done with michaelmas term!

submitted my exam essay. 2 months of work: complete! it feels great relegating all the books to the floor. my desk is now (temporarily) cleared :). Christmas dinner last night was nice, and i'm looking forward to enjoying a quiet holiday here. i feel bad for my parents that i am not going back home this vacation for the whole 'empty nest' must be strange, even lonely at times. but to me, it feels right that i stay. of course having WS here means that i am happy to be here. but it's also about not having to travel and spend on flights, and about being near the library so that i can read and research over the holidays. Hilary term (January-March) is going to be worse.

the relief will never be as great as we had anticipated, but that's okay :).

some Romantic music by Chopin to share - this is what got me through the essay:

Chopin's Nocturne Opus 9, No. 2

Chopin's raindrops

the last stretch

didn't sleep well last night, dreaming wildly and waking up every few hours. i awoke in the morning thinking, 'who what when how WHERE the hell am i?!' kind of like my jet-lagged feeling whenever i go back to singapore home/hk home/Brown dorm. i also have very little recollection as to what happened last night. that sounds scandalous. i assure you it had nothing to do with alcohol or craziness. i was just writing my essay on conrad. and now i must confront the reality that this has to be finished today! for submission tomorrow.

i have a black-tie Christmas dinner to attend at Wadham College tonight! must. finish.

i think everyone will be happier once i stop talking about Conrad. my fellow Conradians in seminar and i have had many laughs this term talking about our love/hate relationship with him, how we spend all our time with him, and that we need some time off and perhaps try out long distance...? it was certainly obsessive, as evidenced by our facebook activity. (how sad, i know. but also cool in a nerdy way...) i certainly spend more time reading every single letter, essay, short story, novella, and novel he's written than i do hanging out with friends. but i guess that's the way it should be in graduate school? not sure.

anyway, so i can't wait for my holidays to begin!!!

to motivate myself - here are the things to look forward to over the winter vacation:

- tonight's Christmas dinner

- physically submitting this to Exams Schools tomorrow and knowing i've got 25% of my exam DOWN

- fortune-telling party this Friday with staircase friends

- meeting up with An this weekend

- all the little errands i must run: posting cards, returning all the library books, etc.

- Christmas reunion in Cambridge

- London with Pembroke people :)

- food and sleep and books not written by Conrad

okay okay now back to mediated skepticism!

while waiting for dinner...

i had my manuscripts transcription exam today. (it went okay. the handwriting - DH Lawrence's - was tough to read but i should be able to pass...)

this was for my Palaeography class, which is basically a handwriting reading/transcription exercise where we look at original manuscripts of authors and try to accurately and constructively represent what's on the physical page in a transcript. we try to reproduce what's on the page - everything from the words, scratch marks, page numbers - and represent the reader the author's process of revising the piece of work (so we also transcribe their omissions, additions, revisions, etc) and highlight any other editorial or interfering work that has been done on the manuscript by later readers and collectors of the manuscript. so for instance, one week for homework, i had the privilege of looking at a (photocopy) of a page from Tolkien's LotR, and had to transcribe the text and Tolkien's own sketch! in addition to footnotes and such, we're expected to also write a mini essay on the manuscript transcription... things we've noticed about the manuscript, idiosyncrasies of the author, paratextual elements, where it's from, who it's by... etc.

basically it's this kind of thing, if you want to have a go! http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/tutorial/default.htm

apart from the exam, i've been really unproductive lately. i blame it on the weather because the cold keeps me in my room, huddled near the radiator which i recently borrowed from the college. (central heating is practically non-existent...) yes the cold makes us apathetic to everything really... even Christmas carols, fancy dinners (who wants to wear black tie in this weather?) , etc. how i will survive another english winter i don't know but i think it will involve a lot of food all the time and a lot of soups!! watercress and pork rib soup :)

on the whole it seems like everyone, around the world, is super busy. i wonder if this is just a trait of 'modern' life that everyone feels so incredibly busy all the time and neglects keeping in touch. (i forget, too of course, but i think i tend to send out a lot more messages to see how people are doing but replies are scarce!) but i guess keeping in touch doesn't necessarily equate to 'caring' about someone, to put it bluntly.

anyway, it is 5:25 and time to get dressed for dinner! have a good weekend friends~

a nice weekend

yesterday i went down to London for the afternoon to see high school friends. Sh was on the train coming from edinburgh, and because of the "inclement weather" (read: FREEZING temperatures - it is SO COLD HERE), was unfortunately delayed a good 3 hours. so actually Kt and i went ahead with tea and glove-hunting (for me) in covent garden, then back to Kings Cross to finally meet the very delayed edinburgh train. it was great catching up with them; i've always kept in touch with Sh because of frequent Yale/Brown visits, but Kt i hadn't seen in at least a year and a half, so i had a lot to ask and tell her about over a cup of tea and a modest ham and cheese panini. :) oh and covent garden was very festive. there was a huge, towering reindeer bedecked in small white lights by the market square and all around you could hear the excited chatter of the christmas-shopping crowd. 'tis the holiday season! now if only britain could be less cold. (i'm sitting in my furry snowflake jumper, head hooded, and i'm still cold...! and usually i'm just in a tee shirt!)

i never thought that the day would come when i would want to surrender to academics.

