Truth works either way.

ACS presentation's finally over! I have no more presentations, so that leaves me with just 2 more lesson packages, 1 more e-learning assignment and 1 more group essay to hand in before the start of exams.

For my presentation today, I'd gotten both good and bad comments. The ones who'd given me the good ones were really too kind, and I'm thankful for the ones that were critical (at least they were being honest! not to say the ones who gave kind comments were not...), for knowing where to improve on. I realized I've always found myself in classrooms where the culture's like, everyone's nice when it comes to peer evaluation (at least for presentations and even if they're horrible) so that they won't come across as mean or something. Kind of shields us from the harsh reality that people might not like the shit we've prepared for your classes and are not afraid to tell us in the face in future; our little hearts will probably break or something when it happens, me thinks.

School woes aside, here's what my alarm settings looked like last week when G wasn't around and I had a 8.30 class in the morning:

Look, I went to bed at 4 a.m.

I ended up an hour late for class. I'm truly horrible, I know right.

ps. clubsnap's down for the second day now, please be back up soon :(

Zoo did not happen because...

Mumsy, YF and I were all very busy being sleepyheads. Blahhhhhh. I woke up at 1 p.m. to see both of them still in bed, so I went back to bed as well. So yeah, no zoo visit :( I'm giving the tickets away to someone else instead. *aud I still owe you $$*

On a side note, my hair's long enough to be tied up! On one side, that is...

G told me what she heard about Vaguebooking over the radio and we talked about people who do that. I don't think I'll ever understand vague-bookers/vague-blers/vague-ters,etc, just get straight to the point instead of coming up with some emo bullshit already.

Time for a shower, and it's time for assignments! I'm finally going to do some readings again after all that assignments-rushing.

So far, so good.

I've been seeing Siaos a lot this week; first, I bugged her to head down to Vivo with me (to take a look at the Canon tripod, but the showroom's out of stock!) on Tuesday evening. We had Thai Express for dinner and some OiO yoghurt (quite a number of new yoghurt ice-cream shops around these days) for dessert.

We met again on Friday afternoon; I wanted to drop by National Library to look at a professional photography exhibition and since she'd end school around that time I thought we could meet up or something after the exhibition. I turned up late, and we ended up going to the exhibition together; she started telling me how & why some of the architectural structures in those pictures looked really fake (must be a designer's thing!). She offered me some (yummy) chocolate biscuit sticks the moment we met, and after the exhibition, we walked over to Shaw for ice cream! We tried some flavours at Tom's Palette and they were gooood. Anyway, the two of us are always eating when we meet, and after we're done eating we'd start blaming each other for making us eat so much. Blah.

I'm really glad I went for the photography exhibition; that's my first, and hopefully not last, I really love looking at great pictures. Oh, and I sent the roll of B&W film that's been resting on my bookshelf since a few months back for processing too! I hope they won't come out too over-exposed... & Thank you Siao for helping me collect!

Taken while we were on our ways to Raffles City; my first 2 successful panning shots:

These are really quite fun to shoot.

Windsurfed today, and I had fun trying to make good use of my harness; got a little more comfy with the 140 board even though I was still heeling too much. Catapulted once or twice, thankfully it wasn't anything too serious. The wind was an almost constant offshore, and I couldn't make my way back... Rodin offered to sail back to the launching bay so I still had it easy in the end. Tied my new up-haul line (with the easy up-haul hook) onto my boom just, and I can't wait to use it next week!

Had dinner at Applebee's 111 with the seniors after training. Food's not cheap there (mains from $16+ onwards) but I thought the portions were pretty generous and I liked what we had. I exchanged half of what was on my plate (Ultimate Trio) for some glazed ribs, and was really, really full at the end of it. Udders after and it's been so long that I last visited that I forgot which road to take after the Velocity junction; spent at least 15 minutes making rounds. Yummy as usual, plus now there's much company from the traffic police. Packed a pint of Rum & Raisin back for the family, and I realized... the place is a 10 minutes drive from my home!

Weekend's been great so far, & I hope it'll stay like that for a long, long time... Zoo visit with the family tomorrow, looking forward to it!

