a favourite, something i've always wanted to post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mqYL1Bf8cs

i listen to this when i'm in need of inspiration, solace, and direction. it has a way of calming me down and taking me out of my own perspective. it doesn't promise cheer but it does clarify, or set into new relation, one's problems in relation to something else... which could be religious as Foreman believes or it could just be spiritual. melodically the song suggests wallowing, but if you listen carefully it encourages otherwise :).

actually during the harder months last year i listened to this every day for comfort. music has a way of understanding and saying without saying with words, what people cannot. sometimes this alienates us but i wonder how bad it can be to be temporarily alienated and have space to just sit quietly for a little while.

anyway i've been listening to this tonight just because it motivates me to work! get through this period! because this is all so, so, easy really. :) tomorrow's goals: jap revision, outline of paper, and 5 pages.

new bed! and other updates

health and sanity: my new mattress arrived today! i was testing it out just now and almost fell asleep. it's a bit short lengthwise (now half wishing i had bought queen size), but oh well i should probably not spoil myself with too luxurious a bed at the tender age of 21. anyway i am really happy that from tonight onwards i can sleep safely without worrying about bites.

work: 2/5 university applications done. i'm reconsidering the whole phd thing, but will still apply earnestly :). finals are mostly papers... 30 more pages to go, and jap final+presentation.

thinking: about spring semester classes. i'm considering taking only 3, because this semester i definitely lapsed into selfishly and zealously hoarding my time. i've dropped all my volunteer and literary stuff, and have not exercised in goodness knows how long. i might take 4 but do a completely different 4th class... like jazz and american culture! looking up music courses just now which is a bit ironic because in high school, gcse music and flute used to stress me out a lot but lately i have begun to miss the therapy of music. (P.S. my cognitive science professor says that listening to classical music before taking exams improves your performance. somehow i believe in this hypothesis given that the structures underlying classical music provoke anticipation of certain harmonies and structures in your brain. so you know what to do: listen to that Chopin before your final!!)

fun: it awaits on the 21st december when all papers are done. i'm looking forward to seeing what an English Christmas is like. proper choral Christmas carols! bleak wintry days with steaming milk tea and biscuits. and then singapore! it'll be soo good to see my parents again. and swim in the sun. :)

heart: happy once again. i'm very grateful to friends who have a knack of expressing faith in me when i have lost faith in myself. i'm especially grateful to ws and my mom for putting up with my bouts of psychological and moral weakness... and whom bear the brunt of it. but no one should bear the brunt of anyone else's obtuseness. so i resolve to be better. last week was silly, particularly because i KNEW why i was feeling what i was feeling, and because i knew it was really nothing significant compared to past trials and lows. so yeah, resolve to be a good girl...

want to go home

it's easy to be happy sometimes, but in this case, it's easier to be miserable. i want someone to solve my problems for me and i want to go home. i don't really care about anything at the moment. even graduate school applications are starting to seem less important; i've been thinking for awhile that maybe i'm not cut out for academic anyway. i just want to get better and to solve the bug problem because rest is my only consolation, therapy for physical and psychological fatigue.

i hate that you can't solve my problems, and i hate that i am angry with you.

i should have stayed in providence over thanksgiving to handle my work and applications and just rested. oh well it's so typical that we have to learn our lessons the hard way.

itchiness and the statement of purpose

i have barely been able to think of anything else this week. my right arm is swelling to absurd sizes from the welts (which i hypothesize after extensive research to be from bed bites, so i am going to talk to the landlord tomorrow and hopefully call up the local pest control to exterminate those little buggers!!) and it feels sore all the time from all the swelling. the doctor is going to get back to me tomorrow with the blood test report and hopefully it will say that all is well, i am just suffering from an allergic reaction to bites. why am i so sensitive, in all ways?