sometimes i wonder if i am just an impostor because i certainly feel like one here, sometimes. deep down i know that i could do it if i tried really really hard, but... maybe i don't want to? maybe i haven't found the reasons to justify that kind of effort. it is so hard to go from big fish in small pond to small fish in HUGE sea of towering, crashing black waves. since high school, i have slowly been carried off by currents from the pond to the lake to the sea, but it was always okay, i just kept on swimming and somehow managed to stay afloat. i told myself that i was still good even if i didn't have a 4.0 GPA, even if i did not write an honours thesis. i had the praise of all my English professors who expected great things and perhaps that just kept me going... the Idea. the idea that i was blessed with the unification of passion and ability. now i'm not so sure. this essay is driving me nuts... i know what it should be, but i can't quite get there. i don't know how long it will take me. (i only have 'til 15 December though.) but i know that if i don't do this properly, i will never be able to think of myself in the same way again...

some people are able to accept mediocrity, but i just can't accept that i cannot do this.

A Game of Hide and Seek - Elizabeth Taylor

I want to start writing about books... since each week throws me two to four great novels of the twentieth century, might as well right? This will get me talking about stuff I'm reading in a 'fun', no pressure, non-literary way. (And I think it might be good for me to rediscover the joys of reading if I want to go into publishing...)

Ttoday I have been squirrelly trying to get through Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek, which is a bit of a shame because her writing is to be savoured with a cup of tea. A Game of Hide and Seek is a deceptively simple book in terms of plot and themes; childhood friends Vesey and Harriet go through life, tiptoeing around their half-formed love, Harriet marries a boring but devoted husband a good deal older than her, the War happens, they are still in love. Harriet is a frustrating character in terms of her childlike passivity. I like her ideals of love and soulmates, but one wonders if she would ever have the courage to act upon her ideals. So okay you get a 'conventional' love story but Taylor writes with great subtlety and originality:

"Harriet tried to put on a polite and considerate look. She loved music, but could not allow herself to enjoy it among strangers. Sunk too far back in her too large chair she felt helpless, like a beetle turned on its back; and as if she could never rise again, nor find the right phrases of appreciation" (51)

I've often felt the same way about listening to music around other people.. it seems to be such an intensely private experience. when i know that someone is listening attentively beside me, i sort of don't know what to do with my hands and feet, whether or not to sit up in the chair. maybe others feel the same way too?

but the passage that really got me sitting upright, was one between Harriet and her good friend Kitty, who is advising Harriet on forgetting Vesey for the sake of her husband and family life.

' "Those magazines in hairdressers," she went on, "Those letters readers write in about their problems. 'Is this love? Am I in love?' As if love were a special kind of fish one catches in one's net... sorting through a handful of weeds, wondering, 'Is this the right thing? Is this what I am after?' But how can you catch what is only a mood, or a reflection of yourself? Forbidden fruit would be just as boring as the other kind if we ate it all the time."

"Fruit! Fish! Reflections!" Harriet said restlessly, turning to face the fire, her hands on the chimney-piece.

"Then let us come to Vesey. Let us call everything by its proper name. I shall be very harsh, I warn you. I shall use words like 'infatuation'."

[...]

"What does 'infatuation' mean? Or any words like it? I loved him when I was a child, I know..."

"And the idea of him ever since. ... Our feelings about people change as we grow up: but if we are left with an idea instead of a person, perhaps that never changes. After every mistake Charles made, I expect you thought: 'Vesey wouldn't have done that.' But an idea can't ever make mistakes. He led a perfect life in your brain. When he turned up again, the climate was right for him, tempered by your imagination. But his climate isn't right for you." ' (176-177)


The ideas are nothing new, but I love the way she expresses them...

booku booku

my malay is very limited :P. but similarly with french and japanese, one probably knows more than one realises. anyway, books! i came back with TEN books this afternoon. i wanted to get everything i needed before the weekend, so after doing some reference reading at the Bodleian (the best collection of libraries in the world, i think!), i proceeded to hunt down some 3 for 2 book deals at Blackwell's (i needed the Oxford World Classics editions of some books because apparently, Penguin is looked down upon in scholarly works...), and then went to the english faculty library to gather mostly Conrad stuff for the essay. i'm rather tired from just trudging around in the rain carrying what must be 1/10th of my body weight in paper and bindings. you will probably say, eat more sheila, and yes i will, i do eat more when i'm abroad. (probably because of the cold and all that energy that's zapped from studying.) i was VERY skinny over the summer but i've put back the weight i lost. just that it doesn't go where i want it to. i've always wanted to ask my cells what purpose does more fat on the face and butt serve. it just doesn't make biological sense! those places don't need more insulation or cushioning!

if people want to read a funny book, by the way, try John Cheever's Bullet Park, about American suburban life. it is the funniest thing i've read in a long time.

i've also settled my options for next term. pulled out of the Henry James class last minute to do late modernist poetry!! very excited. i have been doing novels all term and the thought of doing another term of James novels makes me feel faint. (my dissertation's going to be on him anyway.) i have really really missed poetry... and guess what? Geoffrey Hill is giving his inaugural lecture as Professor of Poetry at the end of this month. i can't believe i'm going to hear one of the greatest living poets speak.

i realize this entry sounds very erratically written. i will try to blog more coherently next time haha.

bridge to terabithia

this is the kind of film worth watching: it's imaginative, it proposes moral imperatives and moral uncertainties at the same time. it shows us the uglier sides to human nature but also redeems it for us though not in a fairytale ending kind of way. the book i've been meaning to read since i was 11 years old, but i never got around to it. has anyone read the book? anyway it's been a few days since i saw bridge to terabithia with WS, but i can't get it out of my mind. it's one of those stories in which the characters continue living beyond the last page/last shot. very few books and movies portray characters that powerfully. either you get a comfortable resolution, or you get the ending has you wondering, "so what really happened?" but with such movies, what really happened doesn't mean that much to you personally, it's just an exercise in superficial intellect/processes of decoding. but with Bridge to Terabithia, you are left still feeling for and wondering about the characters... they exist as real people - the fact of which is both reassuring and terrifying.

watch the movie!! you can stream it from tudou :P. good quality too!

