Just finished watching another lovely ep of "Everwood", but that's not really the point of this post.

Right about now, I'm convinced that bug spray was invented by someone with a sense of humour as sick as mine, for people with a sense of humour as sick as mine. And hers, of course. Or it could be a "he" too. I'm just saying "she", coz.. well. Bugs. And most girls. They don't really go in the same sentence. I believe I don't have to spell it out for you.

In my family, there's my parents, myself, and my two younger sisters; usually the people who deal with household pest problems are my mum and me, coz my two sisters won't go anywhere them. One because she's frightened of the way that they scurry around, and the other because she's convinced that she's fastidiously clean and has an OCD involving dirt, and hence, cannot touch anything as filthy as a roach.

My dad used to kill the roaches around the house, until he got really busy with work and really, we were supposed to be old enough to handle such stuff, anyway; so, now, he doesn't do it anymore.

Which leaves my mum and I as the lone defenders of the cleanliness and pest-proof integrity of our abode.

We usually never had bug spray around the house, so what my mum and I would do, was roll up a stack of newspaper, and then WHAP!

Roaches, 0; house inhabitants, 1.

But recently, we bought a can of insecticide when we were having a problem with mosquitoes a few months ago (turned out to be a blocked drain just outside our house that was spawning them); now that the mozzies are gone, there's still more than enough bug spray to go around, and I'm liberally dispensing it to the roaches. And at the same time, discovering what gleeful fun it can be to watch a roach scuttle about and bump into everything and basically just get hopelessly turned around.

And it doesn't help its case that every dark nook it tries to squeeze into to get away, I'll usually hear a brief scuffle before it scurries back out again, and I get to hit with another dose of spray. The scuffle just means it ran into a lizard. Although after a while it gets a little scary just how many lizards there are hiding in your kitchen.

Oh well. It'll probably run about for a while more before it flips onto its back and squirms in its death throes. And I'll just sweep it up tomorrow morning and throw it out. Forgot to mention that one other good thing about bug spray is that clean-up is much easier; no need to wipe up squashed roach bits off the floor. :P

So, all in all, hurrah for the extremely morbid fun that comes in an aerosol can. :D

Don't know why, but I woke up this morning and just lay around in bed, and suddenly just happened to think about how things in Uni seem to have turned out so different from how I thought they'd be.

I wanted to be a Psychology major, but I'm now a Sociology major instead, with an English Studies minor (although that's still quite debatable at the moment).

I wanted to get into a career involving criminology, but here I am, this semester, having just taken a module (Sociology of Deviance) which has all but convinced me what a lot of bollocks criminology can be, being about 75% dependent on defining criminals by biological characteristics or life experiences.

And I wonder anew at just how subversive disciplines in the liberal arts are and could be, if we were just given more credit, especially in places like Singapore.

My Literature lecturer put it to us last semester that people downplay the importance of liberal arts disciplines because they don't want to see the injustices and contradictions and inconsistencies of our society cut open and bared for their eyes to see; it's easier to just believe that the world isn't perfect and get on with life, telling yourself that there isn't really anything that you can do about it.

And Lloyd, my tutor for Deviance this semester, posed this question in one of the tutorials:

"On the news, when you see those people ask experts for their professional opinion on things like natural disasters and stuff... When it comes to social problems, have you ever seen them ask a sociologist's opinion?.. For that matter, have you ever seen a sociologist being asked for his opinion on anything?"

And Dr Gana indirectly gave us the answer in a later lecture:

"The sociology of crime and deviance engages social structure, unlike the individualistic approach that psychiatrists and psychologists take; when you look at the individual for the cause of the problem, you effectively depoliticise the problem."

The problems that we find in society are just too large, too broad. The problems are embedded in society itself. To some extent, sometimes the problems are our society. But what can we do about that? Surely even sociologists realise that reforming an entire society is no joke, and is not something that can easily be done.

For example, we say that capitalist society is essentially criminogenic. We can't do anything about that; are you going to suggest that we dismantle capitalist society altogether?

So this is the fate of liberal arts students, then: we are equipped with the tools of our trade, which, when they will make the greatest difference, we cannot use; we are given the words to say, which people will either not listen to, or will listen to, but in the latter case, their own hands will be bound, anyway.


And to get back to what I started with originally, it's both funny and somewhat expected, how life never really works out as you plan it. I wonder how many people there are in this world who've had their lives play out exactly as they've planned it. Then again, there could be a lot of them, especially the people who live in more isolated societies.

I never thought that I'd get this involved in Uni life, never thought that archery would ever be something like second nature, never thought that my life could be so full, and I certainly never thought that I'd have someone to share it with.

So even when we're socialised to the ideal of constantly striving for more, I shall indulge my deviancy and say that I'm quite happy with my life as it is.