apart from that, the SoP is proceeding slowly. i have decided to email my references incomplete versions that do not have the final paragraph about school-specific, why-i-want-to-go-to-X-university because for their purposes, they just want to see what i'm interested in. and why i want to do a PhD. why?!? i am not sure. last night was perhaps a slight crisis point as i realized that actually... maybe i don't really like research. i mean, i love reading and analysing stuff, but i have never been too fond of all those daily faculty visits. (by the way, did you know that you can borrow a maximum of 300 books from Brown libraries?! for a 3 month period!) like i'm not sure how i would feel to always be researching stuff and reading other people's works. but you know, i think being a professor would be kinda cool... i would love teaching a class and leading discussions and making interesting connections with modern culture, films, and art even.

anyway this is no time for self doubt. i just have to do it!!!

blah.

i thought that these feelings of alientation from everyone else were because of graduate school applications. when people ask how i am, i'm torn between giving them a superficial answer, and confessing how overwhelming i find the academics + applications process. i sometimes try to avoid social situations where i have to talk about my life because there isn't much to say. (writing about it, on the other hand, frees me from social expectations about how conversations should go and flow.) but turn the conversation to your life, people, ideas, books, style, food, languages, and i will eagerly acquiesce :).

then suddenly i just thought of what mch asked about the impact of study abroad, and even though i strongly denied it that day, now that i think about it more carefully, i realize that she does have a point. maybe i have been repressing the idea that i changed a little. i was so anxious about coming back, so desperate to pick up the loose threads and just continue weaving away familiar, well worn patterns, that i didn't even reflect on how my emotional relationships with people might have changed. i tried to suppress all uneasy realizations that maybe things weren't completely the same.

but of course they are different. blinded by my wishful insistence that everything was to be the way they were in happy sophomore year, i smoothed out all incongruities and discontinuities. i blamed myself for withdrawing voluntarily. but it was not voluntary at all; in fact, this is normal: one year is a long time to be away - one had to, in that one year, turn to other sources of inspiration and solace. i also grew increasingly dependent on WS. i forget that last year i started easing my emotional dependency off family and friends, displacing it onto him. such is the nature of relationships, when best friend and boyfriend and guardian are united in one dear form.

i really miss everyone... and slow lunches, late night movie sessions, spontaneous visits. senior year is the year everyone is busy with their own things. it's the time when we silently struggle to cope with being a student and the thought of not being a student in the near future, but no one is brave enough to talk about what it really means and how much it scares them. if i could, if you would ask, i would tell you that sometimes i feel like i am just compromising. (life shouldn't be a compromise though! who would ever receive a precious gift, say, a beautiful vase with tiny rose buds etched into its glass, but then put a stock of weeds into it. hmm that is a poor analogy... but you get what i mean.)

this has gone on long enough, but i guess self centeredness is not a crime...

so this is love

i was rushing through the 17th century today, but doing the metaphysical and cavalier poets was a real joy, i have to admit!

1. 'Air and Angels'

AIR AND ANGELS.

John Donne

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name ;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too ;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught ;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere ;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

see also, a beautiful entry on the poem:
http://johncoleman.typepad.com/ex_nihilo/2006/09/a_virtue_caught.html

landscapes

i took the train back up from new york city yesterday, and was spoiled with stunning window-seat views of new england in the fall.

the robust reds and pumpkin oranges are already emerging - the air looks crisper, the colours sharper. what is it about autumn that makes it so pleasing? surely not just the visual aesthetics. or is it something specific to the new england landscape? i've been trying to figure out what exactly i love so much about it, for the english landscape does not inspire such affection. the english landscape is barer - its beauty measured in the greenness of the grass, the regularity of the fields, the way in which mild sunlight falls and frames a quiet pastoral picture. the american landscape is varied, dramatically changing its colours with the seasons, presenting greater slopes and valleys, and glittering, deep blue lakes and sea coasts. english waters are never that striking; its colours and motions are muted.

where the american landscape is beautiful on a grand scale, the english landscape is beautiful only to those with eyes keen enough to discern variance, an unexpected lilac shrub in one corner, a soft bundle of sheep in another. where one sings, proclaiming its vastness and health, the other waits quietly for you to inscribe in its name a private ode, a few lines of sentiment.