Theory of Compensation

I came across something interesting while reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter on the train yesterday. The theory of compensation: For everything given, something else is immediately and visibly lost. 'Yes, you may be smart you sure are ugly; You may look nice but you didn't get a brain'. This is how balance is achieved in the universe.

Not everyone will agree with what I've just shared, but I don't suppose it's uncommon for us to think that way to make ourselves feel better. Not uncommon when we start to make comparisons at least, right? Maybe... I'm the only one who does that all these while.

But now, I'm starting to question if this theory really does work. Apart from the temporal gush of satisfaction I get from putting people down, there doesn't seem to be anything else that I can get out of it in the long run. Over-valuing my self-worth by thinking that pretty/good-looking people are brainless will only result in me realizing that while both of us use our brains as much, I still look like shit and the good-lookers are still good-looking. Blah. It's bitterness, and not satisfaction that I get at the end of the day.

There is never going to be balance in our universe, so it's important to be happy and live with however little/much we have. If you're not, then do something about it and quite whining. If you're unhappy with your looks, dress up, go for plastic surgery. If you think you're stupid, read up, enhance your knowledge. Everything that you have is a result of your doing (i.e. you decide your own winning formula), and not because someone/something dictates who should be rich, pretty, poor or ugly.

about credibility.

There's this one lecturer in school whom students seem to love finding fault with; lecture slides are too wordy, reading off slides, delivery of lessons super long-winded, never ending on time for tutorials, never able to finish all the questions in tutorials etc.

While I was in one of her tutorial classes last semester, she would never fail to bring up the point of her proficiency in Malay language and extremely limited language capability in Mandarin, EVERY.SINGLE.TUTORIAL.SESSION. According to her, she's so good in Malay that she's able to 'write entire papers in Malay' (almost verbatim), and her Mandarin's so atrocious that she can only read/write her own name in Mandarin, and is unable to hold a decent conversation in Mandarin. That's the point that she appears to be bringing across to everyone at least, her Mandarin is simply downright hopeless.

Yesterday, Aud (in an extremely bad mood) saw her on her phone while walking along the corridor, and she was talking to the person on the other end of the line in Mandarin. I thought that it was quite funny that she was 'caught' doing something that she's always denied she's capable of. Granted, she may have made some exaggerations about her examples in lectures/tutorials, and not everyone's got a good impression of her... but really, the hypocrisy! At the very least, she shouldn't have made everyone believe that she CMI in Mandarin what.

Okay la, what I've offered you so far is a very skewed perception of her. In her defense, while not everyone has good things to say about her teaching style, I guess she's well aware of the bad things that people are saying, and she can't possibly not be, with the feedback that she's elicited with her current tutorial group. I say, give her some credit for acknowledging that she's doing some things wrong, & let's hope that she'll really work on them and right those wrongs.

I don't feel good bitching about her teaching all the time these days, no one's perfect after all.

Shame.

Today, I attended a student dialogue session with the chairperson of Youth Olympic Games in one of NIE's LTs. It was meant to start at 5p.m. and I was 45 minutes early; Ludwig's lecture ended early and it was just a 1-minute walk across the triangle parade. As students were filling up the seats, I saw that some students were handed slips of papers by persons-in-charge, etc. There were pre-set questions on these little slips of paper that these students were to ask when the organizing big shots opened the floor for questions after they're done with their addresses, for Just-In-Case situations where no one will actually ask any question (of course, that's the worst case scenario, but knowing the nonchalance of our local students, I guess there's a need for that).

When the floor was eventually opened for questions, I realized that not all the students who raised them were the ones holding onto those slips. What really surprised me back there was that, there were people who were genuinely interested about YOG, people who were not given those pre-questions, and people who were not there only because their clubs made it compulsory for them to attend the session.

I felt that it was a shame that people who did not really want to be there (a.k.a. those delegated to ask the generic pre-thought-questions) had to take up bulk of the time of the Q&A portion that was set aside, when so many others came up with their own questions that were really interesting.

the one.

