just over a day to my last paper with none of the course material in my head. there's just no inclination to study whatsoever, and it tires me just sitting down to that pile of notes. it's not like i've been studying too much or anything; if anything it might just be that six days of break in between my second last paper and the last one on thursday that's making me so sick of studying, or at least trying to study. plus staying at home is turning me into a hikikomori, slowly but surely.

but of course, it's never very fun at all reading/listening to other people's complaints, is it?

anyway, i'm really thankful for the weekly bursts of happiness (short, but very fulfilling) from walking dead, secret garden and that funny hongkong drama serial. i totally have an auntie persona (okay, so maybe i have many) in me. this one at present is the couch potato version with a vociferous demand for television. in my defence, they're really good shows! the walking dead is hands down one of the best zombie shows in a long time. it's got brilliant, brilliant make-up and a pretty solid storyline too, as a bonus. it's been a while since i've watched a zombie show that actually made me nervous while watching it. it's the kind of program that literally draws you in and your heart starts racing just watching it.

and secret garden is probably going to be one of the most fondly-remembered korean dramas for a while. it's got a stellar cast fronted by hyun bin and ha ji won, and that alone is more than enough reason to watch it. hyun bin himself is more than enough reason to watch the show. after the snow queen he can do no wrong in my eyes, but even with that he outdoes himself in secret garden. his character is so hilarious and when the plot calls for it so infuriatingly self-absorbed as well. the storyline itself is good too, plus there are no tragically drawn-out deaths by long illness/sudden deaths by car crash. not yet, anyway. it IS classified as a melodrama, so i'm crossing my fingers and hoping really hard that no one dies.

and that funny hongkong drama has huang zi hua in it, and what can i say i've had a soft spot for him ever since dong du shen tan and that disgustingly sad ending that took everyone by surprise. and despite all the fan petitions for a happy ending i think it was an ending that was really appropriate after all. anyway it's totally comic relief, which is always good.

i think i've said this before, but i really do admire scriptwriters and producers and directors. scriptwriters for their amazing ability to write stories that resonate with people and producers and directors for creating a show just the way it is that it seems so perfect and how there's no other better way of framing that particular scene and that particular emotion. and maybe even artistes, for that matter, although this admiration is probably limited to those few who really make audiences feel for their characters. it's not just about looking pretty.

and it's funny how television watchers and book readers are usually in opposition to each other. why can't you enjoy a good book and also take pleasure in television too? it's like mass culture versus high culture all over again, but there are times when you just don't want to read. okay rambling rambling i should stop.

there's this song from secret garden that's been stuck in my head for a while now. before anyone thinks anything strange the lyrics do not in any way reflect what i'm thinking. i just think they're really good lyrics which a lot of people could identify with. and baek ji young's voice, what can i say. she has this quality to her voice that makes you instantly... sad? down? depressed? they're not the right words. perhaps melancholic. give it a listen if you're free.

one woman loves you
that woman loves you wholeheartedly
she follows you around like a shadow everyday
that woman is laughing and crying

how much, how much more
do i have to gaze at you alone
this love that came like the wind
this love like a beggar
if i continue this way, will you love me?
just come a little nearer
a little more
if i take one step closer to you
then you take two steps back
the me who loves you is next to you now ( i think this sounds better in chinese -- ai zhe ni de wo)
that woman is crying

that woman is timid so she learned how to laugh
that woman's heart has many stories
that she can't even tell her best friend
so her heart is full of tears

that's why, that woman,
she loved you
because you are just the same as her
yet another fool, yet another fool
can't you hug me before you go?
i want to receive love
everyday in my heart
just in my heart i shout
and that woman is next to him even today

do you know that woman is me?
you're not pretending that you don't know right?
you really don't know because you're a fool

-- that woman; baek ji young

i'm not sure about this but i kind of think this is that kind of universal feeling that everyone would have gone through. it's sappy and melodramatic and all, but when you're feeling it then it means the world to you and there're just no words for you to describe the breadth and magnitude of what you're feeling. and in a sense it's a kind of fortune to be able to feel this way for someone too, isn't it. the richness of emotion -- even if it's sadness -- that probably only comes your way a couple of times in your life, if you're lucky. which is probably one reason why dramas are so popular i think. they allow you to relive over and over again such depth of emotion. and if you watch the drama then you'll fully understand what i mean, but the song fits the drama so perfectly. plus baek ji young recorded a second version of the song -- "that man" instead of "that woman". see, universal feeling, i told you.

wynne was telling me some time ago that korean songs have this way of going from a low note to a high note (there was some term for it i think but i can't remember ):) which makes the song sound so much richer. and i love this aspect of korean songs. they're so powerful moodchangers precisely because of the way they fall and lift and fall and lift.

it seems a long time ago that i promised myself to master japanese and korean in the next five years. i think i have three left now come end of this year. listening to songs like this make me wish so fervently that i could understand korean because the translation just mangles it. even with the minute amount of korean i understand the song means so much more than the english version. or maybe i'm over reading it/applying it to the context of the drama.

music: keu yeoja; baek ji young

we're in different places under the same sky

2010-11-06T20:39:00.003+08:00

drowning in work this is not a good feeling at all on the bright side i managed to get more work done today than what i did the last two days. but since the last two days i did no work at all i guess any work would have been an improvement already anyway so maybe it's not such a bright side after all. what do i do if i have no distractions to block it's not facebook/fable 3/sims 3 late night/anything that's making me not do work it's sheer laziness. i have no inclination to do anything else but lie down and not move. ):

okay i guess my one distraction is the walking dead but since i missed the first episode on friday and i haven't exactly been able to catch a rerun i guess it technically doesn't count as much of a distraction after all. i am however planning to watch it on sunday at 7.45pm but i think even that plan will be ruined because of dinner at my grandmother's house.

japanese oral test on monday and i am frankly a little nervous because i know i always clam up at oral tests and forget everything but this time it's worse since there's so much more to remember than ever and i am so afraid i will make my partner do badly as well since there's only so much you can do to try and save a conversation with a partner who can do nothing but splutter.

16 days to my first two papers, 17 days to my third paper, 21 days to my fourth and 25 days to my last paper and freedom for about a month.

music: don't forget; baek ji young

tremble.

2010-10-06T17:39:00.003+08:00

if you have never seen this...

his eyes just seem to get sadder and sadder and i don't want to imagine why.

working on my nm paper makes for frequent updates because it means i'm online almost the whole day. but i get work done, really!

music: the name i loved; onew ft kim yeon woo

who knows

2010-10-06T15:53:00.003+08:00

how cool is that? :D

okay so you'd definitely need the ring and all but this would be a nice way to start it off.

forge in halo reach seems amazing just looking at all the screens makes me excited. oh, by the way, i was totally researching for my nm paper when i found that picture. life's good that way.

music: hello; shinee

i'll still smile.

2010-10-03T17:17:00.006+08:00

culture industries paper is killing me slowly, save me. i'm a thousand words in for a two thousand five hundred words essay, but with every word i type i'm wondering if i should scrap the whole paper and redo it. and you would think it would be easier, given the fact that it's about video games. it lacks focus, and good, extensive research which i've always gotten away with not doing but it seems like i can't any longer. usually when i start writing a paper i jump straight in and write and research for citations when i need to prove something. but i think i can't do that now, because with each new citation that i find i realise my paper is becoming more and more worthless since it's really only a rehash of a lot of other papers. i think i should scrap the paper and do a case study on a specific game, which might help matters since there are so many games and there can't have been a case study on each one yet. i hope.

halfway through the halo reach campaign and i'm actually very glad sam and py got it for me, because it's turning out pretty fine. but my brother is having his promos now and i have to wait for him to finish the campaign. it's not like i have a lot of time to play now anyway. so i was complaining to him how by the time he's done with his papers i'll be really busy with final paper submissions and sep application, and then there's final exams coming up soon as well so basically i'll have no time to play at all. but he was like "no we'll have to finish it by november 17" and i was like "that's basically when i have to start studying what are you talking about" and he went "that's when brotherhood comes out".

i have no time to do all the things that really matter in life. ):

anyway my brother showed me this it's pretty funny. just watch till after he leaves the class.

fun stuff.

anyway e-learning week is so dumb i still have to go back to school. -_-

music: byul; kim ah joong

the name i loved.

2010-09-15T12:57:00.004+08:00

i am sick to death of studying about singapore's history, and i can't get things straight -- like what is up with decolonization being a neo-colonial plot and stupid, stupid politicking and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres. not a good time to get frustrated with studying when the midterm is tomorrow and i need to start on japanese as well. ):

wondering if i should get halo reach, but i think not because it's just a rehash again. so much for finishing the fight. stop milking our money and give us something genuinely new. ):<

okay i should totally get back to studying but i cannot stand studying about politics. why in the world did i take up this module. it's totally going to be a cap-puller and i can't even s/u this module. feel like strangling myself for my stupidity but i guess that won't help tomorrow when i'm staring at a blank piece of paper trying to think of stuff to write.

music: the name i loved; onew ft. kim yeon woo

for a moment

2010-09-03T00:00:00.004+08:00

nope, wasn't happy enough to blog that day, which explains the dearth of blog posts since then. but i'm happy today because i got to meet up with people, and i got to eat meatballs and this amazing, amazing almond cake.

i've probably posted up pictures of it before, but you can never have enough of food pictures right, especially when they look as awesome as that. i'm not kidding when i say that i'll be very happy if someone learns how to make a cake like that, because then i'll be able to learn as well. online recipes look difficult and i'm so untalented at baking that everything turns out tasting like flour and nothing much else.

and i'm happy as well because wheesung's back! there hasn't been a fangirl post for so long already anyway, so bear with this. love his new song, and i'm still very impressed that his live performances sound so pitch-perfect. and to top it all off, shinee's still performing too, which means i get to watch two of my favourite acts all at the same time. overload of amazing music -- hence the relatively good mood these days.

unfortunately i do have a lot of work to do which kind of takes a bit of the happiness away. but i guess it helps the days move along. cannot wait for holidays! went for the exchange talks with rachel and yimean today, and couldn't help but miss korea when they were talking about their experiences in korea. thought of dongdaemun and how you could always find a shop open at any time of the day -- yes, even at 4am -- and how seoul is literally a city that never sleeps. it's always flowing with so much energy and life you can't help but be carried along because it's so infectious that way. kind of swings me towards wanting to go to korea for exchange, although that'd be pretty dumb because i'm majoring in japanese studies. wish there was a korean studies as well, then i'd totally do a double major in japanese and korean studies. although i'd still have not much idea what my degree would do for me when i finally do graduate. speaking of which, being the fickle-minded thing i am, i'm rethinking the whole japanese studies versus communications and new media majors again. choosing the latter as first major is totally the safe route, because it'd mean that i'd definitely have something to do in future since it is a way more general major. but i cannot see myself doing honours for cnm. i can however imagine how it'd be like just going on for the rest of my years in university doing japanese studies, even though i complain all the time about how tedious and overlapping all the modules are. thing about it is, it gets boring but at least i know what i'm doing in there. in cnm sometimes i just feel so out of my depth especially since a lot of the people there have some background in media studies from poly. not that competition is a bad thing, it's just that i don't see myself doing so well in there. and to save myself all the trouble i'm probably just going to continue with japanese studies as first major anyway, so i won't have to retake another exposure module.

okay, rambling over. i will now go and dig up more research on make inu. see all the wonders of japanese studies; you get to learn so much about a society you almost wish you'd never taken up this course so your perfect illusion of that society is preserved instead of becoming sullied by reality.

but we all wake from our dreams, don't we.

music: i even thought of marriage; wheesung

you're breaking my heart but you don't know

2010-08-15T22:23:00.001+08:00

this time tomorrow, i hope i'm happy enough to be blogging.

wish me luck!

music: sick enough to die; mc mong ft. mellow

i want you to stay away from my heart.

