reverso

Yuppers so i got back from a good but nevertheless very rushed trip yesterday, will talk more about it later while progressively uploading pics on fb, but for now am just biding time until going for dinner...

So people who've been reading this for some time may recall my saaa-ness-induced shirt incident from two years or so back. Well, a similar incident just had to take place one more time before leaving nus, and on my final day of all days - ok the background to this story is that due to both an affinity for walking around plus a desire to cut carbon emissions, i'd taken to walking back to pgp from school at the end of each day. Unfortunately, given the @#$% heat and humidity that we have here (one of the things that annoys me most about S'pore btw), by the time i reach back to my room, my shirt is usually sweat-drenched (but still wearable), so i'll hang it up, turning it inside-out in the process.

And then the morning of my first (and last) papers, i just took one of those shirts (and i suppose you can see where i'm heading with this one by now) and wore it and headed out. Bumped into a classmate at arts canteen and sat there for a while before heading to as7 for my 9am paper on (hooray) Malaysian history. Paper itself was ok, everyone was happy to get through it (and perhaps very apt for the occasion, shouts of Merdeka rang out). And i turned around and asked my friend behind me how was things - then he asked me if i wore my shirt the wrong way - i checked and - oops, so it was inside-out.

My only hope is that he noticed it only because he had spent the two previous hours right behind me and hence had ample opportunity to notice the label sticking out from under my collar (it was a polotee). That's highly likely i guess, or at least i hope, since no one else seemed to look at me strangely - hmm come to think of it, maybe one of the invigilators did... Oh well, in any case needless to say the first place i headed to after that was the washroom to invert the shirt... Whee. I'm such a toot.

Brain freeze on the floor

My incredibly toot self was in its full element today - i thought that missing getting on the train to Wisconsin even though it practically pulled up at my feet was bad enough, but then this morning when i got to the library i realized that i had left my stationery in my room. I was highly annoyed with myself, so i decided to venture back out into the 40-degree weather (for conversion to celcius just subtract 32 and divide by 9 and multiply by 5) back to the room (albeit only less than five minutes away) to get the stuff. I got back to the room and even saw my pencil case on the desk. But somehow, i left the room again without taking my pencil case, again only realizing it upon reaching school again. Decided to just buy a pen from the student store instead - good thing they carry Pilot G-2s since that's the only type i use...

Yuppers, well after the fall break, it's officially back to school again - of course i still contend that the break was too short, but well, i shouldn't complain... At least i'm less occupied than i was last week at this time - only have TWO midterms for this week, as opposed to three heh...

I'm really digging the cold weather - which apparently is unseasonably cold for this time of year - though my contention that snow seems to be averse to falling wherever i am has only grown stronger since coming back from Chicago. Already, the only time i've experienced snowfall (as i think many of you can attest to me lamenting over) was in 1999 in Niagara Falls, NY; though it was only flurries, and for so brief a duration that it merely looked that a slurpee machine had gone bezerk and covered the sidewalk with a thin white coating of slush. This time, there was some snowfall in Chicago in the week before i got there, and it was forecasted again for Sunday, which is when i flew off. But of course, it was forecasted for Sunday afternoon/evening, while i flew off around noon time... Then again, if there was a snowstorm i'd probably be complaining about the freezing temperature - guess i'm not one to be easily satisfied. In any case, i'm sure some snow is bound to fall somewhere where i am before i fly back...

Will get down to posting rest of pics from D.C. and those from Chicago very shortly, so just watch that space =======>

FYI, have also finally gotten down to replacing the wonky tagboard with a new one...

Blow wind blow...

Realized that i haven't really reflected much upon the Washington D.C. trip and now there's another trip to talk about, but anyhoos...

Well, Chicago so far has not disappointed - there's really so much to see here, the three full days i have here hardly begin to do the city justice - today i had to navigate my way around the city by myself using the train and i didn't get lost and managed to find my way around pretty good.

Of course there were the little blurness-caused hiccups here and there. Dan, originally i was gonna take another train up north to visit your home state (have been catching lots of That 70's Show reruns here so there's been a lot of Wisconsin talk), but when i got on the platform and the corrrect train came, i dunno why but suddenly i the thought occured to me that it was the wrong train, and that the right one would arrive in three minutes, so i didn't get on it, and it was gone in twenty seconds. Of course, the next train to Wisconsin left in three hours, so i changed my plans and decided to go downtown instead.