How do you know?

Can you tell right from the start that he/she is the one?

Do you epitomize perfection in someone that you barely know?

Mumsy says I shouldn't give people advice on relationships because we are in no place to do so and I agree with that. We are all in charge of our own lives after all, who am I to tell you how to love? I may not agree with your actions or choice of partners but who am I to judge, really? No one is perfect and there are too many different intricacies in each respective relationship that are way beyond my ability to understand. I don't want to end up dishing out the 'wrong' kind of advice (you know my unorthodox way of thinking) and have friends hate me for life for that.

Speaking of Mumsy, I think she's a really independent woman in terms of her emotional needs. I say so because of her ability to cope with pregnancy (of both me and YF) without Dad around when he just started his sailing career. How many women out there are able to actually cope with not having their husbands around for months constantly due to work? For that, I really look up to her; though I'm not sure if I want to be like that too.

I can see you're thinking baby
I've been thinking too
about the way we used to be
and how to start a new

Maybe I'm a hopeless dreamer
maybe I've got it wrong
but i'm going where the grass is green
if you like to come along

Back when i was starting out
I always wanted more
but every time I got it
I still felt just like before

Fortune is a fickle friend
I'm tired of chasing fate
and when I look into your eyes
I know you feel the same

All these years of living large
are starting to do a sin
I wont say it wasn't fun
but now it has to end

Life is moving oh so fast
I think we should take it slow
rest our heads upon the grass
and listen to it grow

Going where the hills are green
and the cars are few and far
days are full of splendor
and at night you can see the stars

Life's been moving oh so fast
I think we should take it slow
rest our heads upon the grass
and listen to it grow

I've been putting this song on replay for the longest time ever. Love the lyrics (can't help but agree with life moving oh so fast), & I love the very soothing tune. It never fails to make me feel like rolling about in the grass as the title suggests. I think I really like Pink Martin a lot. A LOT!

today's a breeze, literally.

No honking, but there was enough breeze for me to move and hook on at times. I brought the waist harness (that I got as a prize from ITWC this year) down to PA and used it for the first time. Not used to it at all; either that or I was having some serious problems with the position of my harness lines. Blah. Didn't help that I was using a lighter shortboard and the currents were quite strong as well. I can go on complaining how terrible things were, but, I'm not going to. I'm just thankful that I can finally hit the waters after such a long time... and that I'm receiving so much help from the people at the club! Uncle Tan offered to help us get epoxy to mend the cracks in our boards next weekend, gave me a long line to tie for my easy-uphaul line when I complained to him about my blistered hands, and he even offered to give me a ride back to school together with his daughter later in the night! I'm really lucky to have met all of them guys who made my learning journey such a pleasant one so far...

Lenas; Shiqi's belated dinner.

Yh brought us to this cozy corner just beside Fish and Co. in Bugis for dinner. Lenas' a new Italian-American eatery that's also managed by the same people from MOF.

Prices can be considered mid-range, and the items that we ordered didn't taste too bad either. Not too bad = not fantastic, but passable. Okay, I'm totally not helping with my vague description but I can't help if I'm not fussy about my food! I usually only have three things to say about food: VERY GOOD, VERY BAD... and everything else in between falls under "Not bad".

The Bruschetta was toasted crisp and I liked that; not so sure if that's the authentic Italian standards though. Pizza's thin-crust, I liked that too. Oh, and the dessert was a pan of hot, sticky, fudgy, brownie, chocolatey and marshmallow, gooey goodness.

Short and sweet, that was it. I had a good time chatting with the 2 of them, thank you for agreeing to meet girls!

finally a break.

another view from my window

Friday ended on a really good note for me (but maybe not so good for some others). Submitted all 3 assignments that we were supposed to, came back to find G and JolB in the room, laughed about embarrassing kindergarten stories, drove off to meet my sports officer at the sports complex, and got (good) news from the financial controller that we'll be getting our reimbursements soon.

I'm sure she wasn't too pleased to see me, for handing up the last invoice for ITWC only a month odd later, plus she just did the closing for the financial year. I'd be cursing myself if I were her... sigh, I feel really horrible about it. It's not fair for her to work so hard for my lack of urgency with those money matters. Sorry for that, really!

