This Blog is about

love. work. play. stress. learning. failing. succeding. laughing. crying. Basically, Life.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

In resp. to LN's post:
I def. agree about the same individual having both the grace of heaven and the cruelty of hell - i mean that's probably the definition of the human-being for me. But somehow expecting nothing seems to me a little sad sometimes, kind of like I feel there should be certain things we should be able to expect from people... like basic human courtesy or decency... which I know often disappoints but somehow not expecting these things is a little too like giving up entirely on the human condition. I don't know. I haven't entirely resolved this issue either.
Today is happy. well mostly because i did well in my labor econ midterm afterall and screwed up the curve for the class.. as my friends so happily accuse me of doing :-p. (It's rare enough for me to top a class that I'm still happy about it) but also because I get free good indian food for dinner as part of being a tutor. It's actually a study break for brown tutoring. I like this whole perks idea. esp. when it's free food. food makes me happy.

On other news, am trying to persuade Fire that she should date this cetain freshman who emailed her out of the blue and asked her out for tea. isn't actually as exciting as it seems becasue we don't exactly know the freshman's intentions but she sounds welll-balanced and cool and I think my ex-roommate deserves someone well-balanced and cool. lol.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Received an email from aeryise about a posting on a mutual friend's blog that basically talked about being torn between faith in mankind and cynicalism about the depths to which humans can go. I guess in response to aeryise's question about how one can live in that state. I think you really grow to survive with that mindset.

I don't even think of it as heartbreak anymore. I used to be extremely idealistic, i think you all start that way when you are a kid. That's why in the model United Nations conferences that we used to organise for the secondary school kids, countries always reached peaceful solutions within the span of an hour. In the real world, China would never fall over apologising for aiming nuclear missiles at Taiwan. World Peace would not be proposed and reached as a treaty in the span of a day. Things just don't work that way, because we're all too old and cynical about it. Too scared that everyone is going to try and take the bigger piece in order to actually try to increase the pie.

But back to the point, I'm older and I guess wiser now, at least in the ways of the world and still trying to find the balance between faith that men do good things and the overwelming evidence that men do some pretty awful things too. The sad part is that the good things usually come as individual acts and the awful things as events on a world scale.

How do you live with heartbreak when the object of heartbreak isn't a person but an idea?
Well, maybe the answer is the same as how you live with normal heartbreak. You scream and cry about it for a while, you get mad at the world for a while.. and then you realise that u being mad at the world or the guy or the idea doesn't do anything to change it. After a while, the pain dulls, and then you learn to live with it. Every once in while, I still want to scream about the injustice of the world, or something awful that i read in the newspapers (the sad part is that that often comes in the letters or opinions pages than in the actual articles), but for the most part, it's there but i can live with it.
The way I see it, there's no point in being cynical because that just perpetuates it. If I hate mankind and I think mankind is going to do awful things to me, I'm more likely to do awful things or even just not to do nice things because i don't think they'd be appreciate it or because I'd get hurt doing it. Just because most christians (I'm sorry to say) are concerned with judging others doesn't mean that there aren't any who are truly selfless and love their neighbours.

In the end I think, it was the quote from one song that kind of caught me and held me there.

"And I hear them saying you'll never change things,
that no matter what you do it's still the same things.
But it's not the world that I'm changing.
I do this so, this world will know
that it will not change me."

Extremely idealistic perhaps, and I'd be the first to admit that I don't always live up to it.. but it would be so nice if I could.
On New York:

I'm back from a short (extremely short) trip to new york to see Gypsy, a broadway musical. In actuality the reason was to drop off Lady J's old car and pick up her new one. But the trip was worth it just to see the musical although I can't say I'd be doing that again anytime soon. It's a pretty long drive down for a show.

Driving through the streets of New York somehow reminded me of being in Tokyo. Being in a big city. I decided a long time back that I was meant to be a city girl. I love exploring cities, turning up strange and cool places and simply wandering around, getting lost and getting found again. However, I'm not sure that New York would ever be that city. Although I mostly only saw it by car, and granted it was the winter time, I don't think New York would ever be somewhere that I would like to live.