2010-07-21T15:54:00.005+08:00

i'm back, but closing my eyes i can still see the streets and hear the sounds. and smell the fried chicken, haha. if there's one thing i miss most i think it's korean fried chicken. it's really different.

i'm forever in two minds about everything, and never wholeheartedly committed to feeling something. happens for every single thing, which sometimes annoys me to no end. like coming back, i'm half happy and half regretful. okay, maybe more than just half regretful. more than once on the trip i seriously considered what it would feel like just giving everything up and staying there indefinitely, get a job that provides lodging as well and live my life day to day. but then sanity kicks in and i start thinking about all the impracticalities and how devastating it would be when i finally quit dreaming.

and then the half happy part of me thinks how nice it is to be home and safe and secure.

just once, i wonder how it'd feel like to be completely and fully happy. sounds very depressing but i'm not in any way feeling under the weather. it's actually something to work towards i think. anyway i've received so much on this trip i guess it's time to start giving back because like everyone knows only very special people are able to receive without giving.

thinking about school gives me this sick, sick feeling deep inside. ):

music: sick enough to die; mc mong ft. mellow

can't make sense of anything

2010-07-03T22:24:00.002+08:00

doing up the itinerary for korea in between waiting for the guild 2 to stop going out of sync makes me look so much more forward to actually going for the trip. it's only seven more days away and as strange as it sounds it both seems really far off and really soon. really far off because i honestly cannot wait to finally fly off and enjoy my holidays instead of working my guts out, and really soon because we booked this trip so much in advance (i think it was at least two months in advance) so it seemed as if it would take an eternity before the date finally arrived. which, come to think of it, it kind of did anyway.

i half wish i had a better camera so i could take more decent photos over there but i guess it's more the photographer than the camera really so i will make do. (: okay that makes me sound like i'm boasting about my amazing photo-taking skills but i don't mean that. i mean even if i had some top-of-the-line camera i probably wouldn't be able to take photos as nice as someone else with just an iphone or something.

two days break from work! makes me very happy. without realising it i've worked most of the holidays away already and even though they're really short-handed i can't bring myself to work that much for the rest of the holidays. i'm hoping more new staff will come in so i can quietly take myself out of the schedule. see, i'm not that nice a person after all, because if i were really nice i wouldn't just think of myself and take random days off instead of helping out.

driving test is on august 16! i am awfully unprepared and very tempted to book about ten more lessons that i know i will regret. it's not just the waking up so early that gets to me it's just a strange nameless dread i have whenever i know i have a driving lesson on for the day. but best to get it done and out of the way first time round so i don't have to bother with it any longer i guess. so i will go book more lessons instead of waiting around and moaning about my awful lack of driving ability.

music: like being hit by a bullet; baek ji young

as if waking from a dream.

2010-06-17T22:48:00.005+08:00

it is so difficult to tell myself that i shouldn't buy anything right now because of the korea trip three weeks from now. but it's the gss so everything around just seems so cheap! i'm definitely going to compile a lengthy list of stuff to buy. makes me very happy just thinking about it.

booked my practical test! it'll be on august 16. i get quite nervous whenever i think of how near that date is, but i wouldn't want it to be any later actually. i want to get it over and done with. keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that i'll pass it the first time round so i won't have to waste any more time or money on driving lessons and all.

on a very random note, i think kim tae hee is really pretty. i've been watching iris because it's now being shown on ch55. think it's working out to be quite a nice show! and kim tae hee is really pretty in the show.

oh if i haven't told you to watch this yet, please watch it! it's amazingly funny. makes my day just thinking about it. (: "does this count as annoying?" and that little girl reminds me of boo from monsters inc she is soooooo cute.

okay! driving tomorrow. hopefully i remember everything!

music: jooreureuk; wheesung

guess i'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

2010-06-07T22:12:00.003+08:00

the doc martens store just a few doors down from the shop is such a dreadfully tempting place. doesn't help that i have to walk past that place about twice a day, at least. so tempting! even though they're probably pretty difficult to carry off. it's just that i think they really look good. i think the staff in the store must think i'm kind of weird because every time i walk past the store i slow down and stare really hard at all the pretty shoes inside.

had mos burger with wynne and sam today! glad that we met up even if it was just for a short while only. it was fun while it lasted. i can't wait till i stop working and wynne stops working so we can all go out for an entire day and have breakfast lunch and dinner and talk so much we all get tired of each other.

and i want to meet up with ming shuan and liyun and pinqi like we did the other day and talk a whole lot again just like we did that other day.

and there's the outing on saturday with huiyi and boonwei and moses and dawn and maybe huiling as well i'm not too sure i'm looking very forward to that too. just wish i wasn't working on that day. even if it's just a half day. i'm so sorry if any of you are reading this anyway i know i have been defaulting on my promises to organise something for you guys. i always take such a long time not doing anything about it that in the end one of you guys ends up having to do it instead. i'm sorry! i really will organise one i swear.

funny how i want to talk to these people so much even when i don't very much like talking normally.

music: don't forget; baek ji young

i couldn't say those words.

2010-06-01T00:27:00.003+08:00

working my head off! these past few days have been so crazily hectic it's literally been step into the shop, stock receive/stock adjustment/new stock entry/put up products/clean up/arrange displays/price products, go home. but at least almost everything is finally done up and we're finally ready to open officially tomorrow! but there's still a lot of work to do really it's just no longer as daunting as it first was when the shop was still nothing but empty shelves.

lydia came to visit today! (: it was good to see her again after so long, but she could only stay for a while because mr tan was coming back already. wanted to go for my break with her but couldn't do so in the end. but it's okay we now have a date set for the 15th.

going to start driving again soon! need to go and renew my provisional driving license before the 10th. i wonder if that's why i can't book my practical test online.

speaking of test, results came back today. was woken up at 7.40am by the text which i read in a very sleepy state of mind. didn't do as well as less semester, and my average cap fell by 0.03. which is bad! i don't want to miss first class honours by 0.03. need to work harder next semester and pull it back up again. which reminds me, i need to start thinking about which modules to take next semester instead of leaving all the planning to the day before bidding/module preference exercise.

okay i guess i should go and sleep it seems like a long day again tomorrow.

music: don't forget; baek ji young

you just might

2010-05-15T10:23:00.004+08:00

the first time i fall sick in months, and it has to be two days before i start work. but at least it was before work started and not after. see sam i told you i felt a little weird that day. don't know how i fell sick though. fever and a cough and a horrible headache, but i wasn't caught in the rain or anything. fever's gone now though, although i better not say anything lest murphy decides to visit me again.

starting work tomorrow anyway, and i feel too lazy to go! but i have to earn money for korea, so i will work as much as i can. on the sidelines i'm going to have to plan the korea trip, continue with korean and cantonese, keep random dates free for outings with people, finish splinter cell and assassins' creed 2 (i know right it's been ages already but i just haven't got the time) and other random things.

speaking of splinter cell, i don't get why people had gripes with conviction. the mark and execute does take away a lot of the work that you would have to do in previous titles, but it adds to the whole spy-movie-like feel of the game. when i play or when i watch people play it always seems like i'm watching a spy movie. and the interrogating sections might be a little over-dramatic but i like the destructible environment. and the co-op mission was really cool. i liked the way it tied in to the main storyline. the only thing i hate is the whole black and white thing that is supposed to show you that you're invisible to enemies. it's so much harder to navigate in monochrome. but you get used to that, i suppose.

i want to go to jb because my mum says it's more likely that i'll be able to find dvds with cantonese dialogue there. ): but i won't buy it now i guess. will save for korea first!

music: ring ding dong; shinee

dark clouds in a clear sky.

2010-05-06T10:04:00.003+08:00

accents make me happy. (:

okay that was totally a twitter-worthy post. if i read this post over again a few years down i wonder if i'll know who i was referring to.

ramen (?) lunch later! or maybe something else. we'll see. i don't feel like going back to work haha oh dear. okay i have to think about saving up for the korea trip. i'll have to work 65 days to earn enough to cover tickets and accommodation.

alright so this wasn't such a twitter-ish post after all.

music: jooreureuk; wheesung

always showing you my worst.

2010-05-04T23:46:00.003+08:00

i love the feeling of waking up and knowing there's nothing you need to go do or study. this kind of liberation really makes you feel like life is finally worth living. i keep telling my mum that life isn't worth living because you're either hungry or tired or both at the same time. but waking up this morning i just felt refreshed. (:

okay i'm sorry if you still have papers and you're reading this. i don't mean to rub it in.

i think i went mad watching tv the last few days when starhub offered all the channels free for two days. it was seriously film after film after film. haha but they were nice films! i finally got to watch shinjuku incident, and i'm seriously tempted to get the dvd for it. the one they showed was censored, but just imagining what they did was bad enough. haha even i found it shocking. so i guess i'm not that abnormal after all. i'll go search around for a dvd of it soon. need to buy the dvd of the sniper too anyway. but i want to find one with cantonese dialogue. i'm trying to learn cantonese too! okay i'm totally over-ambitious haha. but the three months should be put to good use, yes?

anyway i think it's the over-indulgence in hongkong cop films and dramas lately, but i'm totally a fan of that genre again. hongkong makes the best cop films and dramas, really. it's amazing how they make everything seem so real and how they just draw you into the story and make you really feel for the character. haha if i decide to major in japanese studies after all i think i'm going to specialise in film studies. at least i get to do something i enjoy.

and richie ren seriously stars in a whole lot of films. in the span of two days i think i've watched three or four films with him inside. but he's got the kind of looks that grows on you. and his character in breaking news is, for lack of better words, fangirl material. i'm such a sucker for the tough gangster with a soft side kind of character. or undercover cops would do as well. or snipers. okay, snipers win hands down any day. i never get tired of re-watching the sniper even though counting the two times i watched it while it was being screened in the cinema means that i've watched it a total of five times already if i'm not wrong. wish the plot was more developed, though. but the film more than makes up for it with all the eyecandy scenes.

okay i get that i sound completely like a rabid fangirl now, but oh well.

meeting up with ming shuan and liyun after ages next wednesday! can't wait to see them both again. (:

music: year of us; shinee

won't you take me and enchant me.

2010-04-18T23:28:00.003+08:00

i know words (at least those from anyone else but the protagonist of your problem) don't help, but it's the least i can try to do, and hope they provide at least an ounce of comfort. just know we're always on your side, alright. and you don't even have to ask, because you're always the better one to us. so even though in person i can't say stuff like this because i need time to get thoughts like this straight just know that through all my rambling i was trying to put this across.

not feeling very good today; i totally shouldn't have succumbed to that milo nugget or that ferrero, because now my throat hurts more than ever and i feel parched even after drinking three times the amount of water in my tumbler. which isn't much, granted, but still.

but it's not just my throat that hurts really; it's the pain of ~~thinking~~ knowing you were meant for something bigger but realising you're stuck where you are that dominates all your thoughts and makes you feel so, so small. yes, i know it's my hundredth quarter-life crisis this week, but sometimes it just gets to you.

and i really need to stop eating when i study because i end up eating so much that when i look back at the end of the day on what i've eaten for the day i am genuinely horrified. alright. hoping tomorrow will be productive as well! meeting huiyi and dawn to study at city hall, yay.

music: chaan namyon; wheesung

i wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile.

