last(ish)

So school has started again - and it's the last semester, so to that end today was the last first day of school i'll ever have (well, at nus at least - there are many more to come actually...), the first of a whole host of lasts at nus (since i'm one for such nonsense thingies) - last first lecture, last mid-sem break, last having to deal with the wretched cors etc...

Moving into pgp again went about without any hitches thankfully - think things would be far more of a hassle for me if i had to travel to and fro everyday [of course, i've only a three day week (which i thought was pretty good until i saw some other people's scheds but nvm) but i'd be in school on the free days anyways, or risk totally wasting away the hours at home]. I can only imagine how screwed up things may be next (academic) year at nie, but we'll get this over and done first eh...

Of course now that school has started, there's all the stuff i've been putting off reading staring me in the face, and today i finally got down to looking at them - thankfully when push came to shove stuff managed to get done, and to that end, i managed to plow through two of the initial nine books that i've gotten from the lib. Which makes for (only) seven more to go... Plus innumerable newspaper articles... Bleah. Holiday!

Anyways, went for a sec 4 class gathering the other day - the first one i've been to since i was still in JC methinks - so hadn't seen some of the guys for a real long time - reminded me of how much i really appreciate my time in barker, something that i've sorta forgotten recently. One thing that i was especially (pleasantly) surprised about was that we actually started off dinner by saying grace, something that as my classmate Weiliang pointed out later, we'd never have imagined would happen looking at the class those close to ten (oh gosh has it been that long already?) years ago. It's great to see how the Lord has been working in the lives of many of my classmates since then (eh, and i guess myself included heh =p)

Yay for the Australian Open... And how 'bout them Tar Heels too =)

Oh, and check this out - cool stuff =p

Whither the Weather

Some of you may have heard me complain ad libitum about the (imho) overly-warm and humid weather in S'pore and my penchant for cooler climes (which is one reason why i like to holiday in faraway atas places where possible, as well as partly why global climate change vexes me so much and hence why i'm quite environmentally conscious, but that's another story). Anyways last year around this time i was on the last leg of my time in the States - over the holidays after exams i went to places like Boston and St. Louis. And it so happened that in all these places they were experiencing above-average temperatures - fair enough. So i didn't get to experience snow and what not, hardly the end of the world.

Now that i've cable though, and hence watch CNN/Headline News in lieu of Channelnewsasia (cos imho, the latter sucks and i really could not care any less for mediacrap), i've been observing the weather patterns in North America quite a fair bit - and lo and behold, places which i'd visited last year in the Midwest and New England have already experienced crippling snowstorms, stuff strikingly absent when i was there. Not that i'd have liked to be there during such frigid conditions, but it still seems to reinforce the conclusion that i've arrived at, which is that the mercury always seems to head upwards whenever i'm in town. Apart from this prime example, i also recall last year when there was quite a bit of snow in Chicago just the week before i arrived there, which of course had all disappeared by the time i got there, and which reappeared just after i flew back to Chapel Hill. Even when i went back to the Philippines earlier this year, my cousin-in-law told me that there was hail the morning of the day i arrived (of course, i only arrived at night). And there are more examples where those came from... Sigh - how to ever do stuff like skiing like that (and i don't count snow city as a legitimate example)?

CORS bidding is just around the corner, and i'm as indecisive as ever. Experience obviously doesn't breed ease of action in this case... It doesn't help that i never got around to doing the pre-allocation this time round cos i was occupied with other stuff, and so it totally slipped my mind. I'm as fussy as ever when it comes to choosing classes, even though i've only three to choose in total, and i've already decided on one of them... Anyone else is shopping around for a good s/u-able (and hopefully non-examinable) breadth class?

Managed to go down to Esplanade to watch ACJC Choir caroling the other day - got to meet some of the people from my batch as well which was good... Miss those days quite a bit (well ok, maybe only parts of it) - i could still remember a good deal of my parts from the songs, especially since they've by and large remained the same even after seven years.

Yesterday's PRC camp, by God's grace went well - i think that was the only truly sunny day we've had in the whole of this month (and to that end i now have a painful reminder that i musn't forget to apply sunscreen on the back of my neck...), and thankfully no one got injured or anything like that. Once again, just like the prc camp i was at three years ago, i'm pretty sure that i spoke more Mandarin the whole of yesterday than i have in the rest of the year put together. And i was reminded why i'm so reticent about ever taking a holiday in China/HK/Taiwan etc - language frustrations would just drive me bonkers...