P.S. have a tissue box nearby, though. we both had to reach for it, which is always such an embarrassing moment in movie-watching.

some thoughts on guarded interests

human nature is so contradictory. i was talking with a friend while waiting in hall for lunch, and he was asking me if i was going to stay on in oxford. i told him about my plans to go into publishing and how i wanted to work with the OUP. i eventually explained to him that there was a summer internship for it, at which he broke in and said, "ohh i would love to do that as well. i should apply for that."

i confess that my heart sank a little, especially given the fact that i had a similar conversation with another friend last week, to whom i emailed the OUP application details.

it looks like every single english student out there who does not feel that academia is right for them, wants to go into publishing. i have to say that i have never felt so territorial about something, which is a new feeling because i think myself exceptionally un-possessive and non-competitive hahaha. but now with the whole career thing looming in the horizon, and my own personal stake in wanting to stay in at Oxford and secure a temporary job here at least, i feel that i should perhaps want to be careful about telling everyone about this wonderful opportunity OUP offers. is that bad? yes. is it justified? hmm. not sure.

when i try to rationalize my selfish feelings and inclinations, the argument in my head descends into some kind of... "but i want it more" and "they don't even want to stay in oxford! they want to go home! why don't they let ME stay here when i want to...". but i realize that i can't attribute their interest as a kind of usurping of my plans. sigh. i don't know.

gosh i just realized that maybe this is what being kiasu is about. is it? maybe this is why people are always so damn guarded about their job and grad school applications, interviews, etc.

sigh but i REALLY WANT THIS INTERNSHIP. i don't want to lose it out to them (albeit very nice and intelligent friends, both of whom are doing a master's in English) because well, i would just feel bad about it. i would really like this internship so that i can have a higher chance of being employed with the publishing house. the petty side of me consoles myself with the fact that at least i've had publishing internship experience... ....

and i guess i will have to be competitive in some way and write one hell of an application this coming winter. i hate being this aggressive, but i see no other way around it.

i think i write this post also because i'm slightly annoyed that one of the girls in my seminar has asked to switch presentation weeks so she can talk about John Cheever, with whom she has "fallen in love with" and because of some illness (which i don't see as a legitimate excuse as she still has 2 weeks to prepare for her presentation!) there were 3 of us originally doing that week's presentations, and my two peers insisted that there was no way they could switch, which leaves me with no choice but to switch. this means my stress levels are shooting up because i'm presenting one week advance and no, i've not started the reading. and the reading is about VISUAL ARTS. this was the one week i said to myself, "no, i'm not doing this one" because i know nothing about visual arts. however, the one redeeming thing about this all is that perhaps i get to talk about Benjamin (who i kinda like and at least have read a bit of), and i see that one of the texts is To the Lighthouse. the problem with To the Lighthouse however is that it is so overdone so i don't want my talk to be cliche ridden. but hopefully the professor in charge of that week will be nice enough to meet with me so that we can go over my amateurish observations on modern fiction and visual art...

i swam across, i jumped across for you

very in love with Jem's cover of 'Yellow' by Coldplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmYa2Sne2vQ

(listen to it without looking at all the images of flowers - i think they spoil the effect of the music and song!)

i was looking up interpretations of the lyrics. not sure how accurate they were, but they ranged from speculations that the yellow is representative of the lead singer's mother's illness... to yellow being a word that the songwriter started off with, all other ones being fillers for the rhyme and stanza.

anyway... need to rest, despite the gargantuan workload :S.

the bright lights of academia are fading. i find it harder and harder to motivate myself - why for instance, should i spend hours attempting to process the word mush (and magic i suppose) of Ulysses when i hate high modernism? people are always talking about their research "interests" and whatnot, succinct strings of nouns (feminism, the victorian novel, crime fiction whatever) but i'm beginning to wonder how important all of this is actually. as people have half-jokingly asked me in the past, who cares?!

sometimes i sit in class and find the discussions as an exercise in ego-stroking, a competition in rhetoric. i'll be carrying a glass of white wine in hand and have to explain to professors what i'm working on, and make the academic small talk that is paramount in this world. i have a feeling that what i'm interested in IS somehow important, not only to literary scholars, but to any reader or person who has yet to read, but i don't know how to describe this to my peers and supervisors. and in that gap of in-articulation, there goes my faith that maybe this work will lead to somewhere.

i tell people that i am leaning towards pursuing other work and leave behind literature after this year. some are surprised, and assume that Oxford has made a bad impression on me, (or that i'm not cut out for this work). i don't think that's it though. it's just the gradual realisation that i need to develop in other ways. i would love to start work next year and learn to deal with people, strict deadlines, and contribute somehow to a world outside of myself. my mind is weak and i don't have a thick enough skin, so maybe working will toughen me up!