2010-04-16T16:05:00.003+08:00

i wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile.

- from lookbook; the picture wasn't much but the title kind of struck me when i read it. i don't know if most people pay attention to the titles and the names and locations of the lookbook posters, but they're as interesting (if not more really) as the pictures themselves.

being at home all day long everyday means this place gets updated a whole lot. but i really do work in between all my bouts of going online, even if it's not very much work at all.

new media forum closes in just under an hour, and i'm wondering if nine forum postings are good enough for a quarter of my grade. but that quarter also includes class participation, right? it's actually strangely difficult to craft a coherent forum response.

from stopbook.com. i'm not sure if it's good to just copy the image over haha but the polaroid heart against the beige wall is so pretty. makes me feel like getting a polaroid camera more than ever, even if i probably will not use it very much. which makes me guilty about my digital camera, lying somewhere on my shelf neglected and very, very underused. okay but if korea trip during the three months' holiday materialises then i'll have reason to blow the dust off it and use it again.

first lookbook and then stopbook, haha. how can something you can't hold, which has no edges of pages to play with as you read and no crinkly papery texture as you run your hand down the page be a book? go away e-book readers and all you printing-books-kill-trees tree-huggers; if there was ever a good use for paper and the death of trees it would be books. there's just something in holding an honest-to-goodness book that people have forgotten.

music: don't forget; baek ji young

a heart hurts so much from the little things.

2010-04-15T13:47:00.003+08:00

everything seems to not bode well for resuming my driving lessons. and just the thought of having to wake up so dreadfully early is already giving me a headache. but i need to pass the silly test soon or i'm just going to waste more money on it, and i've already wasted enough really. $42.80 to renew the membership (actually x2 because there was a weird system glitch and i'm not sure if i can recover that additional $42.80 charge), $25 to renew my provisional driving license, and not to mention the extra sessions i'm going to need to review everything that i've already forgotten since my last lesson in october last year. why, why, why do i always procrastinate so much.

but i'm totally going to pass my test before the new school year begins. then that's one less commitment i have to deal with.

anyhow this is soooooo cute. 돼지토끼!

okay goal for the holidays is to go learn korean. ^^

alright i'm going to stick to my promise to do work and study hard.

music: y.o.u; shinee

i'm so sick of this.

2010-04-14T22:24:00.003+08:00

i'm beginning to think that the happiest people in this world must be the pessimists while the optimists are usually the ones who are sad. it makes logical sense because if you're a pessimist you don't expect happiness, so when it comes you're pleasantly surprised and probably genuinely happy. if you're always looking for the silver lining in every dark cloud and expecting life to change for the better all the time then your constant expectations for happiness mean that most of the time you'll be thinking that life will be better than whatever you have at the moment and you'll always be living for the next happy moment to come. and when good things come your way you're less likely to enjoy the moment as much as a pessimist would because you've been expecting its arrival all this while. i know it seems like the pessimist would dismiss that happy moment and go on to contemplate the lack of meaning in life but for that one moment i believe the pessimist experiences happiness to a degree that the optimist never does. which makes it seem better to be a pessimist, really. even if you spend most of your life moping at least when you feel happy you really, sincerely feel deeply that split second of happiness. i don't know if i'm more optimistic or pessimistic though.

i'm not emo by the way, just thinking.

toes hurt from the mitju shoes i got for chinese new year and which i wore only once because they hurt my feet a lot. but my slippers broke last week and i only managed to go get a new pair today. wearing my new sandals make me feel like a red indian because they're all leathery.

will get down to serious studying from tomorrow onwards, which leaves me a little over a week to study hard. all the promises i made to myself to work hard for finals kind of died because of all the pretty decent results i've been getting for midterms and for approaches, good comments for the final big paper. but if i continue not doing anything i'm going to screw up the final papers and end up with a less than stellar final grade and cap anyway. so i'm going to study hard starting tomorrow. i need to find out the exam dates though at the moment i only know the dates for two papers.

random sightings today too, which just teaches you the truth behind "speak of the devil". not that i was saying anything bad, it just makes you surprised to see people just when you happen to think of them or speak of them.

music: jojo; shinee

enjoy the little things in life.

2010-04-03T23:22:00.002+08:00

came home really, really stoned and wanting to sleep, but my email held a pleasant surprise that made me completely wake up from my not-drunken (unlike boon wei haha! okay kidding kidding i think you're amazing for being able to walk straight after that anyway) stupor. it made me decide not to spend the rest of the day studying and doing work (which i will probably on hindsight think is a really bad decision but i couldn't care less now) and just take it really easy instead, so here i am blogging. i think my decision of what to major in has just swung in a very large way towards japanese studies, just because of that email. (:

had a fun day out with dawn, huiling, moses and boon wei anyway. i think it would have been more fun if we all weren't so tired. we're all getting old; the times when we could stay up all night and still be able to go for ice cream the next morning seem so long ago. i think the funniest part of the day was when we went to serendipity for drinks. the staff there must have thought we were all weird, because probably nobody walks in at 2pm asking for cocktails and boon wei's crazy absinthe that had 85% alcohol content. by the way boon wei, i was asking my dad just now if he'd ever drunk stuff with 85% alcohol content and he gave me this look and said that's crazy nobody drinks anything with that much alcohol in it it would burn your throat and all. i burst out laughing after i heard that haha.

oh and high point of the day was probably when we chanced upon kinder surprises in giant. it's been ages since i've seen one actually being sold in singapore. we bought a box of 3 and shared it. i can't bear to eat mine it's still in the fridge with "this is mine ):<" scrawled over it so nobody eats it. you can never be too safe yes.

i think i feel most comfortable going out with the pooks because we can be doing nothing but walking around giant and you don't feel like you should be doing something with a purpose. if that makes any sense at all. haha.

music: jojo; shinee

i can't make sense of anything.

2010-03-13T12:36:00.003+08:00

i've got this horrible feeling that i'm really pretty abnormal after all, since watching a film that caused audiences to walk out/faint/be sent to the emergency room doesn't so much as elicit a gag reflex in me.

on a happier note, i'm done with audition and ringu so all i have left now is ju-on. and i'm done extracting most of the quotes i want to get out of the books i borrowed, so i basically just have to watch that last film and then i can get an early start on my 5000 word paper. joy! okay but this still means i'm basically going to be stuck at home typing away for about the next two weeks.

and while shinee is in singapore too! ):

i think she's really pretty.

music: like being hit by a bullet; baek ji young

maybe it's true that i can't live without you

2010-03-02T15:16:00.003+08:00

the first english song i've listened to and actually liked in a while, because i think it has nice lyrics.

so maybe it's true
that i can't live without you
and maybe two is better than one
there's so much time
to figure out the rest of my life
and you've already got me coming undone
and i'm thinking two is better than one
two is better than one; boys like girls ft. taylor swift

okay but it gets whiny the more you listen to it. i just like the lyrics really. okay and maybe also the way he sings the word "true". i don't agree with the fourth line though, because time never seems to be enough.

i can't stop wishing i'd made better use of time all these years i've lived. therefore i should go make good use of what time i have left and do my approaches introduction and study for my new media theories mid-term so i can actually get a life.

music: two is better than one; boys like girls ft. taylor swift

from this dream i wake up.

2010-02-17T22:11:00.002+08:00

i've got another song recommendation!

i've had this song on repeat for the past two weeks i think. i don't think i even played wheesung's songs so much the first time i got to hear them. but it's honestly very addictive! here i go again with my lack of vocabulary, but i really think it's a nice song. anyway looking at them you probably wouldn't guess their ages but three out of five of them are younger than us (assuming you're my age), one's our age and the other one is a year older.

see what i mean about having achieved nothing!!

okay no my getting upset and feeling old isn't completely based on korean pop idols who are all young and have done so much. it's just reinforced by that. i was already feeling that way for a while before i linked the two together and got even more upset than i already was.

okay on to happier things. i really like minho's voice in that song up there! he's got a really nice deep voice. if you listened to/watched it he's the one in the blue jacket rapping in english. plus he's really good-looking! and he's also younger by a year. ):

anyway i was thinking tall dark and handsome really doesn't seem to be the perfect criteria for most girls nowadays. i guess tall and handsome will always be mainstays but i think having a nice deep voice must count for something too. and i know it's really weird for me to say this but i honestly think guys should be tall. tall guys just automatically look... more attractive? okay i guess tall for me wouldn't be very tall for most people anyway. they just have to be significantly taller than the girl and i guess they would be perfect in their eyes then. oh but bad posture is always not good. especially if you're tall, because then it's all emphasized. so good posture and height would be good.

i don't know what sparked that off. i think it was minho.

alright i should really be getting back to work. i've got a japanese midterm to study for, a literature review to do for approaches to js and a summary for comm management to do. and in week 8 there's a theories of new media midterm. i also have to get up-to-date on 3 weeks' worth of pop culture readings, 5 weeks' worth of new media theories readings and 3 weeks' worth of comm management readings. also i need to find some time to go down to suntec and get my paycheck. and i need to spring-clean because i really didn't have the time to do it before the chinese new year holiday and i have so much to clear out. plus i need to go to school tomorrow to have a consultation about my pop culture group project. *grumbles about travelling* oh well.

music: jojo; shinee

can something that can't be done be done

2010-02-08T19:45:00.004+08:00

comm management exam on wednesday, and i need to study but i'm so tired. kind of torn between looking forward to the recess week and dreading it, because there's so much work to be done before that and also work to hand up after that.

getting swamped!

oh and i saw this spree for fujifilm polaroid cameras, which i really feel like getting but which will probably end up being a waste of money anyway. i really like the polaroid effect in photos though. they make even the most mediocre of objects seem magical.

(from violetjulia)

okay maybe you need to already be a really awesome photographer to take nice polaroids.

and i'm feeling really old all of a sudden. maybe it's just the teetering on the brink of reaching your 20s that makes you feel this way, but it's so weird thinking back on how old you are and your lack of any significant achievements. i mean, i haven't made a difference in anybody's lives, and nobody will remember me for anything if i happened to just disappear right about now. fading off into oblivion is a really scary thought. you don't have to be known half the world over, but it'd be nice to know that people will remember you and want to keep you in their memories if you were to leave. i'm beginning to see the point of taking photographs now. it's kind of to leave some mark on the world you're going to leave behind someday.

i still don't like taking photos though. and if you're wondering why in the world i want a polaroid camera then, it's so i can take photographs of other people and keep them. i almost miss the days of film cameras because now with digital cameras everything feels so much more transient. kind of like at any second people will leave you and you won't have anything physical left of them to hold on to.

thinking along lines like these make me wonder why i'm wasting the prime of my life away doing things i don't really care very much about. the other day i was talking to my sister and we were wondering how much more appropriate it'd be if we lived out our lives in reverse. get all the fun and enjoyment done while we're able to do so and then start going to school and stuff when we're not able to move as much and all. okay i know it's a completely flawed argument once you sit down and think it through, but on the surface it does seem like a much better way to live your life out.

also, i came across this on papertissue.tmblr:

"anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. so anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. it's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time."

