YTuesday, August 29, 2006
k-fever
ive caught the korean drama fever! haha. spent half the day being a couch potato and watching 5 episodes of Save the Last Dance for Me at irene's place. im usually not a sucker for korean dramas. but for some strange reason, im hooked.
im so hooked that i can stay up till 3am watching My Name is Kim Samsoon on youtube! i like the female lead character - she's uncoth, burly, fat and ugly - far from the typical female protagonist in korean dramas, yet there's something so unique about her, that she redefines the word "cute" and maybe even "beautiful".
anyways, after a friggin lousy lunch of undercooked Maggi mee that was almost inedible (sheesh), i was so glad to head to PS to meet up clar, rad, eunice and diana and look forward to a good dinner. eunice is a Sam Soon fan too! and diana has the VCDs haha. we roamed PS for awhile before heading to Lau Pa Sat to meet jus, bee and mj.
you can call it a bitter sweet moment, since most of them will be starting their 6 month attachment next week. i'll miss seeing them in school. yup... no doubts about that. but i did feel happy last night though. it was afterall, a cheerful all-girl dinner that wasnt catty in any way. that is what i like about my old class. non-cliqueish. non competitive. so cheery and so warm. i have to say the satay at lau pa sat wasnt up to my liking (and not to mention how irked i was by some stallholder who hit on me when i ordered my Unagi Bento set) but the fun, laughter and great company made up for it.
side track... mum says im getting vain. so she concludes that i must dating. *michevious grin* of course i laughed at her - that only made her want to pry more into my affairs. sometimes she's so ridiculous... kinda um, irritating in a funny way.
alright, i threaded my brows last fri. that was when eunice and diana had theirs done and when i thought it was about time that i get rid of my unibrow. it's afterall been almost 2 or 3 years since i've last gotten them tweezed. but after i had my brows threaded, my brows drew more attention than my face so i messed with eyeliner to get attention back to my eyes. i mean, wont it be weird if the first thing that strikes you are a person's brows? so im being vain? heck i dont know and i dont care.
as for the dating part.... i always say 'no' dont i?
cai was here with you at
YMonday, August 28, 2006
end of school
wow, it's been some time since ive posted! the vacation break has (FINALLY) arrived but ive been pretty busy lately, doing the usual holiday stuff - meet-ups, shopping, chilling and most interestingly, going for a trial yoga session at True Yoga with my elder sis.
haha. it feels as if its been some time since ive last seen my sis. yes, we live in the same house but we hardly see each other. it's not that we keep our separate bedroom doors closed. the thing is, when im home she's not and vice versa. so yeah, the trial yoga session felt awkward at first - we hardly share the same interests. but the as the lesson progressed, it dawned on me that my sis is quite nice. haha. perhaps it just feels so long since we've had a sister bonding session.
anyways, on the topic of health and exercise, ive been trying my best to keep healthy and build up my immune system. ive been eating fruits... and since saturday, ive been running to bugis junction from my house 3 mornings in a row. dad's afraid i'm overdoing it. but im coping fine. havent been running on a regular basis for sometime since this semester started. i feel happy running... running leisurely that is.
but i must make this clear - im not turning so much into a health freak. in fact, ive had my fair share of fattening foods and that very sinful indulgence at max brenners on sunday with irene and fel. anyways, i feel like a freebird now. but i'll be working at NUS again - starting coming monday (4 sept). im half dreading it and half looking forward to it. dreading it cos... i like my freedom now. i can eat sleep and breathe so much better now. but really looking forward to it because working at NUS makes me feel... somewhat comforted to know my MG friends are around the area.
cai was here with you at
YTuesday, August 22, 2006
understand not?
i was at the supermart with my mum. while we were at the meat section, a rather well dressed lady was on the phone, "elma? can you ask Ah Ma if she wants smoked salmon or the raw one?"