I totally concur with what mr brown posted about taxi drivers. Government affiliations aside, i think that it's just not right that basically no matter how bad the situation gets for the drivers, the cab companies basically are hardly the worse for wear, since regardless of how much (or how little) the drivers earn in a day, they still have to pay a fixed rental to the company. Talk about being out of touch. This latest fare increase basically affects the demand for taxi rides, at the expense of the drivers, whereas the companies themselves definitely feel less pain. It's situations like this that make me more sympathetic towards a proper labor movement in terms of unions and what not (and please NTUC so doesn't count). Of course, this has many messy drawbacks, but still nevertheless the drivers deserve to have it better than they do now (and yup, i'm speaking up for them even though they have caused me many an angry moment when i'm cycling).

reality gnaws, repeatedly chomps and munches into tiny pieces and then swallows mercilessly

It's just a couple of hours till i fly back - you know, there's just so much that is worth mentioning not only during this trip but really throughout this whole month but which i probably won't get a chance to due to having such a gigantic amount of stuff to do once i get back. Yup that's one thing that really irks me to no end - you just can't escape from it all. Ahh - momentary frustrations i know but yeah they still are annoying nevertheless...

One thing that i've to do once i get back is of course to deal with the (insert any word of a sufficiently negative tone here) cors system yet again. I have to say - i was so happily enjoying myself over here that i forgot that there's the stupid bidding to handle. So therefore i've just realized that round zero has flown by and now tomorrow round 1A awaits. Of course, after five semesters of going through this crap i've already forgotten what you're supposed to do in round zero anyways and i figure i've more than enough program account (aha you see i still remember that name) points to go around for my major classes so to *bleep* with that...

Oh well so i guess once i get back that spells the end to denial for this stretch of time at least, and back to the real world. Honestly at this point in time i'm not at all looking forward to it, but yeah we'll have to handle it somehow, and it's not a solitary fight yup so we'll see what happens...

At least for now i've a three-hour experience with SQ to look forward to... Have a pleasant flight.

Pa ra pa pum pum no more...

While all you folk back home are anxiously waiting to check your results i've already gotten them - a couple of days ago in fact - yup guess there's far less red tape to get through before results are made public here than back home - but anyways for once, and since they don't count for anything except for a pretty transcript guess there's no problem with putting them here for once, just for the record...

Course Id	Course Description	Credit Hrs	Grade
HIST475 001	GR BRITAIN 20TH C	3.0	A-
HIST501 001	GENDER OF WELFARE	3.0	A-
HIST584 001	AM CITY 19TH/20TH C	3.0	B
LING202 001	LANGUAGE CHANGE	3.0	A
MUSC211 004	CORE ENSEMBLES	1.0	A
POLI100 006	INTRO TO GOVT IN US	3.0	B

Semester Statistics			Cumulative Statistics
Semester Hours-Earned	16.0		Career Transfer Earned-Hours
Semester Quality-Hours	16.0		Cumulative Earned-Hours	16.0
Semester GPA	3.513		Cumulative Quality-Hours	16.0
			Cumulative Quality-Points	56.20
			Cumulative G.P.A.	3.513

Yuppers, while admittedly i was again hoping for better grades than this, especially after hearing stories of how nus people have come here and gotten their best grades ever, i guess that taking all things into context (grad classes, relative lack of background knowledge, holiday mentality, scary workload etc) there's really a lot to be thankful for innit... Think that somewhere nearing the exams themselves God was telling me to stop worrying about grades per se but just work for the best, and yup by His grace that's what happened, so by the time the exams did approach i was relatively unstressed about them, and in the end things went ok...

What i find ironic about them is that my linguistics grade is the highest of them all, even better than all my hist classes; when the chief reason for taking it was to escape another low-scoring grade for linguistics back home that would pull everything down... The two Bs - well one was in a tough albeit interesting grad class while the other was for a subject where i was at a comparative disadvantage since i'm not American and it was a class on American government after all, so guess i'm fine with them...