(excerpt from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami)

i think i've mentioned this before, but there's a certain poetry in japanese that has been translated to english. which is one of the main reasons i picked up japanese in the first place (until i discovered other *ahem* reasons), because i wanted to know if it sounded as whimsical(?) in the original language itself. this reminds me of that poem that was up in the lit room board back in tj. again i think i've talked about this poem before -_- yes i'm totally running out of blogging material; it's the one by pablo neruda i think. i'm re-reading the poem now but it doesn't seem to feel like it did before or how i remember it felt, so i'm not sure if it's the same piece i'm looking at. in any case he's spanish and the original work was in spanish, so i was wondering if any of the original meaning could have been lost in translation.

oh and i thought it was kind of funny how above the poem ("don't go far off, not even for a day") there were google ads for treating sadness and depression haha.

alright work work like a miserable peon.

music: jojo; shinee

i close my eyes and dream an endless dream.

2010-01-17T23:30:00.006+08:00

i really, really love this song. and i think taeyang is amazingly talented. he's got this really unique voice which sounds almost grating on first listen but gets addictive after a while. okay i've probably shown you guys this video if i've been in contact with you recently but i kind of felt like blogging and since i can't find the words to say what i want to maybe this will help fill up space. will you watch it please? i found the one with english subtitles too so the song's message gets across easier.

and jang geun suk is coming to singapore sometime between March and May! please don't be horrible murphy and make him come in the middle of my papers. he's the pig-rabbit guy if ~~you actually care to know~~ you've forgotten.

i totally regret not buying more stuff in london. everything here doesn't look appealing in the least. oh and i really want to drop by tangs orchard and look at the harajuku event they've got going on.

AND!

aren't they just gorgeous. i really feel like getting the beige ones, but they're retailing at $189 each and i can't bring myself to spend that much on a pair of shoes for myself. ): especially not when the ones we saw in london were like 70 pounds which works out to be about $160. okay so those were the glossy ones, but still. i realise you can't really see the beige ones but they're really nice anyway.

speaking of which, don't you think it's easier to spend on something for someone else than to blow the money on something for yourself? it's kind of like i would hesitate less when buying something for someone else but if i'm buying it for myself i think and think and think again before i finally decide to buy it. unless it's something horridly expensive of course.

school again tomorrow why why why does the weekend always rush by so quickly.

oh and i guess i did have stuff to fill up space with after all.

music: wedding dress; taeyang

where you at.

2010-01-12T22:51:00.002+08:00

i had such a sick, sick feeling when i read that email about their intention to cancel a tutorial class for popular culture in japan because apparently (and i quote) having "popular" in the module name doesn't do much to boost its popularity so they actually have less students than their estimates. and they decided to cut one tutorial class, which just so happens to be the only thursday class. all the rest are on tuesday which was my one free day of the week. thanks, murphy, thanks so much.

music: where you at; taeyang

i don't even know your name.

2010-01-09T16:34:00.004+08:00

infinitely unprepared for school, and dreading its start because i think i have bitten off more than i can chew with this semester's modules. and because they're important modules (more important than usual since there are compulsory modules and also modules for my major) i cannot afford to do badly for them. even if they were less important modules i cannot do badly either. either way i think this semester is going to be really hard to get through. on the bright side, i am totally looking forward to the longer vacation even though i already agreed to work more. but thinking of the money helps!!

not uploading pictures from europe because i'm too lazy to. i didn't take many pictures anyway they're mostly in my sister's almost-like-a-dslr-camera. my camera was too intimidated so he didn't pop up for most of the trip. but it was fun. and we walked so much i'm pretty sure we all lost some weight.

tired.

and i want to finish assassins' creed before school starts but the bed/chair/floor (whatever i'm on at that moment when i think of this thought) is too comfortable to get off. see what i mean by unprepared for school?

okay i'm going off to be more lazy if that's even possible.

music: where you at; taeyang

ciao bella.

2009-12-21T04:29:00.003+08:00

haha i was stunned for a moment when the blogger homepage loaded and it was all in italian.

anyway, hello from italy guys! it's freezing here; the receptionist said it was -8 deg today but i don't think it was that cold. still cold enough that you don't feel your toes anymore if you stand still without moving for more than five minutes though. but it's been really cool so far! although we did have to walk a lot. but i guess it's pretty much worth all the walking because we've seen really beautiful sights so far, and pictures just don't do them justice. just today we went to pisa and did typical touristy things at the leaning tower. my younger sister tried to eat the tower and my older sister and my mum did the propping up the tower thing. but really the pictures don't show you the majesty of everything. you have to be here to see the sights in all their splendour.

but it's really tiring walking and walking and because it's so cold it just makes everything so much worse. my feet threaten to run away everytime i slip into my boots because they pinch my toes and are much too flat to provide much support at all. plus the romanticised notions of cobblestone streets? throw that all away because all it gives you is a very high probability of a sprained ankle.

and meals here are crazily expensive every single meal we've had so far exceeds sgd100. it's so bad that when we get a bill of 45 euros we immediately think "hey that's really cheap" even though that's more than sgd90 for 6 plates of pasta. but the pasta is really good! except the aglio olio. i've tried that twice here and both times they were served up dripping with oil and tasted of nothing. but the ravioli is good, and so is the tortellini. pizzas are pretty decent too but i miss the crazy overload of flavours back home with pizza hut pizzas especially the ones with cheese stuffed in the crust. here all you ever get are skinny pizzas which are nice and all but somehow lacking. i'm getting awfully tired of italian food though.

other than all that it's been really fun so far. (: cannot wait for venice and then paris and then london. but i'm going to have to find some place with internet for the 22nd/23rd/24th though, to do the awful GAPS thing. results on the 22nd too, but i don't really want to think about it.

okay, off to go do random stuff before sleeping so we can catch an early train for venice tomorrow. must find souvenirs!! haven't bought anything from rome or florence or pisa which is baaaaaaad.

anyway, happy belated birthday chin, if you ever read this!

rab don't steal sam away and sam i wanted to get you an apron/chef's hat but we walked away too fast for me to ask for prices haha! there was this really nice apron with types of pasta all over it. but then again we got you an apron for your birthday so maybe i'll just look for something else.

liyun sorry i didn't reply your sms but i'm not in singapore already anyway haha! maybe we can go out after i'm back on the 31st.

okay anyone i missed? i don't think so. alright bye!

music: wedding dress; taeyang

further and further away.

2009-12-10T15:37:00.003+08:00

am having a god awful day.

okay maybe it's a god awful week.

or god awful months because i cannot remember the last time i was ever free to sit down and do what i wanted to do without having to worry about things i am supposed to be doing. i think this dates right from the beginning of the semester.

either i really have been swamped with things to do or the eight-month break just made me really lazy.

no matter which way you think about it i am still miserable.

and i'm really tired because i don't get to sleep until past 12 every single day and there still is so much to do and i still have to work and think about majors and modules and i want to find a cave and be a hermit just so i can be left alone.

and my facebook account has been disabled because it has apparently been hacked and they suspended it for security reasons, but they refuse to reply my emails.

i was supposed to go to hmv at 313@somerset today but now i think i can't and i no longer feel like going anyway.

i still have to settle the itineraries for europe, print out all the random addresses and maps and everything, go for training early in the morning tomorrow, think about modules to take next semester and whether to major in japanese studies or not, find shoes for europe and pack all the while still having to go to work. and i have to settle the stupid facebook nonsense too.

music: wedding dress; taeyang

i shouldn't have looked at you in the first place.

2009-11-29T22:30:00.002+08:00

it's over! ):

you're beautiful, i mean, not my papers. okay so i didn't enjoy the ending as much as i thought i would. might have been because i was forced to watch it with chinese subtitles because i couldn't bear the wait. and the subtitling seemed a little off.

after my papers end tomorrow i will go see if i can get assassin's creed 2 yay. and i need to buy a winter coat for europe, and boots so i won't have to trudge around in rain-and-slush-soaked shoes. i am so tempted by doc martens because they look so good. but i'm not sure they're easy to carry off so maybe i should just buy a pair of rain boots. and markers so i can doodle on them. ugg boots look really pretty too, but i think they're pretty expensive and i'm not sure i want to waste money on boots that will end up dirty anyway.

i'm serious about the rain boots actually. as long as they look nothing like the ones phua chu kang has. apparently tangs at orchard and takashimaya have a couple of brands worth looking at so i'll probably find some time to go over soon.

okay i should go over my notes one more time instead of blogging about inane things.

music: without words; jang geun suk

i will promise you.

2009-11-23T17:33:00.003+08:00

you check for updates on the fansub page about every five minutes. check.
when the page loads and there are no updates, you feel this horrible lethargy in every bone in your body that makes you want to do nothing but plug in the hard drive and re-watch every episode so far. twice. check.
to calm down you decide to watch random cuts on youtube for the next five minutes (which more often than not stretches to fifteen minutes or longer). which is a better option than re-watching every episode because you feel less guilty since the cuts are shorter and only last a few minutes. check.
you then pace up and down furiously for the next five minutes wondering what in the world has happened to the fansubber and why isn't the next episode up yet. possible scenarios running through your mind include the following: a. she has defected and gone off to sub iris instead, b. she went holidaying in the bahamas and was eaten by a shark or c. her laptop died because of an overload of images and videos (highly possible). check.
then you look at the clock and realise you will not have enough time to finish studying for the horrible final exams, and panic. then you sit down quietly and do work. check.
within ten minutes you repeat the above actions. check.

... okay i am officially suffering from withdrawal symptoms for you are beautiful. ):

and it's a horrible time to be like this because i have three more lectures to go through for japanese studies and i haven't done any revision for english and japanese (the language) yet. and since i'm banking on japanese as a cap-puller i really should be working extra hard for that, yes?

but then again who can resist!!

this is the amazing jang geun suk. his character is hilarious. i won't spoil it because you have to watch it to feel how amazingly well he pulls the character off.

oh i totally know what i want for christmas now haha! he makes that pig-rabbit in this hilarious scene where he does surgery on a pig and on a rabbit. pig-rabbit is the nickname for the other lead in the show. and the whole reason he creates the pig-rabbit is because he wants to return that other lead a hairpin which he bought for her but he has to do so in a way that won't make him lose face because the other lead said she doesn't want to look for it anymore (after losing it earlier) because the villain of the show said mean stuff to her about how she doesn't deserve it and yeah it's pretty complicated. doesn't stop it from being funny!

you should totally watch the scene to relieve exam stress. i've watched it i-don't-know how many times over and it still makes me laugh. out loud. (:

for your convenience i will post it up here. watch it!! okay maybe it won't be as funny for you because it's taken out of context and all and you won't know what's happening but i swear it's funny.

okay i must be off to repeat my checklist. so not looking forward to the papers. ):

music: promise; a.n. jell

without a word.

2009-11-21T19:05:00.002+08:00

i pick like the most inopportune times for everything!! now is definitely not the time to go into fangirl mode. but i guess it's too late to try and salvage things now.

sigh.

i don't like waiting. ):

music: nothing said; 9th street

with a brighter smile.

2009-11-15T22:06:00.004+08:00

this just made my day.

if ever i go on a killing spree, supporters of the violent-video-games-spawn-mass-murderers theory will have a field day.

okay, back to non-violent, oh-so-interesting southeast asian studies.

music: jooreureuk; wheesung

moods that take me and erase me.

2009-11-02T18:21:00.004+08:00

i don't know you but I want you all the more for that
words fall through me and always fool me and I can't react
and games that never amount to more than they're meant will play themselves out

take this sinking boat and point it home we've still got time
raise your hopeful voice you have a choice you'll make it now

falling slowly, eyes that know me and I can't go back
moods that take me and erase me and I'm painted black
you have suffered enough and warred with yourself it's time that you won

take this sinking boat and point it home we've still got time
raise your hopeful voice you had a choice you've made it now
falling slowly sing your melody

it's a pretty song.

music: falling slowly; once ost

all by myself out of sight.