however i shall try to make the most out of this masters program - it might be the last year i get to wallow in books! but no more stressing over grades. seriously i need to grow out of that!

in between worlds

my mind has been racing these past two weeks, from survival-mode to social-mode to settle-in-and-let's-get-down-to-work mode. freshers week is always a whirlwind of names, subjects, countries, colleges... it was fun, but i'm glad that Week 1 has begun so that i can start to develop some kind of routine. thankfully settling into Oxford hasn't been too hard; there is no culture shock this time around, and i'm lucky to have WS here.

i do wonder from time to time what College Hill must look like this autumn... i fantasize about the river Cam and pretty Pembroke, but before my mind wanders, drunken with nostalgia, i tug it back gently to what is here...

it has been hard concentrating on the now though. i'm not sure why my mind is so restless! it's as if it's trying to chase down every single doubt and analyse every single social encounter. and i keep finding myself in the same social situations where i am too shy to proactively reach out and say, hey, do you want to go for lunch together, or, even just, how are you? thankfully everyone around me seems more normal and quite friendly; i like how my cohort from the english 1900-present strand is already organising group outings to the theatre, pubs. tomorrow we have our first class... a little excited actually, to hear everyone's opinions on modernism.

but i'm most looking forward to my small Conrad seminars. the more i read of and by him, the more i worship this man who somehow wrote some of the greatest novels in the English language, which was his THIRD language - a language he first heard only at the age of 16. i love Henry James but Conrad is even more impressive in scope, both philosophical and imaginative. seriously if you liked Heart of Darkness, try to get a copy of Lord Jim, and then Nostromo.

oh and yesterday, i decided to reconnect with my roots by going to the HK postgraduate dinner. at Brown, i avoided the HK society because i felt that i wouldn't fit in with them. somehow i have the impression that Hong Kongers tend to be quite cosmopolitan, and i'm not sure if i get along with very worldly people. but the HK postgraduates here are very friendly and relatively down to earth. and thank you mom, for your uncompromising attitudes towards my linguistic education: "chinese must know how to speak chinese!" it's the one thing that makes me one of them... and i guess part of me desperately wants to belong somewhere. after countless "where are you from?" enquiries throughout this week, i do wish i could lay claim to one place, stake it out for my own. i usually just say HK given that i've spent the most time there (8 years) and was born there. but it is complicated... ... i was born in HK, hopped on a plane one month later and lived in Japan for 5 years, then HK for 8 years, then Singapore for 5 years, then the US for 2, england 1, US 1, back to england. i think most of my friends don't even know my background that clearly :P but there it is!

write it out and let it go

i can deal with people insulting me, although i would still probably simmer and seethe for days, mulling over comebacks. what i can't deal with is people insulting loved ones. they say teochew chinese are fiercely loyal with big tempers... quite true :(. i thought i had gotten better with my temper with deep breathing and calm thinking whenever someone annoys me, but it's a whole different scenario when they are tossing around people i care about in conversation like they really know them.

anger is so self destructive, but i'm still in the emotion and i can't break out of it because i don't see why people are so superficial, so condescending and ill-minded. there are way too many sons and daughters of rich parents who think that just because they have won genetic lotteries, got good grades in good schools (as if it's that hard! pfft, intelligence and straight As are not virtues), have lots of friends and are generally well-liked, that they can put down other people whom they deem as being less competent and attractive. i can't stand this sense of superiority and entitlement.

university is supposed to be a leveling agent, but often the same old class lines and social spheres are reproduced, even highlighted there. what good is an 'enlightened' education when we still judge people not according to the stuff of their heart and mind, but to their material trappings?

i wish i could have been there to say something. but i guess idiots will be idiots; sooner or later in life they will realize that they have gotten it all wrong.

i am very happy otherwise; why let someone else undermine what i have just because they're.... crudely put, stupid? just that i can't get the image of my mind of people talking about me like i'm just a symbol for... whatever it is they esteem. i feel sick when i think of my friends as captive audiences, listening to that kind of crap and not knowing what to say. i hate to imagine what's going on in their minds; their watered down, ill-placed sense of pity for me. this whole rant is as much about wanting to defend someone as it is wanting to defend my values and pride. i am an individual. not the sum of "accomplishments"(whatever the heck that means...), where i come from, what i look like or whom i associate with. how dare people talk of me as if i am just some accessory to another person. i know what i deserve, and that is certainly not some rich fool like you.

thursday

i am thinking about today and smiling to myself at how much fun it is to pursue the simple pleasures of a student. after breakfast i hopped onto bus/mrt out to jurong east to meet WS at the library. i love taking the east west line... it makes me feel like i'm going back to my old home. (those were the days of hour-long commutes out to town! but i miss living out in the west. breathing is easier when you're away from the city.) at the library, i read Lawrence, then laughed and debated over lunch. more librarying afterward but half the time i was sneaking glances at him poring over organic chemistry. 3:30 meant tea time, so it was off to the opposite food centre to sip sugarcane juice, then to IMM for the air-con and to just wander around, gossiping about friends (hee...). i came back home for dinner and am spending the evening listening to all my favourite songs and missing him for he is leaving tomorrow.