What i'm more concerned about now is annoying cors bidding, something i'm a little out of touch with, not having done it for a year now - managed to get three classes pre-allocated, but i dunno if i want to do all of them though (and it felt quite surreal to access ivle after such a long time btw)... Of most concern to me are the annoying breadth classes that i've to take - can't think of anything i'd be remotely interested in, so i guess i'll have to look for the least boring classes yet still potentially at least one where an S/U won't be necessary since i've two S/U options left but three breadths to take - and to do all this while i'm thirteen hours behind and so not in the mood to do so... Ah but think i'm overstating the issue yet again and when this is all said and done all will be fine so...

Now for non-academic issues - for starters i've resolved never to as far as possible never take United Airlines again (save for when i fly home, of course). This is after another long flight delay has been added to my list of bones to pick with them, which already include two other (overnight) flight delays and two instances of lost baggage. This time it only was two hours, but still having to wake up at 5:30am for an 8:45 flight only to have take-off pushed to close to 11am is not pretty at all...

Am glad to be able to spend some time just relaxing here in my cousin's place here south of D.C. After all the busyness of travelling over the past ten days, this is a good change. Granted i could be up north now in Toronto enjoying cooler weather and the higher possiblity of snow, but think that this is a good time to prepare for Urbana ahead too (where again the forecast calls for no snow, but then again being spoken and ministered to by God ranks far more highly than seeing snow rite...) It was a little strange though yesterday when i was at a family Christmas party when my 16-year-old nephew was introducing me as his uncle...

And speaking of Christmas - i've realized that it's not only pesky CNY songs that irritate me to no end - spending hours in the car driving to and from Boston over the two days when the three of us (SJ, Clement n me) were exploring four states in New England and being subject to dozens of radio stations, all of which intersperse their regular programming with Christmas songs, if not dedicate their playlist to such songs and nothing else; has taught me two things - there's only so much of "Feliz Navidad" i can take, and i cannot bear to hear a note more of any of the nine hundred and forty-six or whatever number of versions of "Little Drummer Boy" there are in existence in this world...

Ah, but on that note, annoying Christmas songs aside - have a great Christ-centered Christmas y'all! (There's twelve days rite, so am not being late in wishing this to those back in S'pore...)

so i went after all

After some consideration, i realised that i didn't feel that tired or in need of major rest on the following day after MEET camp after all, so i decided to go for IBS in the end (anyway Jasmine called me up the night before for IBS business, and when she asked me i said that i would be going, so i had to honour my word, as unclearly thought of as it was when i uttered it...)

But in the end i am glad that i went. Recently i've become more and more interested in the epistles and their historical context (that's the history student in me for you), and the IBS on Paul's pastoral epistle to Titus really hit the nail on the head as far as that was concerned. And on top of that, there were so many new insights that i got out of these past two days. For example in terms of looking at the literary style and context (the only form of lit that i would happily be interested in at this point in time), asking pertinent questions that help to deepen the understanding of the seemingly simple and straightforward passage, and how to apply what the Lord has provided in His Word into our own lives, for His Word acts as a guide to us on how we ought to live our lives as followers of Christ.

I also must say that i was much more awake and alert this year than i was last year. Dunno why, especially considering that i had far more on my plate prior to this year's IBS than last year's. Maybe Ephesians 1:17-18, the passage that Peggy, our trainer, shared with us and that we subsequently prayed with had some effect... Of course, the fact is that the whole thingy was very interesting, so maybe that's why. Peggy really helped to make things come alive, especially for a book like Titus that on the surface may seem to be rather simple, but actually upon the use of IBS tools, has a lot to offer.