as sentimental as i may be, i appreciate the new england landscape which takes me out of myself - it takes my hand and says, "look here! look at the atlantic coast, look at these forests and my riches!" whereas the english landscape prompts me to converse with myself - with my memories of sweet and of dark days. and so i guess even after comparing the two i still favour the new england landscape; it makes me want to stay in america for a few years more so that i can better get to know it, and explore it.

life is a beautiful thing

i need to stop complaining.
sore throat? fever? minor ailments that will be done away with adequate rest, gallons of water, vitamins, optimism.
lots of homework and deadlines? that's what it means to be a student, silly. you'll be pining for them, the good ol' days of midterms and papers, in x years' time.
grad school applications and ridiculous standardized tests? hey at least you have the potential (financial and academic) to apply. it's a privilege, not something to whine about.
other stressful situations? that's life :)

so as usual in a sheila-like post, the moral of the story is to be happy. (ah, how original. but i never claimed that my blog was to be of interesting or even good writing.)

what's a few stressful weeks, in a lifetime? if one can get through tripos, one can get through ANYTHING!

what i need right now is a cup of hot milk tea. and a massage. but these are things best found in england, perhaps... ;)

an update before the semester whooshes over me

for the most part i have slipped back quietly into life here and i am happy that the transition has been pretty seamless, drama-less. i love being near pembroke campus, with the Vdub, cvs, and restaurants all seconds away. the house is comfortable and home-like with its stripey cushions and skylight. i love all of my housemates and am growing increasingly fond of the boys. my room is nice - i think my things clash somewhat with the furniture that came with the room (black desk, bookcase and chest of drawers) but it's okay: we adapt and make do with what we have.

i have resolved to be frugal this year, which is why my 8 summer/autumn tops shall suffice. (my mom sent over 2 more so that means that i will not have to exhibit a day-of-the-week rotation of shirts :P) it is really time to start appreciating the value of things and this includes the value of money... so here's to no more new clothes until it is imperative to buy warmer winter things!

classes are interesting but not terribly exciting. i am being pragmatic this semester and finishing up concentration courses. so, two seminars - one on Ovid and the Metamorphoses, the other on Milton's shorter poems. advanced japanese. children's thinking with the cogsci department. i find that Brown students often try to wear their courses on their sleeve and are often secretly proud of how funky or interdisciplinary their courses are. i guess i'm sticking with my comfort zone this semester - hopefully i can do something braver in the spring :).

i guess senior year for me is characterized by a "i don't give a damn what other people think". i just want to do what is right for myself and for my loved ones, and be happy and enjoy the year. oh and get into grad school or find a job. (the GREs are nightmares. i cracked open the practice booklet for lit today and was horrified to find that they ask identification questions on characters, authors, dates, works. studying for it will be exponentially harder than for the SATs.)

anyway, life as a college student is just amazing :). even though i sometimes catch myself counting down to the holidays, i know deep down that i want to savour this year, slowly, with heart, mind and eyes wide open - well, maybe eyes closed, for the more tender moments.

不得不爱

希望自己可以認識點樣獨立。。。

providence, rhode island

i'm here!
jetlagged, and too lazy to get started on cleaning and decorating my new room.

i feel really apprehensive about this new semester but i hope that being mad-busy will keep me sane and happy. the occasional pangs of home/love-sickness will hopefully fade with time. as with last year, i just have to stop comparing the two universities and just focus on what i am blessed with right here.

on classes... i'm disappointed that japanese and latin conflict. and that english and the introduction to education class do, too. :( so i might end up taking english, italian, japanese and a course on children's thinking. this whole liberal arts approach is quite refreshing, but i will miss prac crit, one-on-one supervisions, and the english bunch a lot.

up at 4 am

as much as i like the sound of rain against glass, i really would like it to stop about now because i can't fall back asleep. i need sleep seeing that yesterday i had a bit of a fever and aching muscles (the flu?), and i can't afford to fall sick, not now! actually come to think of it, there is no time to be ill this year.