2009-10-30T22:27:00.005+08:00

i feel like such a retard.

me: "oh i wanted to go check if assassin's creed 2 is out already they said it's coming out november 20th" *rambles on about singapore being slow*

sam: "... it's not even november yet."

me: "oh."

i am such a retard.

on the plus side, i had a nice time with sam today! be jealous rab. we caught (500) days of summer and it was so funny at the start. after we got settled in (somebody took our seat again why does this always happen -_- but she was nice and moved away after that) this couple came in and sat in the row in front of us. and the same thing happened like the last time with sniper, except this time we were luckier because the cinema was pretty empty. so we moved, to get away from the big head. five minutes later, the big head moved again, so he was in front of sam this time. hahaha i couldn't stop laughing for a full minute after that. so we shifted back to our original seats.

anyway i guess the movie was pretty enjoyable. but i went in thinking about estrina's saying that everyone would be able to relate to a character in the movie, so i spent half the movie trying to find that character. i don't think there's any particular one in there, though. sam says it's because i've never been caught in that kind of situation. but i went back to read estrina's post and i really hope i don't relate to summer, because sam and i both agreed that summer is a total douchebag. if i were nice to myself i'd say tom's the closest. just the first bit though, about believing that you'd never be truly happy until you find the one for you, because i'm a sappy romantic at heart.

oh but i loved the opening disclaimer.

"author's note: the following is a work of fiction. any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

especially you jenny beckman.

bitch."

anyway i was just wondering how sad it'd be if the one for you didn't think you were the one for him/her. throughout the movie and all of tom's exclamations that summer was the one for him i kept thinking about that. it's not just the one you think is the one for you, if you get what i mean. it's the one who's truly for you. what if he never thinks so? and your having known him at all would mean you spend the rest of your life in regret because you know you can never be as happy as you could have been with him.

oh well you have hits and you have misses i guess.

after the movie sam and i walked around before going into starbucks. and i saw the perfect tumbler! it's really pretty. it's transparent, and has snowflakes printed on the outside. inside the tumbler there's this tiny white rabbit on the bottom. i wanted to find a picture of it online but i couldn't, so if you want to see it go to a starbucks! alternatively you can look at my horrible drawing of it. i swear, it's about a thousand times prettier. and the bunny looks less miserable. and doesn't need labelling for people to tell it is a bunny.

it's a christmas limited edition tumbler, and i really want to get it but my mum refuses to let me get it. partly because i lost my previous starbucks tumbler and partly because of horrible shell's giveaway a while ago. after i told her about the tumbler she didn't say a word and went behind to the storeroom from which she emerged after a minute carrying like eight huge ugly tumblers. then she poured them onto the floor and said that's why i can't get the tumbler.

*sulks*

anyway sorry for being such a fangirl, but with every performance i watch and every time i repeat the song wheesung's trickling just keeps on growing on me. and every time i listen to it i find something new to like. it's strange, because usually with a song i find a particular part which i like a lot, so every time i listen to the song i wait for that particular portion of the song and listen extra closely. with trickling it's entirely different, the entire song makes me listen closely. actually it's pretty much the same with a number of wheesung's new songs. that's how good they are. i wish people would look past his appearance to actually listen to him singing. not that he looks bad or anything. he's really good-looking. and he has the kind of looks that grow on you so you'll never get tired of it. and he's an amazing performer. his stage presence is honestly amazing. he's the only person you look at even when he has a plethora of back-up dancers and all. okay i might be biased.

sometimes i hate being such an obsessive fangirl.

oh by the way, my phone died on me and i've lost all my contacts. so if you want me to talk to you (okay now nobody is going to respond to this haha!) please sms me so i get your number again.

music: jooreureuk; wheesung

saved my heart.

2009-10-29T22:44:00.002+08:00

500 days of summer summer summer with sam tomorrow after japanese ends at 1! hopefully i make it to plaza sing in time for the 2pm show or we're going to not be able to watch it since there're only two shows tomorrow.

i don't really know why i'm blogging because i don't think i have anything to blog about. but every time i say that i end up typing out quite a long post anyway.

oh and i'm upset that promotions for vocolate are so quiet. i don't understand why wheesung doesn't seem to be promoting much. maybe it's because he's busy with his english album, but i'd be happier to see him on more shows and all. my sister says he's probably rushing everything out before he enlists in the army )): oh man now i understand how people with boyfriends in ns feel. okay i guess it's not quite the same since it's pretty much a one-way thing but it's a fangirl thing! honestly it feels painful even though that seems like i'm over-dramatising everything and being a pain.

oh well. anyway i'm so happy i survived last week. right now there's only the japanese studies project and the last new media project to deal with, and then before you know it it's finals already. the semester really flew by because it doesn't seem as if everything's quite settled in yet, and it's already near the end. i'm going to miss quite a lot of this semester i think.

oh and i feel like a stalker all over again haha! seriously i think it's scary how much you can find on facebook. people should totally hire me to dig up stuff on other people.

right. i'm going to go and look and see if assassin's creed 2 is available yet and buy it tomorrow if it is. initially i wanted to wait till the holidays to get it, but if i'm going to work during those fifteen days before i leave then i'm not going to have much time. plus i want to go and see those places in the game for real. for some strange reason for the first assassin's creed i never thought those buildings were real. so when i saw this really familiar-looking building on some discovery channel/history channel documentary i was literally like "hang on that building looks so familiar... OMG I TOTALLY CLIMBED TO THE TOP AND LEAP-OF-FAITH-ED FROM IT IN AC". and since there'll be places like venice and all in assassin's creed 2 i'm going to go see if i can find them in real life because it'll be awesomely cool.

okay i'll stop being a nerd.

oh wait i forgot about borderlands and the 87 bazillion guns sigh. so that's borderlands, assassin's creed 2 and l4d 2 to get. borderlands has 4 player co-op! an if peiyen gets xbox live imagine the possibilities hehe. okay maybe i shouldn't imagine them because i get the feeling nobody's going to want to come to my house because it apparently is really hard to get here. but the other alternative is hougang!! how is that more convenient?! it's still full of fields. okay, so it has a random interchange. and a shopping centre. and an mrt station. BUT IT HAS FIELDS. LOTS OF THEM. tanah merah has an mrt station. and will have a shopping centre soon. and there's good food outside just five minutes away. pfft. it's okay i'm sure sam will come to my house, right sam?

sheesh and i still have to get the trip details done i hate planning for trips. has anyone been to europe can you tell me what's good to go to? but it's so difficult to plan because everyone has different places they want to go to. i'm pretty sure my mum wouldn't relish going through the catacombs but both of my sisters will like it. and it's not like i had a very good time planning the osaka/kyoto trip either my mum grumbled at me for like an entire year after that about how it wasn't a fun trip at all. helloooooo, you said we shouldn't go to universal studios and all so i had to make do with other touristy attractions right. it's not my fault they were all temples since kyoto's famed for its temples. -_-

hehe maybe i should make the europe trip a homage to assassin's creed and visit all the places featured in it. that'll probably make me exempted from planning all future trips till about 2025, which pretty much suits me just fine.

okay i will stop being an ass.

haha so many things i have to stop being/having.

music: over u; wheesung

only you can.

2009-10-24T21:24:00.003+08:00

i am totally losing my guts. i was re-watching parts of shutter and this other thai film for my se report, and i got goosebumps all over my arms. and i kept getting that strange feeling you get when you're all alone and somehow it feels like you're not. i'm not too sure why i'm getting creeped out though, because it's not even some new film; if you're re-watching something you would anticipate everything already. maybe it's because i keep repeating the scenes to find that perfect screenshot. but it's pretty fun! i haven't been really spooked out by a film for a while.

okay back to my report. i can't wait for monday to be over now, because after handing it that report and getting my presentation done i'm going to feel so, so relieved. and then there's the js project, but that can wait a little while. okay back to being busy.

music: show me girl; wheesung

yes i do.

2009-10-15T23:12:00.004+08:00

i need to learn to stop being so stubborn and insistent on having my way. i need to stop thinking everything's only good when it's done my way. i need to learn to listen and accept other opinions instead of rejecting them immediately inwardly if not out loud.

i think i'm a total failure at group work. which is why i do best in projects which are either individual or if i'm in a group that lets me do what i want.

the irony of it all, when people i detest most are those who are just like me.

anyway i am glad it's the weekend. need to get a present for my dad's birthday, and i have a ton of assignments to catch up on.

oh, and wheesung's new songs really do have nice lyrics. i'm glad they didn't disappoint! makes me all the more motivated to learn korean soon. i will study it myself during the holidays and maybe take korean in school after i'm more settled and all. seriously, at the rate i'm going, i might as well go be a tour guide or some translator in future. -___-

music: nunmul sotko ddo sotko; wheesung

(:

2009-10-09T18:47:00.003+08:00

i know i'm being a total fangirl, but my heart literally leaps when i hear wheesung sing (stop with the wheesing jokes you yvon of the yukon). or even when he's just talking, because his voice is so amazingly soft and gentle in speech but when he sings it's so powerful. no matter how upset i feel listening to his songs always, always makes me feel so much better afterwards. it's really strange how affected i am by his songs. even edison chen didn't feel the same for me, and you know how crazy i am over edison. he is seriously the most amazing singer i have ever known.

i was watching his comeback stage on kbs's music bank, and he sounds exactly the same as in the recorded track when he's singing live. that's how good his voice is. please let hmv bring the cd in i want to hold it in my hands haha.

why do i not understand korean ):

music: nunmul sotko ddo sotko; wheesung

thank you.

2009-10-08T18:24:00.006+08:00

i've only heard three tracks so far from vocolate and already it sounds amazing. i cannot wait to get the album! maybe i'll just go ahead and order it online because i really don't want to wait till it finally comes to singapore. i'll go check with hmv first i guess.

it's really amazing!! and wheesung will have his comeback stage tomorrow on music bank. i sure hope someone uploads it soon. i'll stay glued to my tv in the meantime and see if i can catch the delayed airing of the show on cable.

ahh. i love love love wheesung's new album. today is one of the happiest days i've had this year. it's kind of sad and funny at the same time don't you think haha. okay i'm going to go listen to them again. and again. and again.

in case anyone is remotely interested (you won't regret it click and listen!) here's his title track:

-edit-

the other tracks were released. thank you for making me so happy. (:

-edit-

music: jooreureuk; wheesung

i don't care.

2009-10-02T10:30:00.003+08:00

more reason than ever to keep updated on the indonesian quake.

keep safe.

music: i don't care; 2ne1

i'll try harder.

2009-09-30T00:13:00.002+08:00

yes, i am using my blog to keep up with what i need to do because i spend too much time online to regularly check my pretty artbox scheduler anyway (oh what a waste. note to self: must use scheduler more often even if it's just to write silly inane stuff). on a side note i'm not even online to do normal stuff like facebook or anything i'm online to check mail check ivle check forums drop jaw because of the crazy amount of forum postings panic because i haven't posted much spend the next half hour crafting a forum post then spend 3 minutes checking all the usual sites i go to and then go off to do work. i have no life. oh and i talk to my sister to and provide her with entertainment yay i'm so nice.

and there's still all the things to book for the family vacation at the end of the year.

too many things to do! why does it seem like the midterm break just made me busier than ever without relieving me of much work at all? i tell you it was just an excuse to pile on more work on us, the sneaky little pffts.

alright.