Maybe I've been spoilt by Tokyo. I wanted NY to be vibrant, cool, and happening. I wanted it to have people walking on the streets that looked happy to be there. I wanted it to be a city without the business side i guess, but all I managed to see was the boring "normal" life that people with money could live. Give me harajuku anytime :-p

Then again, I was there with Lady J's dad and step mom. I suppose it would be drastically different if i went to college there. Or simply just went to stay with friends.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

response to Lucid. N:

lol, i think sylfien would answer your questions better but as he's rarely online I volunteer to answer any questions as best as I can :-p
Okay a couple of responses to e.e.:

On reading for pleasure: hon, as much as we like to pretend otherwise, most people in college don't have time to read for pleasure. you're lucky that you read fast enough to be able to enjoy the privilege. In any case, for classes in humanities imagine having to read a book a week for each class and then wonder where in the world people find time or brain power to read outside that and still process the new ideas. As a science major, at least phillosphy and history and all are pretty different but to a hummanities major, there are enough new ideas in the material on the reading list.

On Government: lol, you're more a conspiracy theorist than I am. Or maybe you've more faith in the government's abilities and power. To me, you can't do anything everywhere, there are always elements you can't control where people are concerend. I don't belive in real life vetinaris. I'm not sure what I believe as regards that issue. :-p

Thursday, February 19, 2004

la la la... on liang teh high.. which has lasted since 6am this morn?? yeah the caffiene or whatever it is they put in that thing is amazing.. ladilah... I'm hyper.. still. and it's LAAAATE at night. maybe I'll go take a shower and it'll relax me. Wow. i need a shot of this thing EVERYDAY.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Okay okay so I'm writing an entry already. I have a midterm in Labor econ tomorrow and of course it took me till last night staring at my notebook in my bed just before turning in the towel to sleep before I realized that the reason why I wasn't getting those particular quesitons is that i had transcribed the solution from my notebook wrongly. Sheesh. These things get me everytime, and I don't know why I'm always more productive when I'm supposed to be in bed sleeping. *lol*

Anyway responses to people:

Luc. N: Good luck in the job search. I can't believe I have to do that in a year and I'll probably in the same boat. I hate it that people around me are getting internship offers and job offers left right center and i'm just sitting here and going.. yeah.. I'm not that good. :-p

Enf. E: I never regret talking to you :-p lol. no seriously. It was nice. Every once in a while I need reminding that I do have friends elsewhere. For some reason I'm way closer to you and D than I'll ever be to my friends here in providence. Maybe it's the value system or simply the fact that we've had more time to get used to each other and accept each other for what we are.
Oh btw, did you know that asian christians have the same reputation as people from the bible belt.. kinda. lol I just tell people my parents are asian christian and they TOTALLY understand. I think Asians tend to take value systems to an extreme, or maybe they're just so used to having a code to act on which is why they are in general more extremeist in religion or something.

S.S: ganbatte nee. watashimo nan ka kono syu kan wa totemo muzukashi desu kedo ganbare.

S.M: hey sweets. I've come to realise how healthy the american way of doing these things are :-p Or at least compared to singaporeans. Maybe it's all very romantic and all but I think singaporeans tend to put a lot of emphasis on relationships being like your one true love and leading up to marriage. And I'm not just saying that because I'm not affected because I swear I wouldn't have such high standards otherwise (why oh why won't I just go get a random guy) So it's all well and good if it works out. *smile at a certain long-standing couple* but if it doesn't it tends to want to screw up and twist your life because it makes it that much harder to get over because each relationship was so important in the first place. Maybe it would be better if we were all just taking everything as it comes. relationships day by day without expecting anything more so that if it happens it happens and if it doesn't work out, it doesnt' screw up our lives for years to come :-p
lol. and if you've watched battle royale, the couple survive not killing anyone, being extremely lucky, and being protected by another guy who of course since he killed people, dies. (this is the movie world, the innocent survive). In the real world this would never be the case.... a.k.a. if you put me on a dessert island and told me I had to kill other people, I prob. wouldn't be the last one standing :-p