i've also been kept up by thoughts about everything. you know how one thing leads to another and before you know it, your mind has decided to review every thought and memory and worry it has produced in the past x days. summer is always the time of thinking, and to be honest, i am getting quite tired of my own thoughts and of having to present them in ways that make for easy listening for others. because you'd probably need a comfortable armchair, several mugs of coffee and many hours in a day to listen to all that my very confused mind is thinking.

it is probably time to start reading again, for reading takes us out of self-centredness and into shared thought. as usual i am too lazy to ever read seriously over the summer holidays - actually i am just too lazy about everything in general :P. hopefully i'll make up for this back in college... just thinking about the things-to-do in the fall semester scares me a bit.

okay well i guess i should try to go to sleep again. suddenly i recall the corinne bailey rae song - it makes me miss sophomore year when life was so much simpler. i remember singing trouble sleeping a lot in the suite even though i never had trouble sleeping (i'd hit the pillow sleeping most nights from fatigue) nor was i in love (though i desperately wanted to be). and now perhaps both are true but i don't think they are related; no, i have been having trouble sleeping because of the uncomfortable bed mattress and new room...

three weeks to Brown

internship ended yesterday, but as usual my excitement and relief is somewhat lost in the sobering awareness of time going by faster and faster. to be honest i'm not really sure what i learned while working for this publishing company - learning is often latent. but while hunting for errant single quotation marks in a novel manuscript one day, i realized that publishing probably isn't the career for me. it's a natural avenue for english majors but i would like to think that there is more to me than editing, writing, sales.

but if not publishing, then what? my parents are not entirely happy with the idea of me becoming a teacher, unless i pursue a phd and teach at university. the scary thing is i've been thinking about doing that but i wonder if such a decision would be cowardly: i'd be sticking to what i'm comfortable with. sigh asian parents are particularly preoccupied with professional and highly 'specialized' jobs; ultimately, it's a question of income and status. they just want me to be happy and comfortably settled, but surely one can be happy even if one is not a doctor, lawyer, professor, engineer, banker?

a small part of me aches in regret though, when i think about how much easier this would all be if i had just chosen to study law or medicine. such hypothetical speculations are unproductive, not to mention unhealthy, but they underline the self doubt and worrying over careers that a lot of liberal arts students experience. (especially Brown students?) my problem is that i also lack ambition: i am not particularly drawn to power, money (but increasingly so), status, nor have i ever dreamed of becoming very professional at something. i am motivated more by pride, love, love for learning. hmm maybe pride is tied with status though..

summertime is always a time for thinking.
as if we didn't do enough of that during the academic year! which is starting REALLY SOON. yeah i don't even know how i feel about that anymore. it's like half a cup of excitement, one cup of happiness, one cup of nervousness, and a teaspoon of complete freaking-out-ness haha.

by the way, i'm returning to Singapore earlier. i will be back tomorrow evening! and restored to my laptop and bed and new room (i stay in River Valley now). and books. summer 2009 reading list: the golden notebook, a room in paris, the secret agent. oh and if i can recommend one book for people to read... George Eliot's Middlemarch. Eliot is too often overshadowed by Virginia Woolf in the minds of modern readers!

time to start packing. oh i will be sad to leave HK... my stay this summer was particularly fun and full of good food. plus my cantonese has never been better since that has been my main language this summer, to the point where my mom starts finding it strange when i speak in english! i'm quite proud of that :).