it was such a comfortable day :)

the heart of the matter

(a book LJ mentioned recently, also a song by Don Henley and covered by india arie)
i have always thought that disillusionment was just some fancy cliche, and was never truly empathetic when people claimed that they were 'disillusioned' about something or the other. in my mind, the word itself exacerbated and sometimes even created that tension between two modes of thinking/feeling/being (usually described as naivete and maturity).

we will all grow up some day, and most of the time that doesn't happen suddenly and discretely like flying bars on some graph. okay what i mean is that the process of growing up is fluid and less stable than people often make it out to be. just because we 'get' one thing doesn't mean we automatically understand all things related to that one fact of life: some people make for fantastic friends but are poor daughters or sons. some are great at being in a relationship, but can't extend the same warmth to friends.

what scares me most is the fragility of love, the strongest, most steadfast of emotions. i understand that passion is tamed over time - that i accept as being inevitable. but love? my lack of experience makes me unable to imagine no longer loving someone given that there is no betrayal or hatred. i don't understand how one just wakes up one morning and thinks, well, the past few years have been great but i think i've had enough of this love. sure, physiologically we are bound to get bored and not just feel much after years of habituation (to the other's touch, smell, etc) but i still don't get how we are able to just walk away from relationships. but i guess a life without passion is an incomplete life...

the only times i have stopped loving someone is when they betrayed me. i hope i am lucky enough to never have to fall out love.

let me catch my breath

give me freedom to do as i please, and i'm as happy as a clam. (by the way, why are clams happy? is it because they are not oysters?) JC and SR visited; it was great seeing them again, plus i end up re-falling in love with Brown when i show visitors around our pretty, friendly campus. also went up to Harvard for a day. what lingers in my memories are the Harvard libraries... spacious, quiet halls of sincere learning (cf the Sci Li) and their architecture creative.

we always end up discovering little gems and comfy corners only when we are about to leave them. i wish i had gone up more to Hope street for meals, to India Point Park when i wanted to hear the lapping of water and to soak up the sun. but all these places perhaps are made special by their belated discovery. there's something about that element of luck, combined with the ensuing wistfulness, that makes these places even more charming - what might have been, but perhaps what might have been would have been less special.

i don't think much of graduation but that's because sentimental saps like me should generally not think too much. leaving Brown is not too difficult when one has left before, and believe me, i wouldn't be able to muster all those tears again. i feel sad for friends who will have to endure heartaches... ... part of me wishes that when the time comes, i could be there to tell you that you will grow to love another place - perhaps not equally, but differently, and in change there is hope i think.

life is looking rosy and bright at the moment, and part of me is just waiting nervously for... whatever it is to happen, but i know we all deserve to be happy. i fulfilled my oxford conditions and have a college offer from St. Catherine's or St. Catz, or simply, Catz. :) it's quite exciting though i was hoping for an older college, but after thinking about it, i realize that a modern college has so many benefits in terms of architecture and facilities, and no one at age 22 should really be living in medieval castles anyway :). it's funny but i've always felt an affinity for the name St. Catherine's... so this pairing feels right.

mother's day

my mom
loving, selfless, sunny-hearted, sensible

- forever optimist
- epitome of sensibility and simplicity
- bread and coffee lover <3
- well, lover of sweet foods except chocolate and candy haha
- quiet strength
- a woman with a modern mind
- a longtime conservationist (she started bringing her own bags to supermarkets long before it was the thing to do)
- professionally, a former successful stock broker
- personally, my chauffeur in the japan days and UWC mornings, my algebra and chinese tutor, classmate in summer french classes, japan trip buddy, one of my best friends, a source of inspiration and strength for me every single day



a more recent photo!

sunday culinary fun

i was determined as heck to get linguine carbonara right, and finally, today, i think i got it right! the key i realize is a) BUTTER and GARLIC which minimalist recipes leave out, b) making sure the raw egg, heavy cream and cheese is warmed well in the pot and c) cheese i like instead of just following some recipe's instructions, so pre-grated parmesan worked out fine. i added green peas into the pasta; it made for a colourful, pretty dish and the green looked so nice next to the pink of the bacon :D.

i also made a cold wakame and cucumber salad, and a japanese potato salad. the wakame and cucumber salad was very cooling and pleasant to eat alongside the carbonara, but the rice vinegar was slightly overpowering. nonetheless, i really like both these salads... one light and the other substantial - but both easy to make!

(clearly going through a better appetite phase. would you believe me if i told you that the chubbiness of my face varies week to week?)

i am never productive on weekends...

running after rainbows

so much for work! i keep browsing this one wedding blog, Style Me Pretty, in between readings and homework. the photos are beautiful, and everything just looks so picture flower colour perfect. hopefully someday before my 28th birthday i can have a nice and simple wedding :). with lots of flowers. and small handmade gifts for the guests. and the gentle sun. and a bit of poetry. set to cheery music.

my dreams are simple; it's just my style. the 21st century woman is supposed to pursue exactly what she wants. i think i know what i want. but i guess i'm still young, who knows what i'll find along the way.

time to get serious...

i apologise if this bores everyone else, but i try to write for myself mostly.

MWF
9ish am: good morning sheila! breakfast, news.
10 am: english/city politics reading
11 am: get dressed, errands, emails, snail mail
12 noon: study time and lunchtime!
2 pm: japanese class
3-5 pm: M. city politics studying W. english seminar F. is for fun
In between hours: Dinner, Skype, lolling about waiting for dinner to digest
9 pm-12 midnight: homework, shower, dessert
12.30: relax, sleep!