1) SE lecture tomorrow, must download lecture slides. also read readings possibly during train ride to school. pray that the 2 surprise quizzes they promised to spring on us does not happen tomorrow because i am so behind on my readings and revision.

2) study for japanese midterm on friday. i can't believe i haven't started on it at all.

3) print out lecture handout for japanese lecture on friday and look through it in preparation for the lecture quiz (yes they test us on things we are GOING to learn because they believe in the powers of self-study).

4) memorise dialogue for TC tutorial on friday.

5) prepare answers for EL tutorial presentation on thursday.

6) look for my poor starbucks tumbler which i left in the classroom on monday.

7) go through this week's EL lecture because i (oops) skipped today's lecture.

8) JS readings to be done by thursday.

9) book tickets.

10) clean up the pile of stuff i have been amassing on the couch the past 2 weeks before my dad comes back and screams at it.

11) SLEEP MORE i have been regularly sleeping past midnight and i am pretty sure i will become a sleep-deprived zombie soon.

12) study for EL midterm next tuesday.

13) think about EL affinity group project. by next tuesday because we have to give the other group our first draft 2 days before our tutorial.

14) SE reflection.

15) SE and JS group projects. have to get around to doing them soon.

16) READINGS! i have lagged behind for se, js and japanese. technically japanese doesn't have readings but there are tons of pre-class preparations that i have completely neglected to do because i simply don't have enough time.

17) GET A LIFE arghhhhhhhhh.

18) note to self: must complete point 17 by October 8th because that's apparently the scheduled date for the release of Wheesung's album. (: but since i can expect it to only reach our shores really late i guess i still have more time to get a life.

okay i need to sleep.

music: talpi; wheesung

i will still be there.

2009-09-27T22:25:00.003+08:00

end of recess week. why does time pass so fast??

nm1101e midterm tomorrow, and i am going in quite unprepared. i've basically just read through the readings, looked at the lecture slides and uh... okay that's it. maybe it's because i haven't studied properly for so long, or maybe it's because the readings are too different from the textbooks/lecture notes we're used to so i can't pick out the important bits at all. or maybe they're all important bits and i'm just too lazy to try and remember them all so i kid myself and tell myself that they're not all important. in any case i'm just going to cross my fingers and hope to smoke my way through.

haven't really done much during this week even though i had lofty plans of doing loads of stuff.

basically i only finished:

1) se fieldtrip report which was a totally rushed affair and is quite a bad piece of work. which reminds me i need to go submit it to turn it in.

2) typed out the second draft for writing 1 for japanese. must print it though.

3) did reading 2 for japanese.

4) read through nm.

5) read through el and finally got the hang of phonetics. i think. at least i'm marginally better now than at the start of the week when i really had no idea how to go about it at all.

things i haven't done but should get around to doing soon:

1) el affinity group project oh no oh no. must do this by thursday.

2) study for japanese i left this out because i thought the el midterm was right after recess week, when it's really the week after. must do this by friday.

3) se reflection for a random reading.

4) se group project. thankfully this isn't due so soon.

5) read up on js project topic. i borrowed like 8 books but didn't have the time to read them. going to have to either renew them or borrow them again.

6) get up-to-date on my readings! i haven't done my week 6 readings for js and se. and i need to do week 7 readings for js and se too.

i get the feeling the second list is much longer and i have forgotten some important stuff.

okay. i will sleep early and hope the extra sleep makes me cleverer for nm tomorrow.

oh, and on a totally random note, google chrome is much nicer than firefox!

music: heartbreaker; g-dragon

if you follow the wrong star

2009-09-25T14:10:00.002+08:00

wheesung's going to have his american debut after his 6th album is released in october! and ne-yo will be helping to write the songs on his debut album. plus ne-yo will be featured in a song that was supposed to have been part of michael jackson's album. tell me how much better can it get. i'm so happy for him. and i've always thought wheesung was something like korea's ne-yo so it's really amazing that they're going to work together. but there's going to be a lot of pressure on him to make this album a good one because fans like me will be anticipating it so much.

i'm really happy even though english is slowly but surely killing me.

okay i doubt anyone really wanted to know about that haha. alright back to english!! i can't believe today is friday already. i am really not looking forward to going back to school, considering how horribly unprepared i am. but time moving so quickly also means that the date for wheesung's 6th album release draws closer and closer.

it's so easy to make a fangirl happy. (:

music: my love will get you home; christine glass

that's all i need.

2009-09-22T22:42:00.004+08:00

okay even though he has quite the unfortunate english name i think he's very very very good-looking. and he totally does not look his age! and i think they make a very nice couple.

oh and in case you were actually going to watch the video (i wonder how many of you will) it starts at the nice bit so you don't have to watch the whole nine minutes! he's worth it. (: by the way guess how old he is. then google him. don't laugh at his name. it's tender huang.

alright i really should be studying for midterms and doing my fieldtrip report and thinking about the english affinity group project. so much to do.

and i can't believe i have to go for yet another follow-up appointment. dr. ho says this virus thing will almost definitely recur and i should just be prepared to keep having to treat it. if i leave it alone like i did this time round it might even result in blindness. apparently it's much much much more serious this time round. there might be permanent scarring on the cornea and all. and he says no more contacts! not that i've been wearing them already. i've been stuck with geeky spectacles for i don't know how many months already. oh well.

alright study.

music: even if it hurts; wheesung

still

2009-09-20T22:51:00.002+08:00

had one of the worst lead-ups to my birthday ever, but one of the nicest birthdays ever too. even though so many people weren't here with me this year but at least i spent it with people who mattered to me.

thanks for everything guys! i'm really happy i got to spend time with you all especially since we don't really get to meet up anymore.

okay i hope my birthday wishes come true. but i'm not telling what they are hehe.

i have this awful headache from drinking white wine with 13% alcohol i think because my sister chilled the wrong one and thinking it was the usual sweet one i gulped down loads of it before the bitterness spread. i am going to lie down for a while.

music: wae naman; wheesung

because i'm happy, i smile, smile.

2009-09-01T22:44:00.002+08:00

i feel like i'm standing at the shore and there's a tsunami looming over me!

i cannot believe the amount of assignments we have to do. but it's all okay. at least i'm doing stuff i enjoy.

and please let my cough and sore throat and eye infection (here we go again curse the day i poured hydrogen peroxide in my eye) go away soon! i am in enough trouble struggling to complete everything without all these ailments to make me even more exhausted.

september is a month of birthdays. i foresee a very busy and broke month ahead. but it's all good because they're birthdays of people i really really treasure, even if i don't see some of them so often anymore.

by the way! please help vote for a very deserving girl. vote for f1 sia ming shuan please. it'll only take a second. click click here look i even took the trouble of making it a link for you instead of making you copy and paste it so please do me a favour!

i will leave you all with this hilarious video we watched in english today.

what are you sinking about?

(:

yes i'm in a good mood as you can tell. maybe it's japanese studies tomorrow that makes me happy.

music: love hero; wheesung

i didn't like that.

2009-08-28T23:26:00.000+08:00

reasons why i am so happy it is friday and the weekend is here:

1. i feel sick. the awful kind of in-between sick when you're almost sick but not quite there yet so you just feel woozy and can't concentrate on stuff much. i blame the weather and the air-conditioning in fass, which is so horribly cold even when i'm wearing long-sleeved tops. which are a pain in the neck when the weather suddenly changes till it's blistering hot. and i have enough to carry around without adding a jacket to it really. plus being the good student that i am i don't want to miss lectures or tutorials (especially since they've made it so troublesome to miss tutorials) so i'm glad it's the weekend and i don't have to drag myself to school.

2. my parents are coming home tomorrow! hopefully this means i won't have to wake up at 5.30am every friday to take the bus and mrt to school. i still feel awful about the amount of money spent on fuel though. okay i must go get that concession pass as soon as possible.

3. i need to get my concession pass. and i usually don't have time to do so during the week.

4. i can sleep in again! okay so it's only for two days but it's better than nothing. i have been waking up at unearthly hours every single day for the past week and a half or so. and then i had to brave the morning rush hour crowd on the mrt and on the buses.

okay so i don't have that many reasons after all. i'm just happy it's the weekend.

music: wae naman; wheesung

you begin to wonder why you came.

2009-08-26T22:11:00.002+08:00

today has been hands down without compare probably the most embarrassing day of my life thus far. just thinking about it makes me ~~want to~~ bang my head against the nearest hard surface and hope for amnesia. but i wouldn't tempt murphy too much by dwelling too long on it. don't ask, if you were planning to anyway.

at least i tried? okay anyhow i think i will live out the rest of my time in nus with a paper bag over my head.

in happier news, my sister's internet account is finally up since the internet guys stopped eating meatballs for a second to process the application i presume. so that means no more smsing across continents which will mean the bill at the end of the month will be slightly less shocking. i hope.

and so far all my tutorials have been good. just that there's more work to do than ever. sea studies alone has three different projects plus one reading reflection. el has an affinity group presentation and japanese studies has one group report. i don't recall there being anything for new media so please don't let any funny project spring up on us. there's just the el tutorial tomorrow and the third japanese tutorial on friday to go for. i hope i have nice TAs for both classes, and nice classmates too. el is the only tutorial that yimean, rach and i have in common despite all our plans to get common tutorial slots. at least there's one instead of none!

met rab today and then sam. and rab and i met wynne quite by coincidence at the bus stop, which is an amazing feat in itself considering the fact that people in the same faculty don't even meet and wynne is all the way further down at yst. will be meeting wynne again tomorrow when we go down to whathewants for my commission and her mac stuff. yay money! don't think it'll be much though, but you never know. i'm always pleasantly surprised when it comes to commission.

i will not suffer a nervous breakdown, i will not suffer a nervous breakdown, i will not suffer a arghhhhhhhhh. ):

music: talpi; wheesung

i want to try and change

2009-08-23T18:16:00.001+08:00

am i too young still to not want to grow old anymore?

i can't believe it's only the second week and i'm feeling so swamped already.

music: talpi; wheesung

i'm not emo, i'm just inherently sad.

2009-08-21T20:35:00.001+08:00

finally there's time to catch my breath. it's just the second week of school and there's already so much to do. tutorials haven't even begun yet. i don't really want to think about how much worse it's going to get come next week when tutorials start. i'm probably having quite a good time in fass actually, compared to people in other faculties. like sam in architecture where she has to do things she has never ever done before and the workload is so much crazier than mine. so i'm not going to complain too much.

sadly it also seems like the whole eight month long break we had has definitely made me even dumber than i used to be. there are so many words in my readings that i have to guess the meaning of and some i actually have to refer to a dictionary in order to understand. i haven't had to use a dictionary for english words since primary school. it's kind of disheartening because i'm in a faculty that's going to need so much language prowess and i've always taken pride in at least being moderately good at english. and the readings are interesting but so hard to get through because i'm actually really trying to think through everything and link them to the things covered during lecture. and that means i take double the amount of time reading them so all week-long i haven't been able to complete the required readings before the lectures. plus the people in fass are honestly so proactive and expressive it's scary. for my japanese studies module there's a compulsory forum posting aspect and these people literally type out mini-essays for them.

okay so much for not complaining so much. no one ever said it was going to be easy anyway.

i feel so so guilty for yelling at my dog just now because he kept scratching at the door and whining. dogs have that puppy dog look down pat. they're masters at making you feel bad about scolding them.

anyway my sister is off in sweden and my parents are there till the 29th to help her get settled in and all. six months seems like a very indeterminate amount of time. it's not that long if you think about it, but then again a lot can happen in six months so it's not a very short period of time either. and my sister is a complete mousehunt addict. she's stuck without internet in sweden (how can that be??) so she smsed and told me to go convert cheese for her. -_____-

i need to go back to whathewants to get my last commission. anyone wants to go down? lydia the brushes arrived anyway so let's meet up soon! wynne said she'll be free next thursday so maybe we can meet up then.

music: narak; wheesung

if i heard that right.