Saturday, February 14, 2004

It's Valentine's Day!!! whoo hoo. not that I'm doing anything special with anybody or something. lol. In fact, the only thing cool I'm doing is work and we all know how cool that is :-p. The only way this has affected me so far is the fact that I can't use my kitchen because there is a couple in the kitchen and they are taking up the whole kitchen :-(.
Oh well, I guess dinner today is going to be incredibly late.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

#15 Nanahara
"RUN!"
-#15 Nanahara Shuya


Which Battle Royale Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

yeah.. so my only response is at least I get to survive in a movie kind of world. In the real world, I am SO dead.
two more servings of stew left! :-p they are kind of frozen because the tiny freezer compartment on my tiny fridge works so well that anything you put below or beside it gets frozen too. lol. I have to use up the chicken I bought soon though so it might be fried rice today :-p

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Wednesdays are my language days. I have japanese for an hour and then 2 and a half hours of chinese. Or rather Chinese democracy and trying to translate everything into english. My notes for that class are a mess of english and chinese. All in all I think I didn't come out so bad. I can understand and speak chinese mostly and am fluent in english. That's more than I can say for most that come out of the bilingual education idea. Maybe people aren't meant to be bilingual becuase depsite everyone having to have done both languages how many of us can truly say we are fluent in both?

Sunday, February 08, 2004

Just made stew.. with enough leftovers to feed me for four more meals. *grin* not bad for 8 bucks or so huh? I guess that is the cheapest way to eat really, just cook. the problem is that now i have to eat stew for 5 meals.. hmm.. maybe I could start doing the whole creative thing like the 100 dollar a month girl on tv in japan and make stew into different things.. I wonder if stew would change taste if I added curry powder to it. lol.

on a sadder note it's going to be a five hundred dollar deposit to get a phone.. like seriously!
*sigh*

I went to a gay bar for the first time yesterday.
Did that get your attention yet?
Actually it wasn't really a gay bar, it was a club and it was called Pulse. It's kinda like a disco. It was also ladies night which meant tons of interesting sights around. lol.
I mean where else do you get to see so many girls making out with each other on the dance floor?
A guy's dream huh? Well, I came to the conclusion that even if I were a guy, not really.
i mean I think if I were gay or bi, I'd go for a girl who was strong and outgoing, but still girly. Maybe I'm just looking for someone who is a little like myself but also all the things I'm not but I wish I could be. I wouldn't want a girl who reminded me of a guy though. even though technically speaking I'm straight so I mean I would want a guy. hmm... weird.
Anyway, that's one of the conclusions I reached last night. I'm straight. lol. Not that I was uncomfortable at the club or anything. It was fun to get out and dance again, especially with a big group of friends, and the music was nice and all but I kinda realised that I wasn't attracted to any female in the club :-p none of the males either but as they were all gay I wouldn't have gotten them anyway.
*grin*

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

My html skills consist of simply this.. cutting and pasting random bits of script already on the site and changing random values as well as adding < and >. lol. Anyway that's the story of how I got my tagboard where I wanted it by trial and error WITHOUT understanding what i was doing. and what have I learnt from this all?

1. if you don't want the script to show on the blog cover it up with < and >
2. the preview function is REALLY useful. lol

Sunday, February 01, 2004

dang. notes are down. oh well it was a good system while it lasted. I'm temporarily not taking the notes function down yet even though i know you can't leave notes because I am harbouring this faint hope it might go back out.
lady j broke up yesterday, so we all went out to a party and stayed out till like 3.30am when it was freezing cold. Even though she says she thinks she did the right thing, she's still pretty broken up. hopefully it gets better.

Sometimes I feel like I definitely need to do more stuff in school. i mean fire has a bunch of stuff and lady J has her dancing but what do I have? there's this pressure to get more involved. I don't know. I hate getting involved for the sake of having something to do. I want the stuff we do to consume me, to make me want to devote my life to it not something I do because I have the free time, and somehow i just haven't found anything like that at brown yet.

above all at the moment I think I miss having a center full of 45 people of which mostly at least one of your friends is always around. it's kind of lonely back here when there are far less people. and also kind of sad i guess, that I don't think the center people were for the most part close enough that we would keep in constant contact even after we left. I still have cbear but somehow it's not the same as having classes at the same place everyday and having lunch with friends all the time.