TTh
9ish am: awake! breakfast, news
10.30 am: city politics lecture
12 noon: japanese class
1 pm: lunch!
2.30 pm: T. groceries Th. library time for work
In between hours: Skype, cook dinner, dinner
9 pm-12 midnight: homework, shower, snack
12:30: relax, sleep~


senioritis has struck and for the past two weeks, i've been doing the bare minimum to stay afloat in classes. not good especially when ox is asking for first-class equivalent which is a GPA of 3.8 or above. i'm incredibly paranoid... what if city politics is a disaster and i get a C, in which case, i am in trouble. actually feeling really stressed about it even though i should be fine with a B for city politics... but still, the amount of work to be done for revision and the final paper is terrifying. this is crazy; i'm a senior, and for the first time in a long time i feel like the bad, naughty student who is falling behind everyone in class :(.

why is it that the older we get, the lazier we become? i don't understand. is it the the increasing amount of freedom and choice we have in terms of interesting things we could be doing with our time? are we more easily distracted in the year 2010 than in the year 2005? how the heck was i able to focus so well for the IB years and dutifully do coursework and exam revision AND volunteer work, volleyball, PAL, yearbook, literary magazine, SAT classes? it's not like i slept more or ate more in high school, so i am just confounded by questions pertaining to sheer energy: where did it come from and how could i replenish it so quickly.

(actually, i can kinda answer that question. in high school, we lived at home so we were fed and taken care of. whenever we were worn out, we always had family right there for support. oh and it was also a lot warmer in Asia so we consume less energy in homeostatic reactions)

stress... ... so that's why i implemented the above schedule a la Cambridge days. part of me secretly enjoys fooling everyone into thinking that i study hard, but after awhile that gets tiring so i should just get on with and do it. i can salvage the city politics grade if i put my heart into it. i just need to invoke the whole Easter Term attitude and WORK HARD. if last year i could study from the English Faculty Library's opening hours 'til its closing hours, and keep up that kind of studying for a month and then write my dissertation after exams, i can do (almost) anything. okay. i can do this. i know we're supposed to enjoy the remainder of our undergraduate life, but i have 2 free weeks in May, and then the whole summer to enjoy, so i must sacrifice a bit of time now.

maybe i should do the bandanna thing... hahaha.

lapses in judgment

i feel guilty for last night's post. my life is so wonderful and i am incredibly lucky... i should never ever forget that. :)

seven is a good number // a self indulgent entry

it's time to channel all my energy and heart into studies and life here at brown. since spring break, i've been floating around either out of happiness or confusion, and now it's time to descend back to earth. i feel a little sad tonight but i don't know why; maybe it's that feeling of stepping off that rainbow and realizing that on the ground there are so many small earthly anxieties and disappointments to deal with... trying to get over these. no person or event deserves to make me feel sad.

so aside from that classes are fine (except i got a B on city politics midterm, yikes). japanese and english are both sailing along smoothly; actually, i've been lulled into complacency because those two subjects are going well. my English professor was very kind, pulling me aside during seminar break to congratulate me and also to tell me about the opportunities in the seminar to work with poetry. this memory makes me smile because i was touched, and i find it a little funny that he would assume that one piece of work could be so self-defining. i guess english allows its students to imbue parts of themselves into the work, much like drama and literary arts. we eventually carve out our spheres of interest and attempt to become specialists.

this is all self-indulgent contemplation :), but i do have to seriously start thinking about my focus areas for graduate study. in the statement of purpose, i only listed novelists because prose is more in line (no pun intended, hahahaha!) with my potential dissertation topic. but i have always loved poetry. it's condensed hence a little easier :P, it allows you to walk away with memory-friendly lines inscribed in your heart, and one gets to talk about things like half-rhymes and chiasmas and rhythm. actually, it was a poem we read in grade 9 which made me love literature in the first place.... Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'. (Gray coincidentally also went to Pembroke College!)

some friends may have heard me say that i went into English over a boy (half true - oh he eventually went to Oxford to read English. he also turned out to be gay), but it was ultimately Gray's poem which pulled me in. after i received the news about Oxford, one of the first things i did after getting home from the mail room was to read through the poems which have inspired me throughout senior year: Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts and Stephen Edgar's The Secret Life of Books. please look these up when you have time. the last one is the most accessible, the second one only makes sense if you read up on Ovid's story of the fall of Icarus and look at the painting Breughal, and the first... well, let's just say that i have been kept sane by reading Donne's poem about once every two weeks. it's a poem which almost makes me happy that i am geographically far away from loved ones.

//
* an amusing moment: today i asked WS how much he missed me, and he indicated with his thumb and index finger a distance of about three centimeters. :( that little?, i asked. (i had expected him to fling out his arms and say THISS much). he smiled and said, did i tell you the scale? :) and then what could have been a romantic interlude quickly became a lesson in what nanometers are. they are apparently one thousandth of a micrometer which is one thousandth of a millimeter which is one thousandth of a meter. yay, so missing is a constant, and sometimes rather painfully so, but i guess hopefully one day it will go away.