Was practically walking all the way once i arrived downtown - i must have walked at least ten miles methinks (and now my feet are complaining badly) but at least i saw most of what was on my agenda, and i didn't stumble into some bad neighborhood and get mugged. Chicago is a really nice city (at least the parts i went to are - there are several neighborhoods that i'd never want to step foot in) to visit - and it looks as though tomorrow i'll be wearing my feet out again...

So far of the many pieces of work that i've to do i've only managed to read five pages of one book - go figure...

Pictures to be uploaded there =======> really soon...

DRYER 1, MATT 0

Today i did the laundry myself for the third time ever - i dunno why after using it twice i suddenly seemed to forget how to use the dryer - after loading it i swiped my card and pressed the appropriate button but then nothing seemed to happen - so i repeated the process a couple of times, but to no avail. There were no other free dryers available (one of them had a pair of track shoes and nothing else in them and was not switched on but didn't want to take them out just in case the owner would get angry) so i waited patiently for someone to clear her own clothes from another dryer before transferring my laundry to that dryer.

It was then when i realised that i didn't know where i had put the softener sheet that i'm supposed to chuck into the dryer together with the clothes - i had taken it out a minute before but within that minute i had lost it... I searched among the laundry and in both dryers but could not find it. And rather than potentially wasting another sheet, i just happily assumed that it was somewhere in the dryer with the clothes.

It was when the same problem occured with this new dryer that i finally realized that the first dryer wasn't spoiled, it was just that i was not following the proper procedure. Then later on, after i had unloaded the dryer, i took a casual look in the original one and lo and behold, suddenly the softener sheet decided to appear visible to me again, when just half an hour prior to that i could not find it in the same dryer...

So that's basically a long-winded and boring way of saying that i've been pretty blur today - on top of this whole dryer fiasco there also was my leaving the room key dangling from the key hole facing the corridor and earlier on my failure to look carefully at the laptop screen which, to cut a long story short, resulted in my having to pay at least US$30 more than i should have for my Chicago tickets... It's highly annoying...

Well, in other noteworthy news, today also marked my first day in living memory whereby i had a purely vegetarian diet. Glazed Blueberry Doughnut from Krispy Kreme (though i'd think that it must be one of the most unhealthy vegetarian thingies around - and i dunno - maybe they use animal shortening too), Berry Lime Sublime smoothie from Jamba Juice , a free (it's some charity thingy with the Make-A-Wish Foundation) scoop of Cole's Creation at Cold Stone Creamery, a huge slice of artichoke and sun-dried tomato pizza with some fancy name that i can't remember from Pepper's Pizza, and then a Twix bar just now. The food wasn't bad, but this is honestly something that i could never keep up doing - i need my meat...

HOORA ... eh, still got one more hor =p

So by God's grace have completed the unholy trinity of papers, and am all but in party mode already, inspite of the fact that i still have one more paper on saturday, which i to all intents and purposes have not even started preparing for yet, owing to the aforementioned unholy trinity... *whee*

Wah but i must say there has been prayer support for me aplenty and i have been really thankful for all of it. It certainly has helped to see me through these past two draining days...

Wednesday's Vietnam paper was ok lah, not as good as i hoped for, and at least from how i read my own responses, think that my exam score won't live up to my ca scores. But then again, the ca grades were totally unexpected and a blessing from God in the midst of all my adversity earlier this sem, and that's something i must continually remind myself of - to be thankful in all circumstances... And while i could also complain about my being stuck in some ulu cul-de-sac in the TH exam hall from where i could not even see the front where the clock was, i'd rather be thankful for the bunch of history seniors that i've had the pleasure to get to know both during the course of the module as well as on the day itself... Nice people they are...

Then today was my struggle paper and then the el paper. Two booboos that i made today during the papers:

1) Didn't read the instructions of the struggle paper carefully enough, and hence gonggong went on to write part of my answers on the question paper, when i was supposed to write everything on the answer booklet. Thankfully, the announcement went out 15 minutes before the end of the paper to "please remember to write all your answers on the answer booklet provided", which is when it finally hit me and the instructions on the paper suddenly made sense to me. After a split-second "AAAAHHHHH!" i composed myself and managed to transfer my answers onto the correct thingy, and still had time to complete the paper too. P-H-E-W.

2) Due to my habit of not bringing my bag along to the exam venue i left my stuff in the library and only took the necessary stuff. But i couldn't help but feel that i left something behind, and had that nagging feeling with me all the way to the point when i sat down in the exam venue then it hit me "eh, my specs!" Haha but obviously it was too late cos they were all the way in the library. Thankfully didn't develop tired eyes like i normally would when trying to do reading-related stuff without them, and managed to write normally for the whole paper and barely missed them. Then of course after telling Ade and Debs about forgetting to wear them after the struggle paper, i promptly forgot to put them on and ended up making the realization for the second time while on the way for the second exam paper. Thankfully once again their absence did not hinder me too much...