salmon... common word that many singaporeans mispronounce. they call it... 'sow-men'. how uniquely singaporean. there was once i ordered a salmon sandwich from the coffee club express at NUS. the lady at the counter raised an eyebrow as if i was speaking greek. strangely, her idiotic look made me feel idiotic. so i idiotically spoke slowly when i repeated my order, only to be rewarded... with another blank look. i had to point to the menu and then she exclaimed, "oh, a sow-men sandwich!"
i was in no mood to correct her. anyways, i guess we will never be a country that speaks proper english because if we do, we cant understand each other... we are just too used to our sub-standard english.
our english foundation just isnt there. looking back at kindergarden, do you remember how our teachers recited the line of natural numbers? 'one... two... TREE!' and when they read fairytale stories to us, they pronounced 'sword' as.... sWord (proper pronounciation is sord).
my sis and i went to the magic shop at coronation to look for stage props - one of which was a fake sword. we were looking around and the assistant, or maybe the shop owner, came over and asked if he could help. so my sis said we were looking swords and asked if he had any to recommend. we were already at the sword section. but that guy said he never heard of such a trick before.
apparently, he thought 'sords' was the name of a magic trick. i echoed my sister's statement, this time with mispronounciation and wow, we were understood right away....
sigh. here we are, in a country that has a 'speak good english' movement. but what's the point? this is a place where good english cant be understood. either we continue our bad english, or launch a 'Understand good english' campaign. i doubt we'll ever have that campaign. i mean, didnt we boast that we are a world class educational hub? having such a campaign will be a mockery to our education system.
so anyways, i'm gonna go back to making english as bad as it can be - the singaporean way. pronounce their as 'thiar', three as 'tree'... and well, be happily understood.
cai was here with you at
YSaturday, August 19, 2006
exams - thus far
thus far, the two papers i've sat for are total extremes. my first paper was financial accounting. as expected, i didnt finish the paper. what a waste it was, because i did most of the computations but didnt have time to do much of the theory. 9 marks for theory was thrown away just like that. i think i'll score a C grade if i'm lucky. oh whateverrr!
i guess it's not all my fault if i did badly. the air con was damn strong. so i was weezing and weezing. i used up 2 packs of tissues while working on that 2hr paper. maybe that's why i couldnt finish. even after the exam, i had to ask jiahui for a pack of tissues. i went home with a red nose. mum thought i cried after the paper. -____- the hot weather made me feel worse. i cant cope well with dramatic temperature changes.. my immune system crashes a tad too easily.
so last night's mugging was purely just focused on the exam tips given during the revision lecture. it was quite a gamble studying just the wee bit that was highlighted but i was really feeling under the weather. so, today's paper for financial markets and services? it was great cos the bit that i focused on were all tested. phew. for the first time in my life, i walked out of the exam hall, feeling confident about my answers.
with two down, i've got 3 more papers to go: Audit on monday, Investments on thursday and Tax on friday.. and to think i'm already suffering from severe brain damage...
cai was here with you at
YTuesday, August 15, 2006
what was i thinking
sigh. today's post is about yet another incident that proves i'm losing it.
i was taking a break from mugging just now, so i did a lil blog hopping. in meng's blog, there was one point where she mentioned that after spending on contact lenses and her bro's present, she's now kinda cash-broke. the paragraph ended with "and i still need to go and buy paper later to print more notes".
left with 50 bucks for the rest of the month... need to print more notes... hmm, for a split second, i thought meng was cracking a joke i.e about printing counterfeit money. o.O
my gawd. how can i think that?! of course the she was referring to was lecture/tutorial notes... (lucky in the same minute, i realised that). what the hell man.
oh please, dont send me to woodbridge?
cai was here with you at
deja vu
rah! i hate myself. im such a scatterbrain. the accounting revision lecture was postponed to this monday, but i screwed up last weekend, thinking i had missed the lecture. sheesh.
but that was all thanks to this dream i had that week. basically, in that dream, i overslept and as a result, missed the revision lecture. it felt very real. so one night, as i was revising, something hit me and made me wonder, why didnt i go for the revision lecture? i panicked. but later on, i realised, i must be hallucinating - the lecture had been postponed to a future date so i couldnt have missed it... yet.