2009-08-11T22:07:00.001+08:00

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

okay it went pretty well i think. not going to elaborate on it because it's just like what it always has been. oh but the lecturer for my english module is funny. kind of stern, but funny. and she's japanese! which i found really strange, since it's an english module and all. alright i think i'm guilty of (what's that phrase she said again) language discrimination. see i listen in lectures.

anyway went out with huiyi, dawn, huiling, moses and boonwei the other day. huiyi i didn't say boonwei and company this time! haha. we watched he's just not that into you. and had dinner after that. and i'm definitely a sappy romantic at heart because i actually thought the movie was nice. haha! everyone was groaning about it. but i thought it really was quite a nice movie. gives you lots of stuff to think about too.

OH I WANTED TO ASK THIS AFTER WATCHING THE MOVIE.

"what if you meet the love of your life, but you already married someone else? are you supposed to let them pass you by?”

okay i'm not even going into marriage here. let's just say that person is already attached, and happy with his/her other half. would you go ahead and get to know him/her better in the hopes of having him/her break off his/her relationship? don't even get me started on just wanting to get the know that person better on platonic terms. things don't work that way, not if you already have some interest in the person.

i don't know if it's just my being conservative, but isn't that just a downright horrible thing to do? i know some people think it's alright because you can make mistakes with the person you first choose, and if you find someone else better then you really shouldn't suffer or prolong the relationship any longer. but it's still a stab-worthy thing to do. then again maybe when it really happens to you you can't stop yourself from wanting to break it off. but it's still horrible! okay i have an absurd lack of vocabulary after not studying for the past few months.i felt so much like slapping scarlett johansson when she was coming on to the guy in the movie. and the guy was such a jerk. at least they didn't have a happy ending. but the jennifer aniston couple was really sweet. and the gigi one, actually. alright i suppose no one else knows what i'm rambling about.

you know i always used to think a guy and a girl could have a purely platonic relationship. but you have to draw the line somewhere. so if you want to keep it on platonic terms there will be an extent as to how close you're going to become. and there are tons of examples of friends-turned-lovers if you want to term it in a nice way. even in the movie, there was gigi and alex. and they're not the exception, they're the rule. i know there are also tons of people who have purely platonic friends of the opposite gender. but... okay i will keep my thoughts to myself and not speak.

anyway i love jennifer aniston. she's just about the most awesome hollywood actress ever. and her happy ending was so expected but really nice though. helps that the guy was good-looking.

alright i need to go print more stuff for tomorrow. WYNNE I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN VERY LONG. ESTRINA TOO. are you okay? take care alright! and i will meet LYDIA soon when the spree stuff finally arrive. AND MINGSHUAN our going out plans never materialised! let's still meet up okay i haven't seen you in ages. maybe when we finally get all our timetables scheduled properly we can fix a date. and we can call LIYUN too! except she's probably busy studying. never mind we can study together haha!

okay must leave. the horrible new media coursepack gave me three ugly red scratches on my arm. okay four actually, but the fourth one is less severe. so annoying. lunch with sam tomorrow, yay! wonder if rab is free too.

oh and i cut my hair. short! but i feel like cutting it shorter still. hmm.

OKAY BUSY BUSY BUSY.

and i think i am going to join some clubs and stuff after all! i feel like such a hermit and i'm not used to it. OH and fass's reputation for having well-dressed students is so, so stressful. but i still have quite a lot of my pay that i didn't spend... okay i am really off now.

music: narak; wheesung

in my dreams you and i dance

2009-08-03T14:48:00.000+08:00

i think i must have second child syndrome, because what i absolutely hate most is being overlooked or being second/last resort and that's apparently one of the symptoms of that. which is annoying, really. makes dealing with people so much more difficult because i have to realise their whole world does not and will not revolve around me.

even though today is the official start of semester one i am stuck at home playing patapon instead of attending the freshmen inauguration ceremony because nus is screwed up. so much for having someone "liaise" with us about the dumb ceremony and the flag day. i'm going to go out tomorrow to all your flag day locations and snub everyone who asks me for donations, so there. or maybe ntu has a flag day too... i'll go donate to every one of their tins.

pfft.

okay pon pon pata pon here i come.

music: wae naman; wheesung

with what strength could i hold you

2009-08-02T19:45:00.001+08:00

despite all our complaints about cors i guess we all managed to survive it in one piece. and we're all relatively satisfied too, which is a good thing and worth celebrating. i suppose our only grouse now would be the staggering amount of points that we've squandered. i think i have about 50 left over, from an initial amount of 600. and i haven't bidded for my japanese module yet because the waiver only comes into effect in round 3. alright i'll just worry about it when the date approaches. tomorrow's the freshmen inauguration ceremony but i have no idea if i'm supposed to go at all. i'm so clueless about uni stuff it scares me. and i need to go drop off the giro and the psea form. i'm not too sure what the latter is for actually, but the girl who helped me register mumbled this long speech about it which i couldn't catch so i randomly nodded.

... not a very good start to the next few years.

anyway, it really feels like every man for his own in uni. friends you used to have get swept away with their own activities, and even those you're still talking to can barely spare time too. altogether it feels like it'll be a very lonely four/five years. i guess my proclamation of being a hermit is really going to come true. for once in my life i wish i wasn't right. or maybe i do. in any case i'll just work hard to get into an exchange program and run away to japan as soon as i can. because everything and everyone will be new there anyway, and you don't have to make up excuses for anyone else.

at least i have rachel and yimean and ale in fass with me. and angel too! but ale and angel are taking so vastly different modules i don't know if we'll ever meet. i have four common modules with rachel though! hopefully we get similar timings for tutorials too then it wouldn't be so hard to bear. and i hate that you have to go through balloting to get your tutorials. as if the bidding for modules wasn't bad enough.

and peiyen the wonderful modded my psp for me. thanks! i'm probably going to need it so much more in the next few months. thanks for coming all the way down too. sam as well. and sorry i had to rush off.

went to sgh after that because both my grandparents were in a&e. my grandfather hit his head on the wall while in vietnam and was so disoriented it was honestly worrying. apparently when he was walking his right foot would lag behind his left, and he didn't know what he was doing or where he was. but he seems better now. the doctor said something about his brain shrinking but i'm not too sure what that even means. i hope he gets better soon anyway.

...

sometimes i wish i had something real to hold on to.

today i finally found lyrics to wheesung's narak, and knowing the exact meaning of the lyrics at last made me cry. i see what wheesung meant when he warned people not to listen to the song alone.

times like this make me wish i'd learnt korean.

music: narak; wheesung

i just want to.

2009-07-28T11:52:00.000+08:00

ESTRINA! this reminded me so much of you!

haha estrina really resembles lee si young. even their personalities are kind of similar. if you have the time you can go watch the episodes on we got married with lee si young and junjin too. (:

anyway everything in fass is confusing. okay must study for test.

music: hey ya; junjin

i must not even know my own thoughts

2009-07-27T01:31:00.003+08:00

there was a monster beetle on the curtain at my front door!

i wanted to put my hand there, as a means of comparison to show how big it was but i was too scared because it really was very big. seriously! at least 5cm long and about 3cm wide.

okay anyway i had fun today. (:

music: 7days; wheesung

as you're drawn deeper

2009-07-22T23:08:00.004+08:00

is it just me, or is the post editor in blogger shot? because right now i'm typing in a tiny box pushed to the very bottom of the screen, while random words float above the box. it's all very strange.

anyhow, caught harry potter with amos, fran, chin and weiting yesterday. so sorry i couldn't give any of you a lift and rushed off so soon! my mum had to rush to go fetch my sister from nus and i think she was a little annoyed. had a good dinner at astons before the movie, during which wynne joined us and made us laugh a lot because she had very funny stories to tell us. and the movie wasn't all that bad i suppose, but it really wouldn't make much sense whether you'd read the book or not. if you had read it you'd be so aghast at the gaping plot holes and how the entire thing was so disjointed. if you hadn't you'd come out of the cinema thinking harry potter was all romance and fluff. and you wouldn't understand lots of it anyway. the books were infinitely better, even though i feel like the worst literature student in the world for saying that.

then i got in a harry potter mood and reread the last book today, and say what you will but i think j.k rowling honestly handled snape's death scene very masterfully. fred's as well. it's only on second reading (okay don't laugh at me you smart arses who got it the first time round) that i realised the significance of snape's insistence that harry look at him while he lay there dying. and that put so much more meaning to the entire scene, and makes you ache for his death all the more.

okay never mind that entire harry potter ramble.

i am going to study hard for my placement test! maybe i'll miraculously get a waiver and not have to waste time in beginner japanese again.

music: wae naman; wheesung

i wonder what dreams you dream.

2009-07-20T16:17:00.002+08:00

ahh 7 days is an amazing song! and it has such cute lyrics. haha you really can't help smiling when you listen to it. okay sorry for the fangirl ramble.

i'm beginning to like his third album a lot! it gets to you the more you listen to it.

music: 7 days; wheesung

close your eyes to the truth, so you don't feel the pain.

2009-07-20T16:01:00.003+08:00

i got a new template up! okay so i really didn't do anything much to it. but i really liked that line. and it isn't supposed to be a fangirl template either! i just liked that scene from the video, and the other random pictures from deviantart. alright so it's quite a sloppy skin actually. never mind, i like it for the moment so i'll stick with it i guess.

i realise i have this horrible habit of leaving my phone alone for the entire day if i'm at home all day. now i've got 4 messages and oh no, 3 missed calls. okay i'm off to go reply and call people back.

music: wanbyeokhan namja; wheesung

i liked that your voice was so close.

2009-07-19T00:06:00.006+08:00

i don't want the holidays to end so fast!! it's kind of hard to imagine school starting soon. i like being in this state of having the time to do whatever i want to do, and i really don't relish the thought of having to go back to being a slave of education again.

and next week seems like a bad week already because i have driving lessons and random things to do at nus that require me to be there for four days in a row from monday to thursday. i have no idea why but apparently i'm required to go for a japanese language placement test even though i'm quite sure i won't be able to be exempted for the first level module anyway. so embarrassing, going for the test and still not being exempted. and there are the fass briefings on monday and tuesday, and registration on wednesday and i also have to book my medical checkup on one of those days because i don't want to go all the way down to nus on another day just to get the checkup done. why is there so much to do??

went out today with my sister. and i got my second wheesung cd! which happens to be his third album, and it sounds okay. i think i prefer the songs in the more recent cds though. but it's still a pretty good album, in the sense that you can sit through the entire thing without wanting to skip to the next song.

thank goodness for hmv and their always stocking cds you'd never find elsewhere. even if it's at exorbitant prices grumble grumble.

after that we met the rest of the family at plaza sing's manhattan fish market for dinner. my treat! but i don't think my parents enjoyed the dinner particularly much. they would probably have been happier with a zhi char dinner even if it was at a random food centre. but i wanted to treat them to something nice! and not something we would eat on any other day anyway. oh well. i'm still awfully bloated from dinner anyway it's almost overly filling. but the food's honestly quite good.

random pictures of the family. and no pictures of food, unfortunately, because i was starving and wolfed everything down before even thinking to take a picture. just imagine fish. because that's all it was. very good fish.

music: love seat; wheesung

you're an extension of my existence

2009-07-16T18:28:00.005+08:00

i know i don't normally go for such cutesy stuff, but this was reaaally hard to resist. artbox stuff are so pretty! i think the sales staff must have been pretty annoyed with me because i took about a million years to pick one out. my mum as well, who was so painfully patient while i took an eternity deciding which one i wanted to get. thank goodness my mum is so wonderful. i should probably have waited and dragged someone to go get something else from artbox with me so we could get their membership card, but i wanted to have it as soon as possible. lydia said she might be going down to get hers in a while, so if we can use combined receipts i'll hop down and pass her mine. more incentive to shop at artbox if we have the card!

plans to go university shopping with wynne sam and rab seem to be falling through because all of them are so busy. which is really sad, because i have my pay to spend! what's the fun in having money to spend if you haven't got people to go buying stuff with sigh. maybe i should just take my mum's advice and save it all. but there's stuff i want to get...

music: wanbyeokhan namja - wheesung

i didn't want to be a part of it.