Reached home at around 6 p.m. yesterday, and I was so tired from the lack of sleep from the rushing to meet deadlines the previous night that I slept on the living room sofa all the way till 1 a.m. Mumsy tried to wake me up for dinner but I was totally knackered.

Headed down to Bedok North for dinner with YF and Mumsy tonight (mee sua is approved) and we made plans to visit the zoo next Sunday together (thank you Aud for getting me the cheap tickets!). I'm really looking forward to that, since the last time we went there as a family was probably at least 15 years back.

Windsurfing later; I hope it'll not rain like how it's been raining every morning for the past few days. May the wind be with us.

(No) School today

I have the knack of getting myself into the most awkward situations and I cannot make reasonable explanations for myself fast enough on the spot when people ask about them; I think people think I'm weird mostly, for that reason.

Made my way down to school for my only lesson of the day, and realized there's no lesson. It's the third time this week; and... I cannot stand myself for my forgetfulness! Argh!

And as this entry is being typed, I realized I tend to blog a lot whenever I'm nervous about things, say assignment deadlines for example. I have three deadlines due tomorrow (one of which is settled), and I'm not nearly done with them yet, but I keep telling myself I'll be more productive once I'm done blogging (though to be fair, I can focus better once I get blog entries off my mind).

This is my 3rd post of the day, kill me or something. Now.

ps. In my dream last night, someone told me that all guys lie about their marital status one point or other in time.

photos taken with a US$1.99 app..

The truth hurts...

Science tutorial today.

I find it somewhat appalling that 4 out of the six groups who flashed their model insects on the visualizer today had the legs sticking out from the wrong places; insect legs stem out from the thorax darlings!

the digestive system our group came up with.

Tutor: "Matilda, you have a nice anus", verbatim.

project. kkbye.

Some things I learnt tonight

1. The swimming pool at SRC closes at 8 p.m. daily; the various water-related CCAs have their trainings after 8.

2. The NIE pool also closes at 8 p.m. daily.

3. I need to save up for a year at least if I want to lay hands on a brand new set of K-x.

my chilli-drenched dinner

4. Help! I'm addicted to the Korean Food Stall from Canteen 13!

5. Adam (lived to 930 years old, wow.) and Eve had 3 sons; Cain, Abel and Seth. Seth is Noah's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.

I think I've just fallen in love again...

I'm only looking at you, and it's all that matters. The moment I first set my eyes on you, I knew it had to be you. You've evoked that great variety of emotions in me; at times you make my spirit soar with happiness, and yet, you too stir negative emotions in me; through my knowing and resignation that we are not meant to be. Not just yet. I think I've just fallen hopelessly into this river called Love again...

with you,

you,

and you!

Why is this series so colourful and chio one?! I thought I'm never, ever going to deal with DSLRs again in my life, for good, but these just had to appear in the picture and suddenly changed everything. I am so going to lay my hands on a set of this, a few more years down the road, after I'm done saving and have learnt how to take better pictures with my G10; when I finally decide that I want to go entry-level pro.

And what is it about cameras and me? I always have an unhealthy obsession with them... Blah.

here and there.

I love my new Twitter background!

Looked at myself in the mirror today and realized I'm getting bigger, my tummy is more wobbly than usual. Blah. Next week onwards, I'm going to start putting more effort in swimming. Speaking of which, I met Coach PY at the SRC swimming complex last Thursday. She had an impromptu training session with the NTU bi-team and we caught up a bit before the session officially started; it was so good to see her! I did a very relaxed 20 laps and that was it; it was so relaxed that I probably didn't burn any fats at all.

Swimming aside, I do hope to put on those skates and go around some NTU slopes or something like that soon too. My pair of Bumblebee's have not been put to good use at all for the past two months at least; I hope the bearings are still working fine.

Closure

I can think of no other better way to end things once and for all the way I did this afternoon even if you may think it's immature.

With the misdeeds done; what comes after are...