わがままじゃないでしょう

この前に明るい日がいっぱいがあるのを言ってくれて。。。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOGh-muDZSk&feature=related

“未来の前にすくむ心が
いつか名前を思い出す
叫びたいほど いとおしいのは
ひとつのいのち
帰りつく場所
わたしの指に 消えない夏の日。”

sometimes we surprise and sometimes we disappoint

first is always your best

Queens' May Ball was magical*!
and i survived until 6 AM... ...probably the latest i've been up, ever.
it was an insanely extravagant party, as all Cambridge May Balls are. four course dinner (the sea bass and duck were scrumptious!) followed by free flow alcohol and snacks throughout the night. live performances (jazz, oh yeah), DANCING, silent disco, bumper car ride hahaha okay that was rather exhilarating at 3 AM in the morning on college grounds!,
oh and fireworks by the river...

too much fun. and i get to do it all over again at Pembroke May Ball tonight but i will probably be half asleep by midnight. Pembroke's theme is Moonlight Masquerade. intriguing!

sorry about the chopping writing. i am rather exhuasted and will have to jump into the shower soon because we get kicked out of Pembroke in the afternoon so they can finish setting up.

i will post photos soon!

what's this, i'm freeee, you say?! :)

i woke up as usual at 8:30 AM even after having fallen into bed five hours ago. it is the first morning in goodness knows how long (er, two solid months?) that i wake knowing there is not ONE OUNCE of reading, writing or studying that awaits my attention today. nor will there be for the next four months.

i am done with Cambridge academics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i survived!!!)

note, the number of exclamation marks cannot fully capture my happiness and relief. even though exams did not go ideally, at least the dissertation went well :). "Henry James's Metaphors of Fixedness and Mobility in The Ambassadors", a mind-blowingly fascinating topic, if i may say so myself.


so what now? :) it is 9 AM on a saturday morning and the possibilities are endless..!

oh no! but oh well

i completely misread the Tennyson poem for yesterday's paper. i totally made up some Christian allusion which isn't actually used! Pilate, not Pilot! yikes. so i wrote stuff on resurrection which i don't think Tennyson was even thinking of! sigh i hope they award marks for creativity...

"i'm hopelessly flawed"

i really admire those people who have the courage to surrender themselves to their hearts: to doing and saying exactly what they want to.

i guess i'm not as brave as i thought i am. i have so much learning to do.

two weeks 'til paper 6

and can i answer a single section B past paper question?
no!!!

how is this possible? i stare at the TWELVE past paper questions on Function of Criticism, and none of them seem do-able. (i've been doing readings, believe me) yes, i realize that answering Tripos questions often requires a bit of creativity, but how am i supposed to answer for instance,

"Are universities likely to be good or bad places for the functioning of criticism?"
or "What is the function of the adjective in the phrase "literary criticism"?"
or worse yet,

" 'The replacement of a hermeneutic by a semiotic model, of interpretation by decoding, would represent, in view of the baffling historical instability of textual meanings, a considerable progress. Much of the hesitation associated with "reading' could thus be dispelled.' Discuss."

what the WHAT?!?!

easter (exam) term

four weeks. i really am running out of excuses to procrastinate. England has been doing its best to win me over and out of the library, showing off its unbelievably sunny weather, perfect blue skies, and summer flowers. it is very persuasive. between tea outside in the Pembroke gardens and thesis work, who in the right mind would pick thesis, huh, HUH?!

atarashii (新しい) daily schedule
9 am. good morning (おはいよう！）, breakfast
10 am - 12 noon exam revision
12:30 ish. lunch
2:30-6 pm. errands, exam revision and thesis work
6:30/7 pm. dinner
9 pm. exam revision - 2 hrs
1 am sleep　（お休み！）

the problem with college is that you get so sucked into the daily things that you forget about the big picture. sigh. but unfortunately i think i will have to focus on the small things (haha, that tiny thing cam calls the Tripos) for the next month or so, until 4:30 PM 2ND JUNE, 2009!!! (provided that my mini thesis is done)

就職とか

またホンコンの学校にメイルを連絡するつもり。。。お返事をもらうといい。それに、出版社にもアルバイトを求めよう。夏休みにどこにいるかまだ分からないのはめんどくさい。。。友達と計画がまだできないので。就職の以外に、大学院の申し込みのリサーチをしなくていけなきゃ。さあ。。。残る大学生の楽な生活はだんだん少なくなっているんですよ。