One other thanksgiving - since i always take off my watch and put it at one corner of my table as a time gauge during papers, i often disregard the exam centre clock. Well, thankfully today my watch battery chose 430pm to start to act up and stall, which was really good timing (it is a watch battery after all =p), since i ended my paper at three and if it had died-ed before that my paper would also have died-ed cos i would screw up my time management...

And in general, i am thankful also because the whole novelty of the two-exams-in-a-day thingy (which actually isn't a novelty since i vaguely remember doing the same thing during As - some more last time exams were three hours a piece) did not really get to me, in spite of my worst fears, and through prayer was not plagued by much unease eventually and actually found today's two papers the two that have gone best for me so far.

Also in the midst of the papers am really thankful for the times spent apart from the books, even during these busy times, and also for people that the Lord brings along just to make things easier - like Sida - my more-than-occasional ride to-and-from school - who really makes things that much better for me especially during 9am paper days - and various friends (including friends) who have offered prayers and encouragement throughout.

Ah this whole election thing is really starting to interest me - to bad it's during exams, just like the last one which was during As (my goodness was that long ago or what...) so can't afford to be too distracted. Reminded once again that despite my deep inner preference towards a particular party, i should not vote just based on what i want per se, but to really be prayerful about this because this is part and parcel of how the Lord has called us to intercede for everyone -for kings and those in authority, that we might live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness (1 Tim 2:2). Yup so while i get increasingly irked with what is going on as the days progress, i do have to bear this in mind...

And shucks was just looking through some of the stuff that parents brought back from previous church's 70th anniversary celebrations, and realise that i do miss the place and the folks and all that.. and there are so many issues underlying this too that best remain untyped... ah, am not getting into one of me moods again, don't worry, just having little regrets and other stuff like that...

how toot can i get?

After months and months on end of lamenting to everyone in sight (and some out of sight too) that i was faced with the sad reality of having exams that begin on the first (18th Nov) and end on the last (1 Dec) day of arts fac exams, just now while compiling my exam timetable i realised that ultra-toot me had been misleading myself the entire time, and that my papers do not cover such a long duration after all.

Of course, the sad part is that the part i got wrong was the starting date, and not the ending date, which means that i still suffer the sad reality of being one of the last few left piah-ing in the library (either central or marine parade) all the way to the end. I have the added depressing news that my first paper is on my birthday, and it's for something that i know nuts about (am still procrastinating watching the last four or so webcast lectures that i skipped out of laziness of going to science) [but of course it's s/u-ed, so maybe not so bad...]

Oh well, for posterity's sake, here's my much complained-about timetable:
Intro to computing: MONDAY, 21 NOV 2005 (MORNING)
Intro to SEA Hist: WEDNESDAY, 23 NOV 2005 (AFTERNOON)
EL 2101 (killer!): SATURDAY, 26 NOV 2005 (AFTERNOON)
Asian American Hist: TUESDAY, 29 NOV 2005 (AFTERNOON)
Thai Hist: THURSDAY, 01 DEC 2005 (AFTERNOON)

At least there are long breaks in between each paper, which just means more opportunities to stone away...

Then there's the added issue of ippt, which i am taking in just over 30 hours time... Went to look at the requirements for passing again and suddenly it looked very do-able. Only need to do 6 pull-ups and jump 216cm, and a pass is quite achievable. On the other hand, however, i haven't done at least 6 pull-ups and jumped at least 216cm since ORD more than a year ago...

On the plus side, today i was very blessed and encouraged by the sharing of a Thai pastor, Thanit, whom the Thailand MEET team interviewed at SBC for part of our assignment for the next meeting. It's times like this when i realise how the Lord has blessed us Christians here in S'pore so tremendously, and by inference how much is expected from us (Matt 25:29)

Also, after that, we went to Island Creamery to indulge just that little bit. My first time eating the ice cream there and definitely not my last *licks lips*, though i would hesitate to try the tiger beer sorbet though...

And of course, there's the whole plethora of exciting stuff coming up once 1 December is long gone: MEET stuff, AnnTIC, Amazing Race (hopefully), meeting people, exercise free from the shackles of ippt *crosses fingers*, NO SCHOOL...