- guilt that you will come to bear for the longest time,

- realization of your own stupidity when you see a possibility of things not only affecting yourself, but also the people around you badly,

- self-hate for not sticking to your principles,

- self-acknowledgment of your mistakes,

- willingness to accept punishment for your dirty deeds,

- hope that no one ever, ever finds out about it,

- a desire to confront partner-in-crime (PIC) angrily for leading you onto things,

- yet another understanding that it takes two hands to clap,

- an understanding of what your PIC ideas of right & wrong are and how starkly they contrast with yours in the face of extremities,

- putting a complete halt on potential similar misdeeds.

& most importantly, an awareness that the same mistake should not be repeated in all circumstances.

It's really over, let's just both get on with our lives.

I'm sure this entry will most likely be meaningless to most. Nobody assumes anything that you are not sure of; clarification will not be provided. Person referred to will not see this, ever, so no assuming.

lies I hate to tell.

Today, I told a lie.

Someone had asked me to help him sign his attendance for a lecture that he was skipping. Students had to head all the way up front to sign the sheet today and I'd already signed mine even before I saw the message. It wasn't the first time (to be fair, I did ask for his help once or twice in the past, but that's just that one or two instances) he'd asked me to help him forge his attendance, and truth be told, I was getting annoyed that he's pushing his the bulk of his responsibility to come for lectures onto me repeatedly.

So, I replied with a lie saying I wasn't attending lecture either and had asked another friend to help me with my signature, and told him to get another friend to help him with it.

I was so darned filled with guilt for lying, for the rest of the lecture after I sent that message and I couldn't concentrate on what the lecturer was saying at all. I even disrupted my friends who genuinely wanted to listen to the lecture by asking them for help on what to do, showing them my paranoia of him suddenly turning up and exposing me as a liar; it was really awful and I kept my head down for the fear that some of his other friends might tell him that I was there in the lecture theatre. Really sorry girls...

I've talked about this before, automatic guilt. But it looks like it's not going away for now. I could really have saved myself from all that guilt by rejecting him straight; tell him off for not being responsible for himself. I didn't, and chose to reject him by conjuring some lame-shit story instead.

Sometimes, I don't know who is it that I dislike more? Myself? Or maybe people like that? Why can't I just say 'No' to people directly, get things over and done and spare myself a lot of trouble, instead of feeling bad about rejecting people and worrying about people seeing me as a prude. I can't help but wonder, do these people actually feel bad for making someone responsible for them out of nowhere? If no, you are just using me for your need so why should I even bother help you for something that could get me into serious trouble? If yes, then why are you even asking me for help in the first place?!

ps. Another one lagi better; this girl and me, we're in the same tutorial group but I have never spoken to her. She got my number from a friend (whom I'm not even close to) and messaged me to ask if I could help her sign her attendance for a tutorial class because she 'had something on'. Win.

pps. I'm not a prude; I'm okay with it if it's just once or twice and you have some emergencies like girlfriend's birthday party, family matters, etc... but I'm not if you keep doing that!

The hall where I'm staying at currently has security gates where you'll need to scan a card in order to open. Many times, there will be people (non-residents) standing outside the gates waiting for residents (friends usually) to unlock the gate for them, from both inside and outside.

Last night, after G and I came back from dinner, we found one such girl standing at the gate. So... we scanned our cards, unlocked the gate, and asked if the girl would like to come in smilingly. She looked at us (more like stare really), then looked away, and walked past the gate into the building even before we decided to just leave her outside without saying anything. No "thank you", no nothing or anything to show her appreciation. G & I exchanged weird glances and went into the lift with her, it was so awkward for that 20 seconds.

Why people so rude one ah?

CouchSurfing.

Anyone who's tried it?

Anyone whose friends have tried it?

Please share the experiences?

I just signed up for an account in there, and I think it's great how strangers from different parts of the world can come to your place, bunk in for a few nights and have you show them around your country so that they can learn about the local culture better.

I'm hoping to meet some really interesting people and hear about their travels from the site soon, hopefully!