でも家に帰ってから、何もしたくない感じがしている。　＝＿＝

back to Brown

i am flying back to Brown today. slightly dreading the journey part, but that temporary liminal period is actually really important in helping you dislocate yourself from one place, feel that sense of alienation and homesickness, and take delight in settling into your destination.

in truth, i can't rouse myself to feel as much as i thought i would. the relief is never as great as you anticipate! and having waited for this day since May 17th, 2008, well, the exhilaration has faded by now; that passionate clinging to Brown has weathered to a steady, calm attachment.

but of course i'm very happy about going back for a bit and catching up with all those non-study-abroaders! it really has been awhile :), though i guess it's not like i don't talk with the special ones every week anyway hahaha.

hope you all are well!! fingers crossed for warm weather, Providence.

birthday love

i am falling terribly in love with Cambridge. Lent term has just been...well, lets just say i didn't have a single unhappy day. (i had many unhappy essaying hours though) and this weekend was wonderful. on friday evening, i had a potluck birthday dinner, and then saturday was spent partly with Rz but mostly with WS.

just for the record i have to list what we had for the potluck! it was quite amazing, food and company-wise. we had for starters - baked feta-cheese pastry (Rz), bruschetta with tomato and olive dip (Rc); mains - Japanese omelette/pizza with prawns, bacon (me), Thai green curry with chicken and rice (Ish and Rb), chicken and potato stew (Rn); dessert - tiramisu cheecake (Rn), and profiteroles (WS). (wow a lot of R-names!) anyway, it was the best birthday feast i've had. forgot to take photos until i cut the cake - stupid stitch. but i'll post them on facebook or up here sometime soon.

well, i now know why Michaelmas term had to be so bad. to pave way for a fresh start to 2009, to the undeserved happiness that i find myself bestowed with. one more week of end-of-term celebrations and meetings (oh, and portfolio completion but my supervisor says it's at least a high 2.1 standard so i'm happy!), and then Brown :). ahhhh how will i cope with all this happiness.

promise to self

i am going to finish writing this damn essay before i sleep. preferably before 2 am. :( never again will i be this complacent about my work. one thing i've realized is that just because i tend to do okay with academics doesn't mean that i have the right to slack off and hand essays in late. i've overstepped one of my new years resolutions about being kind to myself...i'm TOO kind to myself; i delude myself into thinking that all will be fine, when quite frankly, this esssay on aggression in To the Lighthouse and Jacob's Room is quite crappy at the moment.

need to pull through these next days so that i can have fun this weekend (Lovely Choir Recital on Sunday!) and then next week: Portfolio Deadline, Cn's visit (!!!), and formal-ing :). oh back to Brown on the Friday 13th March. yikes. i can't believe i'm going back next weekend; it's just crept up on me like a quiet beetle lol.

okay. will start writing now.

//

the Cambridge sky is turning a cobalt blue. i've never seen the sunrise here before; i'm wondering if i should hang around and watch it come up behind all the old colleges and clock tower, or if should try to finish up my essay quickly and sleep.

february already

my brother turned 19 over the weekend, which is a subtle reminder to self that only one month separates me from my 21st birthday. nooooo. once it happens, i don't know what i'll do. i've spent the past eight years hoping that Peter Pan would find me and take me to that mermaid lagoon. i don't like the thought of growing up because there won't be excuses for foolishess to fall back on. imitating cartoon characters? juvenile. extravagant spending on books and holidays? irresponsibile. commit a crime? won't be tried in court as a minor anymore! <-- this actually scares me. like what if i accidentally drop a bottle of moisturiser out the window and hurt someone? manslaughter charges would be that much harsher.

umm but apart from that, life is splendid. this is going to sound stupid, but i just really love being young. we have everything before us, and nothing to hold us back (yet).

a day of unproductivity

why is it so hard getting back into academics after holidays? i've descended to a new low with reading up celebrity gossip online +_+ - i don't even know why i'm bothering to announce something like that here. well, this just goes to show that self discipline is truly a muscle. and to extend that metaphor, yes, mine has atrophied to a clump of measly nerves.

all i want to do is sleep...and start again tomorrow. but i already did that this morning, and it didn't work. what now. i suspect that this sleepiness is psychosomatic, and probably intensified by jetlag. ugh. okay. will write introduction before i sleep.