Two side notes:

my seat in the room where the epistles IBS was conducted directly faced the corridor leading to the washrooms, and i have lost count of the number of people who, upon walking out of the washrooms, saw me through the window and waved hi with varying degrees of lunacy (with the trio of Sharon Liu, Mei Si and Fern at one end of the scale - guess which one btw...)

there was an overwhelming amount of snacks of the junk variety on offer during these two days - bagfuls of sweets, rice crackers, those dried fish strips that look like they could line the Christ Child's cradle in an edible nativity scene (i.e. they look like hay), cheese rings, popcorn, gingerbread... If i don't get high blood sugar from the sheer number of sweets that i ate, then at least i'll get a bad throat from all the dry and heaty snacks... (i have come to realise that as long as there's food in front of me, i'll eat it, whether i'm hungry or not, so now i try my best to push all food out of my reach)

My module bidding isn't off to the best of starts. First due partially to time constraints during the period of the open bidding window, i wasted round zero. Then my history modules, which up to this point i had always thought would be free for my taking, at one point each, proved me wrong, as i had to pay hundreds for one, and got outbidded for another. Now i have to try and secure one more history module from somewhere, on top of not being entirely sure about whether to do breadth/ss and all that nonsense. To make matters worse, many of the history exams of the modules that i am able to do fall within a window of three or so days, which basically means that i have to either cram my desired modules' exams together, or forsake some of my desired modules. The rest have May exams, which for me are totally out-of-the-question unless absolutely necessary...

Well, for some consolation, i stopped by ntuc on the way home and found to my pleasant surprise that post cereals are on sale again at $4.95 per box. Just in case the offer doesn't extend into the new year, i bought one box each of blueberry morning and honey roasted honey bunches of oats, to complement the still-unopened honey bunches of oats with strawberries that i have from the last cereal sale. I feel like i'm a chipmunk hoarding nuts for winter... [to my horror, ntuc had decided to start playing dreaded cny music, even before the end of the christmas period proper - i cringed my way through the incessant aural bashing that was the ding de dong dong qiang dong qiang blah blah ji bai nian song as i was getting the cereal, and later as i walked home, cos the stupid song would not get out of my head.]

feeling lost in the forest

Weird MEET camp-induced sleeping practice manifested itself today. After sleeping before midnight for the first time in a long time yesterday, today i somehow woke up at fivish in the morning, just moments before an sms came in. I replied immediately and the sender was surprised that i could have been awake at that hour. Well anyway after that i went back to sleep and woke up at around ten. At the end of any camp, my sleeping duration and time gets rather loopy...

Had to head out around twelvish so had only a short time to try and put in any advanced bids in the inaugural round of the latest session of the confusing and overtly ridiculous system. But the whole thing just made me more unsure of what modules to take, mainly because of timetables unfavourable to me. Almost every module that i've considered at has an exam on either the 26th or 27th of April, and many of the cool history modules are now not so cool anymore because they either have a May exam date, an 8am class, or a group project... I know i ought to not be sooo fussy but... *sigh* But in the end i only placed bids for one history and one el module, cos i had no more time to decide before i had to leave. Well, we'll see how the next round goes, hopefully will have time to consider and pray carefully about what modules to do...

Brought my cousin and nephew to Sim Lim Square so that the latter could buy computer stuff. As far as i can recall, this was the first time ever that i stepped into the building, since i know nuts about computers (yes, even after taking and passing intro to computing - the best i could do was recognise that one shop was displaying a $40 motherboard). And boy is the numbering system of the units there confusing. Hence the title of the post (i somehow recognised that the chinese characters outside the building are for shen1 ling2 - forest in Mandarin - three "mu"s followed by two "mu"s)

After that brought them to Mustafa Centre. They were selling Mind Your Language DVDs! All the episodes furthermore... But it's sold by the season, each of which costs $26, and there are at least 5 seasons... Aiming to purchase all the eleven seasons of Frasier already has set me back by quite a fair bit, so shall refrain from buying any more tv show box sets if i can help it... They also had a wide array of chocs (with nuts and without) on display, but pity about the uncheap price. Anyway, Christmas has bestowed upon my family many many different varieties of chocs as gifts, which is why you will see me bringing chocs around to every suitable gathering from now on, and offering them at liberty to anyone who visits the house...