If anyone of you decides to sign up for a CouchSurfing account, add me here okays? I'm currently kind of friendless and very lonely in there! :(

7-day recess...

the little piece of wall right above my bed. taken with new fisheye lens.

It was not so much of a recess for me, and maybe you too. The last few days of it went by quicker than usual, and sent me into a state of panic; two assignments due once school started again and I was not that near to completion. One will discover her sense of (remarkable) efficiency when faced with the extreme pressures coming from impending deadlines.

Right now, I'm just glad they're over. A few more deadlines to meet over the next two weeks, and then month... and 2 more papers to sit for and... it's holidays! give me two claps for my positivity tyvm.

ps. G trimmed my fringe for me again today; and told me she'll give me dolly-bangs the next time I get her to do it. Bestest roomie ever. ♥

test-test

As usual, Mumsy barged into my room early morning today... but instead of the usual nagging, she placed a big package from the postman on my table and asked what's in the bag. I woke up instantaneously when I realized my adapter lens from Amazon.com are here!

Macro:

Fish-Eye:

Didn't have time to play around more because I had to rush off for some SailSmart talk at NSC; though nothing's 100 percent for now, I think I just signed up to be an assistant sailing instructor; I just signed up for something to be in the sun for endless hours. Again.

Oh, and Uncle David commented that my hair's finally getting longer. Halfway through the talk, I asked him if refreshments were going to be served when they're done and he burst out laughing. No have leh. We ended up at Carl's Jr's for fries & some drinks for lunch.

Headed back home and had fun playing with the lenses... until I realized I wasn't quite done with my ACM201 assignment. back to work now!

rant.

I'm online more than half the time for the past week. I have a love-hate relationship with the Internet; love it for all the wonderful things that I've seen through it, and hate it for the reduction in efficiency when I'm doing work since I'm so easily distracted.

Panic-mode turned on.

I promise to blog about happier things after next Tuesday.

If I have US$259 to spare...

I'd get myself a Kindle and be one of those cool kids who read ebooks. This nifty little device can hold 1,500 books in it and is as thin as pencil. It'll be like carrying a library in your pocket. I'll only need to press a button to flip the pages and if my eyes are really tired from reading, I can always set it to a read-to-me mode.

Paper backs? They're so uncool and for nerds!

Okay, kidding. Though I guess having a Kindle will be cheaper in the long term and definitely much more environmentally-friendly than books being published, I really don't have that kind of money to spare so for the moment, I will continue to enjoy the smell of print on paper, and flipping of pages from chapter to chapter.

March

I heard the bells chiming a little loudly from my bedroom yesterday morning. The chiming seemed to be reminding me that a new month's here; and time's been creeping quietly by all this while without us noticing.

January only seemed like yesterday.

But I do realize that it's March today and I have supa a lot of assignments to hand in right after recess week. fml fml.

Evening out with the girls

back in sg for gooooood.

Met up with the pri.sch.clique girls on Friday evening for dinner. We ended up at Nan Xiang XLB's and here's what we had.

For dessert, Shir made us some yummy strawberry cheesecake and Aileng & Siao bought the chewy puff thing from the basement.

Post dinner, we headed down to the White Rabbit at Harding Road for more food and drinks. I like the idea that they're operating out of a beautifully-restored chapel, and that the name of the place and some areas of the place are indeed Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired (think over-sized furniture) yet not over-the-top. However, there was an uppity vibe all around and their prices definitely reflected that. We had a cheese platter and some fries to share, and Siao had a Oreo & Peanut Butter Shake (confirm pu zua) that was recommended by the bartender for $50+ inclusive of taxes and service charge.

Oh, I forgot to bring my wallet out that night, I felt utterly useless. & I still owe Shir some money!

Panostitching: Langkawi

will need to learn how to do it correctly.

I've got my G10 for quite some time now, but I've only just installed the Utilities CD that came with it. What I think will be really useful for me will be PhotoStitch (for panos like the one that I've just posted) and Digital Photo Professional (for adjustments of colours); of course they're not as all-encompassing as Photoshop, but it's enough for newbies like me to handle. Happy!