dang. must have been all that mugging that's eating my grey matter.
so realising my mistake, i made a memo in my phone to remind me to go to school on the re-scheduled day of the lecture. i even went to bed early the night before the rescheduled revision lecture.
but alas, on that very morning, i woke up to the ringing of my mobile...it was 9:30am. what the hell?! it was the memo that made it ring. so i realised, i didnt set my alarm the night before! i was fuming mad and in awe at the same time. really, it felt like the dream i had last week...
everything's just... so strange... it's like, i had the sense of deja vu that i'd oversleep and miss the lecture.
weird! if only... i could dream of the answers to my coming exams... *dreamy smile*hopefully i dont oversleep and miss my exams man... been having trouble waking up in the mornings.
cai was here with you at
YFriday, August 11, 2006
Same shit, different day.
sigh. i still have so much more to mug for my exams. each time i take out my notes, i get a headache (no kidding).
i need to find the motivation to study, and find it fast, because, i'm just left with 6 days to the exams. 6 days. it's less than a week. and i've yet to start at all on Tax, Investments and Audit.
yeah i think i'm quite screwed.
but to side track, i've just got to know my grades for my world issues reflection (yes the one i rushed last friday morning itself till 5am). hah. got a B+. that's surprising cos i was in no mood to do it, considering that i started working on it the day it was due. what's more surprising are my tutor's sweet comments - she said that it was "generally well-written and fairly creative. Huiru has raised some very pertinent points and raised good questions. It is evident that her thoughts on the issues have evolved. However it would have been a much better piece if she had mentioned in greater detail how she feels discrimination can be avoided".
yeah... i'm happy cos i knew my work was sub-par but was too tired (5am, mind you) to carry on and give in-depth anaylsis. heee. but still, i feel somewhat satisfied with myself. whoopeeeeeee.
cai was here with you at
YMonday, August 07, 2006
i cant believe it
im in frigging awe, at how the human mind is so vunerable to become prejudiced and lead us to discrimate just based on very irrational factors - stuff like dress sense, or mannerisms?! one of my freshies was telling me how he pitied me, and how i look like a misfit in my class.
yeah like what the hell?! so i asked him to explain why he's trying to put me down. he reasoned, "pardon me but your new class looks kinda weird to me". ok, if he's saying my class is weird and i look like a misfit, he's prolly saying that i dont look weird. but still... im stumped as to why he's talking to me about my class.
so i tried to dig deeper. and it was then that he told me, "they look and behave really weird. if i have to be blunt, they really look nerdy to me. i feel like running away man if i were in your class. "
lucky it was just an MSN conversation. i felt my face tense up, and could only respond with my trademark emoticon - yes, that's right, it's my colorful ".....", and the -___-" face.
but he still had more to say - "when i see them, i wonder how they gona mix around when they leave each other. and i feel sad for them. for the 1st time, i feel sorry for a buncha people."
interesting. it only shows how shallow he is. but then again, in the midst of criticising him, i realised i had been shallow myself. ive been guilty of judging books by their cover (not with reference to my current classmates though).
i remember in lectures, there's this guy whose dressing i dont quite fancy. he always has one hand in his pocket. and he became the butt of my clique's jokes... i still remember, we jokingly called him "jen's boyfriend" cos jen had taken notice of him since yr 1 and from that day, she 'just had something against him'.
i never thought i was really prejudiced in any ways... until now. i am shallow. i'd never make friends with "jen's boyfriend" - simply because i dont like his high cut jeans. his hair. his "i've got one hand in my pocket" and act-cool saunter. but are these reasons reasonable, at all? perhaps karma has striked back and now, someone else is watching me and the people around me, and giving uncalled for remarks.
back to the kid who was mocking my classmates, i told him...