2009-07-14T15:05:00.005+08:00

i am officially...

jobless. or should i say, jobless!

i've been half-dreading and half-anticipating my last day of work. and now that day won't ever come about since my last day was technically the 10th. didn't even get to really say bye to the place, since i didn't know my last day was going to be my last day. when i read mr tan's sms i don't know why but the first thing that popped into my head was beyonce's irreplaceable. haha! it's all catherine's influence i tell you, she keeps blasting songs like that in the shop and making me write the lyrics down so now i think in terms of songs. but that song is more than a little out of context. never mind! can always pop back to visit. and rummage for free samples!! catherine and michelle tan and belinda and elena we're all depending on you all now. (:

still going back tomorrow to drop off the shirts (aww, i'll miss the shirt with the twisted smiley) and more importantly, to get my pay and commission. and i'll have to go pick up my laptop that's finally done being serviced. maybe i'll hop on over to heeren and spend my commission on wheesung cds. which reminds me! i totally can't remember where i placed my wheesung cd. i know i left it on that small shelf thing under the table downstairs for the longest time, but now i don't remember where i put it after that, or whether i kept it away at all. this does not bode well for the rest of the cds i'm planning to get.

and i don't understand why everything to do with uni preparation is so horridly complicated. it's a huge leap from jc to uni; it's really all just spoon-feeding in jc, and now suddenly you're expected to know how and when to do everything properly. it's all quite annoying.

i want to change a template. lots of time to do up a nice one now.

sam is now back anyway! welcome back. (:

music: wae naman; wheesung

for a second.

2009-07-04T23:40:00.004+08:00

... i cannot believe i agreed to work more. ):

oh well. technically i'm only working about three days more, but it feels like an eternity. shall not think about it!

anyway, my laptop totally died on me! it's really awful, but fortunately all the important stuff (read: fangirl material) are in my hard disk. which is incidentally, my best buy ever i think. i'm going to have to bring the laptop down to the service centre soon, because they say the repairs could take anywhere from a few days to like 6 weeks!! i don't think i can wait 6 weeks. or if i have to, then i hope those 6 weeks start real soon! it's somewhere in dhoby ghaut mrt apparently, which is quite strange because i've never seen the place before even though i go there fairly often. shall go there when i next have an off day i guess.

and i'm really ultra forgetful!! i happily slept in until close to 11 today, and then went on to arrange an impromptu meeting with wynne and only realised after wynne asked me about driving that i had a lesson in the morning today. i didn't tell my mum because i know she'll get really angry and irritated so shhh shhhhh i'll make up for it and try and learn like extra extra fast for the next lesson.

met wynne for lunch today, and we had tom yum ramen! good stuff. and we popped by suntec to visit lydia and met the new girl lyna, who i'll be working with soon! she looks like a really nice girl. and by this time lydia would have ended her last day at work!! i would have ended work today too, but... ahhhhhh. okay, extra money to make up for forgetting my driving lesson this morning.

something's wrong with blogger and i can't upload pictures but i will once it's done being horrible!

i feel so lethargic at the thought of work tomorrow! even though it's only a half day. but still! okay it will pass in no time at all. and i realise, after i leave there'll be no music at the shop because i need to take my mp3 away! ahhhhhh i need to find a working thumbdrive by tomorrow. :/

music: choco luv; wheesung

i'm happy just knowing.

2009-07-04T00:09:00.003+08:00

last few days have been less than stellar, but just the thought of work-free days looming ahead makes me think i can actually get through the next week both physically and mentally intact. i almost wish i'd done what wynne did and quit at the end of june instead of offering to stay on for a while longer. recently mr tan has very high expectations of us all that are hard to meet. especially when morale is so low partly because we're about to leave and partly because he's been in quite a foul mood the whole time since his return. thing is, i kind of get where he's coming from because if i were him i would expect us to be able to do simple stuff like making sure the shop is in order instead of just throwing every single problem at him. i should have just pressed on and smsed him in the morning about the faulty light; that was my fault. but i think lydia's right when she says sometimes he's overly harsh with his words. it's like, one mistake erases all the good you have done the past few months.

okay, never mind. we should totally get that "don't be angry" boardgame for him as a parting gift. haha! which reminds me. another thing that has to be done.

yesterday was horrible as well, because we came home to a floor splattered with blood. and i mean that literally. and i only realised that after i'd trampled halfway to the door when my dad said (too late) "mind the blood" in chinese. so i looked down and it looked like someone had just shot a zombie in the gut and said zombie had exploded into multiple blood splatters. the source of all the blood turned out to be my dog, who was sort of cowering in a corner with his head tilted all funny and blood dripping out of his ear. it was really scary. i expected dalphie to keel over and die any moment. after two bouts of cleaning and attempting to stop the bleeding we gave up and sent him to vet after my dad had a screaming fit about having to do all the cleaning up and yelling about how we hadn't taken care of the dog the whole month he was gone. (on a side note, i was extremely pissed off at him because he kept yelling even though it was doing nothing to help the situation and he kept making himself out to be a self-sacrificial matyr for doing household chores and insisting we hadn't done a thing the entire month.) you're never going to guess the cause of bleeding.

...

there were frigging maggots in his ear. all this time i've been joking and laughing about how lazy my dog is and i never realised that'd be such horrible consequences for his laziness. he doesn't do a thing about the flies that constantly swarm him and two days ago a fly finally got the chance to lay eggs in his ear, which hatched maggots that promptly began chewing out his ear tissue. and there was so much blood, and the poor thing was whining and was in obvious discomfort and pain and the worst thing was we couldn't do a damn thing about it until we got him sent to the vet. the whole time i was thinking how dalphie could have had a much better life if he'd been pet to people who actually knew how to care for him well.

anyway we arrived at home around 1 plus, but we all had to shower because we had blood splattered on us and the blood smelled horrid. it smelled like what i'd imagine zombie guts would smell like. :/ so in the end i ended up sleeping near 3am, which meant that i was completely zoned out today. or yesterday since it's past 12am. he's much better now though, and happier i think because we're paying more attention to him now.

and i'm ultra grouchy these few days too, because of the chain of bad stuff that keep happening. so i snap a lot at my parents and at people around me, and then i feel so bad after that it just adds on to my already grouchy mood. if this goes on i'm going to have to dye my hair green and go live in a trash can.

music: morning; wheesung

it's difficult to stand still.

2009-07-01T22:34:00.003+08:00

met wynne and rab today! initially we planned to meet at tampines mrt at 12pm, but both rab and i ended up being late. i didn't mean to be late! i would have arrived on time but my bus refused to come. they had to send a new bus to the bus-stop to pick us up because apparently all the bus 10s were caught in a traffic jam and wouldn't be able to come for the next hour or so. i was about half and hour late, but rab beat my record and only arrived at 4pm haha! it's okay monster rab, i know you need a very long time to put on your human disguise. you're forgiven.

anyway, went to ikea with wynne first to eat meatballs! we were debating between the plate of 15 and the plate of 10, but in the end we decided not to be gluttons and to just go for the plate of 10 instead. thank goodness we did, because both of us were quite stuffed after eating just 10 meatballs. then we shopped around ikea for a bit, before going back to tampines to wait for monster rab. had lots of fun with the two of them! when sam comes back, we can all go out again. and again. and again. (:

and we had this fairly amusing conversation. haha! estrina if you're reading this don't be angry! we were just talking about how drama some people and their relationships were, and it somehow turned into this. estrina's relationships are like hollywood blockbuster movies! very very happening. haha like how so much happened when we didn't see her for little over a week. then sam and peiyen are like korean dramas. very ambiguous. rab said they're like "sometimes have and sometimes don't have" haha. but quite entertaining too. rab and charles are like taiwan idol dramas. forever in conflict. but somehow they still end up okay. and wynne and samuel are like channel 8 dramas (wynne says boring and safe but i say better than always being in conflict!). chin and weiting are like hallmark family drama serials on sunday afternoons! always peaceful.

given a choice between a bad boy and a nice guy who would you pick? the first will be so fraught with conflict but at least it'll be interesting, and the latter will be safe but boring. and i was telling wynne girls are just like guys there're always the guys they like and want to be with but that guy might not be the one they eventually bring home to meet the parents. you know how guys always say stuff like so-and-so is good for a fling but not good for marrying and all. okay so maybe that's not what they always say. guess it's best to find one who balances both extremes well. -coughedisoncough-

driving tomorrow! will meet wynne there. i'm kind of nervous it's been over a week since my last lesson. darn the horrible booking system.

music: ga; wheesung

you were the first.

2009-07-01T00:56:00.004+08:00

i think, if i were to sum up my entire person in three words they'd be "eager to please". it explains why i'm always so affected by criticisms or when i get rebuffed in the slightest. i don't get all breakdown-and-cry kind of affected, but i end up thinking about it over and over again for the next week at least. i don't like the feeling of having someone upset with me, or having someone around me upset for that matter, because for the former i obviously want to make others happy and for the latter it makes me feel lacking when i can't do anything to help that person.

and sometimes i feel it'd feel so much better if people were just angry instead of disappointed. simply the use of that word makes you feel bad already, for letting that person down in the first place.

anyway, i was so preoccupied thinking about things that i did so many silly mistakes today. first i scanned the wrong item for a customer and ended up having to top up for him. then when i went for my break i dropped my phone into a bowl of laksa. now my phone smells of prawn. and lanvin's eclat, because i tried to mask the smell by swiping my phone with a cotton wool of eclat. it just smells weird now really. but much better than right after it took that swim! and it was so embarassing, because the guy behind me gasped so loudly and said "oh my god" while the stall auntie was all "wah, why you like that?!" in chinese. so much for taking particular care for this phone huh.

i must learn to focus on things i'm doing at the moment.

ikea lunch with wynne and rab in about 12 hours. rab the quarantined is now rab the unquarantined! haven't seen her for so long. not that i'm looking forward to it. honest! why would i look forward to seeing my arch-enemy rab.

anyway, for lydia again! http://community.livejournal.com/spreehouse/3586747.html#cutid1 and i hope your swollen gum is better now! take care, and don't be upset if you are. or maybe i'm thinking too much. see you maybe tomorrow, or on thursday! (:

on a side note, wheesung's voice in morning is so endearing. haha! yes i had to insert a random fangirl ramble.

music: morning; wheesung