Later on Auntie Joan brought us to Ka Soh to eat. Now, i am hardly one for seafood, as i am sure you, the reader can probably attest to. So i was quite surprised with myself today, cos managed to down one whole piece of har cheong kai before the prawn paste smell overwhelmed me and i had to stop before puking. Also managed to consume the fish head bee hoon, even the soup (cos it was really good), since i normally don't like the milky soup cos it makes me imagine that the cloudy nature of the soup comes from the brain juices of the fish instead... The horrible ginger and the fishiness of the fish didn't really get to me either, although i did have to meticulously remove the skin of the fish before eating it, cos it just made me feel sick. The most intriguing food of the night? A sauce plate of a food item placed on the table next to the red and green chilli. Filled with nothing but very deep fried pork belly fat. Very very deep fried. To the extent that the fat basically slurped up all the oil that it had been fried in... The stuff you find in mee pok is practically diet food in comparison. As Frasier Crane once said, i can almost hear my left ventricle slamming shut as i speak... Took a few choice morsels to taste though, and boy was it good...

Decided to go for IBS after all tomorrow. Hope that i can wake up...

the twelve drummers are yet to drum

A belated blessed Christmas to whoever reads this =) [anyway i figure that there are 12 days, and today's still the three calling birds day, so am not too late la]

Of course the reason why i am doing this late is because my Christmas this year was, for the first time in my 22 years, spent away from home. More specifically, i was at MEET camp.

So how was MEET camp?

hehe actually cannot say anything about it (or at least dunno what i could say) => *zips mouth* *on second thought realises that zipping the mouth has no effect upon my typing hands* *keeps mum anyway*

if you want to know more, why not consider joining MEET next year =)? If the Lord is convicting you of the importance of being obedient to His call for us to be His instruments in the reaching out to the lost multitudes. Anyway, you've got lots of time to pray and think about it...

all i think i can say is that it was a good time for me lah, particularly from a spiritual and relational point of view.

Well, anyway, am rather tired, and methinks that i should sleep early (i.e. while today is technically still in existence). Might be bringing my Filipino relatives [my cousin and her 18-year-old son (i.e. my nephew - makes me feel so old)] who came to stay over Christmas (what great timing, they came and then i left) out tomorrow, probably shopping at Mustafa Centre and Sim Lim (the latter of which i have not even stepped in to as far as i can remember), especially since parents are away (they left for Malaysia just as i was coming home) (more good timing there).

Then there's IBS which i may or may not be attending since i have a nagging in me telling me to rest while the opportunity affords itself...

Meanwhile there's module bidding as well...

Then so long to the year.

hurry!

Time check: 2350 hrs

Time till getting lift from Mark to Kranji MRT and henceforth to AnnTIC: 7h 10min

Things to do within this 7h 10min:
Finish this post
Pack bags for AnnTIC (which will take forever)
Decide on module preferences (ditto) [edited to note in horror that so many of the cool history modules next sem are at 8am *bursts into tears*]
Do the module preference exercise
Take a quick nap
Wake up before six
Shower to wake self up
Do quiet time
Change
Lug bags to Roxy bus stop and await lift to Kranji

Woohoo...

mug shots?

Just completed the online student feedback survey thingy that promises to add a miniscule but still ever-welcome 30 points to my confusing and overtly ridiculous system (a.k.a. CORS) bid points accounts.

Why any of the faculty don't bother to update their profile shots that accompany the survey is beyond me. I presume that the shots are there in the first place to help blur students put a face to the mysterious name of Dr What's-his/her-face so that they'll actually know who they're evaluating/praising/trashing, so if the initial response of the student upon first seeing the shot pop up on screen is a thunderous guffaw then i think that the prevalent impression of the aforementioned Dr What's-his/her-face would be slightly skewed, to say the least. Practically all the profile shots that i just saw looked genuinely awful. Comparing these shots and the actual person of whom these shots are of, methinks that they all could appear in "Singapore Extreme Makeover: All Brains and No Beauty? Think again..."

Today is the day i shall attempt to watch at least two of my backlog of four unviewed intro to computing lectures. A little disturbing that the first of my exams (and on my birthday somemore *bleah*) is the one that i am least prepared for... Ah, the joys of the s/u option...

Latest episode in the Mei Si "What was she thinking?" series: Evan, Mei Si and myself boarded the double-decker bus 10 from nus on the way to suntec. Mei Si went first, went halfway up the staircase, and then turned back towards us, pointed upwards, and said something to the effect of "eh, let's go up..." *Ade Fam, Debs, myself and now Evan too all look at each other and give a "Huh?" look*

Random gross fact: I just discovered that i am able to touch my left inner wrist with my left thumb. *woo*