(dis)association

yesterday i looked out the window and saw a boy wearing only a brown sweatshirt in the freezing weather, lugging all his duffel bags into the porter's lodge. i thought nothing of it at first, and it was only after he disappeared through the Plodge's tiny doors that i realized it was a Brown sweatshirt.

i've now lost that special status as being the only Brown student at Cambridge; there are at least six others here for the spring semester. it was the most bizarre experience, meeting them last night. many of them actually recognized me from class/Keeney/the career development center, and me, them. just imagine. about fifteen Americans suddenly descending upon Cambridge...and there i was, gushing about Ratty food and the merits of pass/fail. hearing them complain about the separate hot and cold faucets, and the readings expected of them before term officially starts was like hearing echoes of myself from last October awash over me. it was quite a disorientating experience.

but they're under a separate program specially for international exchange students. although a lot of them are studying English, they have different supervisors and aren't integrated with the Pembroke englishers. i confess to feeling a bit left out of it all, but i'm happy with being treated as a real Cambridge student who gets to live and take classes with the 2nd years. (but these spring semester guys have their own special tours and dinners organized by the international programmes office!) part of me wonders what it would've been like to be part of them...a whole pack of ivy-leaguers exploring town and collectively coming to grips with Cambridge's idiosyncracies.

it would have been nice to be held by the hand and told where to go and what to do - to be seen as a "study abroad" student (read - slightly clueless, very jetlagged). but i have the nicest Pembroke advisors and friends so i can't complain!

anyway i write this to affirm my difference :). i don't think i'll be seeing much of them since they're all in this exchange student bubble. i just had to write about this encounter of the familiar, in a place that was once so unfamiliar but is slowly becoming comfy. i know i dreaded coming back and was so stressed about the academics, but now that i'm back, things don't seem so bad at all.

hello, Lent Term

we're all forever arriving and departing, but that's a luxury we forget to acknowledge everytime we reluctantly board that long-haul flight. i've been back in Cambridge for almost a day. i expected to feel quite low upon coming back to English weather and an empty room, but so far, i feel quite content. decorations and photos up, lots of snacks, organized my clothes (brr it's quite cold in Cambridge though temperature-wise, nothing like Providence!), and i bought a radio/ipod dock station thingy. i love it :). i realized the last week of Michaelmas term that one of the reasons i felt so lonely in my room was because there was never any sound (after living with a roommate, then suitemates, i've gotten used to constant companionship), which is why i resorted to writing my last essay while listening to Edward Said's lectures on youtube. now...behold glorious sound! the radio sounds really warms the room.

anyway, winter break was wonderful. every day was spent with the family (yes, every single day even though i met up with dear friends during the daytime) - i don't think i've appreciated them more! i tried to organize fun family things so we had a Wii golf/tennis tournament, played tennis for reals the day we got back to singapore, had movie nights, and i went to see Ponyo with my brother and mom. hmm and hong kong was FANTASTIC because of the food (yong kee's siu mei!!), visiting relatives from Toronto, and the glorious 18-20 degree, sunny 'winter' weather. on Christmas day i took bus 6 to Stanley, and it felt like returning home. going down Repulse Bay Road was the usual rockety double-decker ride - lots of perilous curves alongside the cliff next to South China Sea - all of which i've memorized after spending a good 8 years going up and down that road to school. i say all this to assert that feeling that resides partly in the heart, but partly construed by the mind, telling me that hong kong is still home. phew :). come august though, we will have resided in singapore for 8 years, matching our time in hong kong. quite scary, especially since my dad intially told us that singapore was only a 3 year stint.

well, back to Cambridge. i've gotten very good at repressing all thoughts of academics, but now it's time to confront Literary Criticism and my Portfolio straight in the eye, no flinching allowed. hope you all are well! and those who are studying abroad, safe travels and happy settling-in!