22nd birthday!

all right, so i didn't wake up with that fluttery, magical feeling in the stomach, but it was such a GORGEOUS DAY! ohhh why is it that spring descends upon the campus on march 7th every year? sigh :). it was just too good to be true.

i am so so so grateful to everyone who sent their well-wishes. feeling particularly loved this year :). Tn and Jn baked a carrot cake for me on friday, went out with housemates + Js for dinner on sat, suite lunch at federal hill today, and lazy afternon out on the fire escape. ahh the presents this year were all so beautiful, and many, very useful. and the cards! teared while reading some, cackled maniacally over others. i also love the abundance of flower themed - especially DAISY themed things... ;) ahh you guys know me so well. thank you! <3

must continue being healthy and happy!

neko

cats get a bad rep. think the Siamese cats in Lady & The Tramp, the mice-chasing, spiteful Lucifer (of all names!) in Cinderella, and the whole black cat omen. *edit: the japanese even use the word 'neko' 猫 (cat) in their expression 'neko baba' 猫ばば which means embezzlement, pocketing, stealing!! oh the associations...

my mom has also conditioned me to dislike cats: we've always seen them as cunning, snobby, self-centered, and unsociable - but this is such a human-centric view. dogs on the other hand... well my Koaty loved my family and me so much... so loyal, overwhelmingly affectionate, energetic, intelligent.... well cats are intelligent too i guess but they express it as outwardly. then my mom and i have always joked amongst ourselves that if ever our house were on fire, dogs would probably bark and rouse us from our sleep and drag us by our shirttails to the nearest exit. cats, however, would probably miao quietly and then slink away whispering to themselves, "let's leave quietly". hahahaha.

anyway, to reverse such ill-feelings towards cats, i have been watching these japanese cat videos. they are surprisingly stress-relieving and i seriously think there must be heart/blood-pressure health related benefits to watching these feline cuties interact with each other.

neko no massaji:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgcGu1R2M-s&feature=related

neko cuddling and grooming another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQTAqMVl1oU&feature=related

calming right? :)

long weekend love

Providence was graced with beautiful, almost-spring like temperatures this weekend so naturally, i was very very happy throughout. i spent a lot of time by myself cooking, reading, writing, baking, walking around in the sun. it was DELIGHTFUL. even better than the sophomore year spring break i spent alone on campus. simple living! - college students just don't know how good they have it.

and now it's back to academics... rehearsed jp presentation for two hours today, crazy. i hope it goes well. my partner and i are doing a dialogue on euthanasia, of all things. (the other topics were cloning, the mysteries or meaning of life, genetic engineering, artificial insemination, surrogate mothers... lol) also, i just checked the calendar and realized that i have a big essay coming up this week. will try to work hard and enjoy it.

i half want to delete all those depressing entries below, but i think that deleting them would make all those feelings less worthy, less genuine. we should always affirm our feelings, and try not to feel guilty or ashamed of them even when they take us to far flung, irrational expanses of human thought and emotion. i guess it's enough for me to say that i've moved on, and i'm happy about it. this semester's going to be good :).

a long thursday entry, on many things

i realized this afternoon that i've never received a rejection letter before, and i half wish that i could be roused to feel something - disappointment or frustration - towards UCLA, but i seemingly can't! this feeling of calm indifference is empowering but i wonder if it is speciously so.

i am also beginning to realize that if i'm so half-hearted about grad school, i don't really deserve a place. there are some things one does with heart. and then there are some things one does with half a heart, but more with brain and reflexes. if i have been going along, choosing grad school out of fear of having to navigate through the universe of choices otherwise, then i hope that someone will soon knock this telescope out of my hand so that i can broaden my imaginative scope and vision.

人地的幸福，我为佢地开心，但係我都同时有小小妒忌，自己在諗，點解我地要克服咁多，點解其他人可以咁容易一齊。可以安慰我的答案係：因为经过这个阶段係必须的，经过了之后我地会更加坚强。 because i feel worst when i compare myself to others. when other people constantly ask me about certain things... while they do not mean to make me feel bad, their questions and superficial reassurances are hard to swallow.

of course it's easy for you to say that it's going to be okay. (the "you" here by the way is not directed to anyone who reads this blog. i try not to do this in blogs but i am so bewildered by a recent friend's behaviour - hence this.)
you don't know half of what it is really like. and you know, at least when i try to reassure others, i try to be sensitive and imagine their fears before just saying things.
i certainly don't just contact people to find out some news, then withdraw contact after having satisfied that curiosity (and after having *lied* about why i was contacting you in the first place)!! i try to keep in touch with you, offer for you to visit, but you are not truly interested... you seem only interested when it involves both our boyfriends =_= which is just bizarre in itself.

sorry guys, rant over. i think too much crap has been building up over the past few weeks, so this blog is quickly becoming more morose/frustrated that i had ever intended it to be. but i am definitely feeling better today because a) i had steak for dinner with Ad, b) i am proud of myself for how i resolved a falling-out with a dear friend this week, c) i like my classes :). finally learning about american politics! i feel guilty for having neglected the study of america until now. oh and d) LJ bestowed me with a pillow this afternoon; i hope Ophelia will not be jealous now that i will replace her with a proper pillow.

going to be stronger

it's ironic that the supposedly most relaxing of semesters has thus far been the most psychologically taxing (and it's only week 1). but i think i'm finding my way through the muddle with each day, and well, when one hits near rock bottom, the only way to go is up~

sidenote -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jxkqG0gWc
the track 'Married Life' from Disney/Pixar's Up!