"when i was an orientation leader, there was this guy in the orientation group that i was in charged of. he seemed like a jerk, talked like a jerk, walked like a jerk and dressed like one too. i couldnt stand him, i remember i slapped him hard when he said something offensive during the camp.... but people still deserve chances. it wouldnt be fair to just judge them based on appearance."
that of course, was our history. i hope he got my point. he likes bugging me but i do have probs getting along with him. still, i never burn bridges and i do refrain from sounding offensive. and
anyways, i know my classmates are hardworking. sometimes i get smses from them on friday nights to remind me to post the tutorial that i've presented earlier in class onto the school's online BlackBoard. ive even gotten a call at 12 plus in the morning regarding tutorial homework. yes, to be honest, sometimes i do get upset at them. like, when i'm chilling, they put pressure on me. i feel guilty hanging out late at night, to know that they're mugging.
each time i step into tutorial classes, i feel pressured to perform. i feel not as smart as them, i feel insecure about myself (especially my sloth). and i do feel upset when my classmates ask about my grades or project grades - for it shows me how competitive they are. this new enviroment is different from the class i had for the last two years. but, i guess, it serves as a challenge, for me to embrace diversity, accept differences, and be able to work together with people of all sorts.
let's have a look again at what that bugger said: "when i see them, i wonder how they gona mix around when they leave each other. and i feel sad for them. " i think the tables have flipped. well, there is something in me that wishes to mirror his words and say: "i wonder how is he gonna mix around with people, for he has yet to venture beyond his well and small pool of fellow frogs. suddenly, i feel sad for him. "
but having said that, ive judged him myself. so the thing about judging others, it's really sorta like a vicious cycle or is it not?
cai was here with you at
YSaturday, August 05, 2006
Just feeling a bit blue today...
Having one of those times where there's nothing to say, no witty remark to make or weird encounters to blog about. Today's my birthday and the "best" presents i've gotten are a blocked nose and sore throat. My immune system crashed since friday night actually (stayed up that till 5 on friday morning to start on an assignment that was due on friday itself). Thought I'd recover and prayed that I'd recover but well, my wish wasnt granted. Sometimes i cant help but wonder if the big guy up there has a wicked sense of humour. I'm saying this in jest of course.
Anyway I'm glad I've had my fair share of fun though - cos I've been treated like royalty on Thursday and Friday, supposedly Saturday but I felt half alive then so party at leong's got cancelled. (sunday, which is today, is left for my family)! Haha. But of course, I'd like to thank all, for giving me birthday blessings, whether in the form of smses, calls, cards, treats and/or gifts. Really appreciated them. Quirky stuffs: red strawberry beaded purse, striped red-white bag, TY beanie babies, What Dreams May Come VCD, jewellery, a top, an artfully designed wooden box (feeds my obsession for Pandora's Box) with a deck of The Cat cards, lastly - a voodoo doll (my mum thought it's a mummy).
My artsy fartsy elder sis did up an A3 size card on her own and in it, she put in the lyrics of Wear Sunscreen by *gasp* my favourite director - Baz Luhrmann (he sings too but i admire him for his directing in Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet). Anyway the message in the lyrics are perhaps, echo the advice she wants to give me. The lyrics are pretty cool (or maybe i'm just prejudiced cos it's Luhrmann). Here's just an extract of the lyrics:
"Don't waste your time on jealousy
sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind
the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself
(etc etc etc)
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life
the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you'll marry,
maybe you won't,
maybe you'll have children,
maybe you won't,
maybe you'll divorce at 40,
maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary
what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either - your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.
(etc etc)
Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings;
they are the best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,
but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle
because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young."
Um, what's it i wanna say? Oh, Children's day is coming soon. Haha. Ok that's random. Right, I know it's actually more than a month away if I think about it. but but but, I'm thinking of bringing joy to the cancer foundation kids! Yup. So excited already. Not just thinking of helping Miss Magician and being part of her performance BUT also, if i'm good enough, perform for the kids myself. But that would mean i'd need to polish my performing skills. Sigh. Oh well, will cross the bridge when I get there. (:
cai was here with you at