i am learning to deal with my fears, to face uncertainty with an open mind. there is no single path to stability, happiness or success. if our endeavors are not successful this time around, there will be other roads and doors; we just have to remind ourselves that with time, it will all make sense. i am not alone; but even in times when i feel most alone, i need to be able to tolerate and even take delight in that solitude.

thankfully certain people are also actively helping me. i am grateful to Rt for her long-distance calls this past week; i think i needed an old friend, someone who knows me like the back of her own hand and someone who also knows WS, to reassure me. i am forever grateful to WS for his strength, generosity of spirit and love, and emotional maturity. and i am grateful beyond words to my mom who can make me feel better about anything.

all of that stuff aside, this semester is going to be more relaxed in terms of classes. there is more to life than learning :P! am taking City Politics, an English seminar on Herman Melville, and Japanese. i like the variety: one HUGE lecture class taught by a brilliantly engaging professor, one small intimate sit-around-a-square-and-talk-about-melville for 2.5 hrs class, and the happy, familiar camaraderie of a language course :). <-- Tn rejoined jap - such courage after a 1.5 year 'hiatus'! it's been great having her there. it's our last undergraduate semester, so ganbarimasu~

ahhh... maybe it's easier to mope but whatever

it's really weird to suddenly not be working towards anything. i admit that while not ambitious, i need to achieve things. this is why i often go mad during summers when not working or studying. (but then again, both summer internships in the past drove me nuts too). i also obsess over straight As, but interest and dare i say it, passion, always motivate my choice of classes. and once upon a time back in high school, i even worked out just for the sake of feeling a sense of achievement. gone are those days of total self discipline :P. (i was driven by a system of punishments - no ice cream and $50 deductions in allowance - and reward - ice cream lol).

but lately i don't have any goals. the future lies like a dizzying map of stars, so distant and incomprehensible in its cosmic laws and logic. i'm beginning to lose faith because it seems like i won't get what i want even though we have been working for the past 5 months trying to get it. such perseverance, industry, and moral strength then... ... nothing? why does it have to be this hard? and why do things always seem easier for others? to think about how many applications and essays i've critiqued for others... how many times i set aside my own work to edit another statement on math, biomedical engineering, medicine, environmental science, economics. i really try hard to help my dear friends get into their dream schools and companies. why am i failing now --

i need to learn patience and have faith that things eventually get better. (i know they do. i am just throwing tantrums.) i know i should savour this semester, but part of me just wants to hurry and spend time with you, wherever that may be, because no one inspires me to goodness and wisdom as much as you. compared to you, i'm selfish, immature, vulnerable, impatient, mean. i just want to be around such a person. i'm not in it just for the fun of love, nor for money, pride, or even the security of being in a relationship. you love me the way that i want to be loved, and that is such a rare and beautiful thing.

so what am i saying. well, i'm not really sure. i guess i need some direction. and i need these two weeks to be over and done with.

it's easier to be happy

1. winter vacation has been excellent! i was in england over christmas and new year's. cambridge was graced with a lot of snow which made for very pretty countryside sights, especially along the coach ride out to oxford. first time i saw a frozen river! england was quite cold (in its characteristically wet, dreary way) hence our squirreling behaviours: stocking up on groceries for the whole week, hibernating and h/c-uddling in owstone croft, lots of culinary adventures with what we could pull out of the fridge. some failures, on my part, like the omelette that just wouldn't become an omelette. why are eggs so difficult? poaching, frying, omeletting them requires not only patience, meticulous attention, quick reflexes, but also courage... you need courage to flip over the eggy mixture. of course there were many successes too (roast duck!), mainly thanks to his culinary instincts and creativity.

2. at home, i have been spending lots of time with my very funny mom, making lots of japanese-themed food with her on afternoons. and behold! our okonomiyaki (japanese pancake). i love mayonnaise...

we also made a lot of jellies this week to go with red bean pastes, homemade tang yuan-like dumplings, and tinned peaches and pineapples yummy :).

sigh my mom is just hilarious. her imagination seems to exceed mine - well, i like to think that we're both very imaginative in a cartoony way but the other day she said that my light weight is good for the environment because it means i will not crush as many innocent flowers and grassy patches when i tread on the earth?! okay it's not as funny when i transcribe this into english.


3. APPLICATIONS ARE OVER!!! oh that feels good. not going to worry too much about the results (yet). i'm trying to keep my mind flexible; whatever happens, will happen, and i'll deal with it once it happens to me, instead of wasting my days fearing about uncertainties.

4. going out for chilli crab tonight with my parents!

5. i'm happy with my body. life becomes easier when we focus on the good stuff, and when we stop using negative language when talking about our own bodies. i know this is a sensitive topic for many, but i think it's worth emphasizing that in spite of all the imperfections you may see in the mirror, you probably have a thousand things to be thankful for... that lovely skin, those eyes, that hair, those legs, those knees, that perfect smile, those hands, that stomach, those ankles! and believe me the people worth knowing are those who will see you as that beautiful person.

and if you must know, i choose my friends based on their looks so if you're my friend, you are beautiful / handsome. (i'm serious about the latter.)

7. the spring semester starts on wednesday! my english professor has already assigned readings for the first meeting, which means i have to buy the books on wednesday morning (i arrive on tuesday night) and start reading right away for the 3 pm class.

so that's about it :). life is good~