Listening to Rebecca's "In My Dreams", on the CD that Ivan compiled for me for our three-month anniversary; it probably might not surprise some of you reading this, but what else would the self-proclaimed Techno Prince give his Techno Princess but a compilation of love-themed techno songs? :)

Thank you, dear, and happy slightly-belated anniversary. :)





And in the softest of stage whispers... I never thought I'd find someone like you.

Sociology of Deviance paper earlier today. Well, technically, it was yesterday, since it's already past 2 am in the morning.

Must be the single best paper of all this semester, just as I thought it'd be. I completely screwed up my Anthropology paper coz I had no idea how to answer the questions and there were *FAR* too many readings to read and remember; my English Language paper was only so-so (though it could've been a lot worse if Ivan hadn't given me an EL1101E crash course the night before), and Philosophy was the same. And during the paper, I discovered what my problem with Philosophy readings is: I can read and absorb and process the deep, somewhat-orderly ramblings of those philosophers, but at some point in the reading, I will invariably lose my concentration somewhere, for no apparent reason, and will then have to backtrack at least two or three lines to where I last recall understanding what I was reading.

What happened with Sociology of Deviance was a real morale booster.

I was actually going to leave the house at about 9 am, but then the computer caught my eye, and I thought, "What the heck; why don't I just listen to the recording of my last Deviance lecture? Might help..."

And later in the afternoon, the compulsory question of the paper turned out to be what Dr Gana had said and talked about in the last ten minutes of that lecture. Word for word, it was what he'd said. I am one DAMN lucky girl.

And for the optional question, out of the four that were given, I chose the one which asked about relating the theory of anomie in Singapore's context. Too good to pass up, man. Although, yeah, probably almost *everyone* might do that question. Anomie Theory is one of the easiest things to learn and remember in the whole course, after all.

And while I was writing out the answer for that question, I suddenly had this brilliant spark of genius; well, partly inspired by the Robert Merton reading that I'd just completed in the bus on the way to school, but it was a really inspired thought, anyway:

... our contact with the West has succeeded in making the cultural goals of the American Dream applicable in our society, and furthermore, our Asian values advocate hard work as a means to achieve success. However, both sets of value systems do not state exactly what "success" is, and exactly how much is enough.

Sounds good, yeah? :P Well, at least, I think so. :P

Feeling bored and not wanting to study anymore; I've already finished four of my five papers by now, but my last paper's on the second-last day of the exams. Don't really feel like studying for it, firstly because I've been studying almost non-stop for the past week or so, preparing for the last four papers, and secondly because the fifth of May (the date of my last paper) seems so far away right now.

Of course, the second statement isn't really true; it's only nine days. So really, I should stop slacking. But I just don't wanna study anymore... :(

Wanted to make a desktop wallpaper of Zhao Yun from "Dynasty Warriors 4" sometime ago, but put that off because of lack of time and lack of pictures which I can use. Want to make a desktop wallpaper of Raiden from "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of LIberty" now, but again, lack of time and pictures.

Downloaded the NAC Golden Point Award application form just now, think I'll print it out tomorrow morning, and if I don't have time to write something new, maybe I'll just submit one of my older works instead.

Sigh. I wish my exams were really over.

Washington Conference. Heard of it? History majors might know what I'm talking about. It was basically a conference, from 1921-1922 (it lasted months because the various parties and delegates had to keep deliberating or referring back to their governments back home and technology wasn't that advanced yet then), which dealt with the subject of naval limitation and disarmament.

For my History class, Dr Farrell decided to have each tutorial group re-enact some historic moment; my class got the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament, other classes got things like the trial of Yamashita's war crimes and such.

So, for the mock-Conference, Farrell split us into five "delegations"; there's the American delegation (also the hosts of the conference; Washington, see?), which Hock and I were part of, the British delegation (which Ivan was in), the Japanese (of course; they're the ones who caused the problems that made the conference necessary in the first place), and then Farrell decided to make an Australian delegation just for the fun of it (during the real thing, they'd actually have been under the British delegation, since they were still a Crown Colony), and a Canadian delegation just because he's Canadian (they'd have been under the British too, really). Talk about being house-proud. :)

I actually thought that we (my American group, that is) were going to be dressed in formal wear, so I wore all black (which is what they'd actually said); my nice black sleeveless top and black dress pants, and I brought along another black top with three-quarter sleeves just in case it got cold.

Then when I reached school, I found out that Hock was just wearing a black polo tee and jeans. Oh man. Well, I felt quite stupid, but never mind, if everyone else turned out to be wearing jeans, I could still change; I'd brought jeans to change into later when the whole thing was over. (I ended up not changing, however, coz one of my groupmates, Glenn, was wearing a black, silky-looking, long-sleeved shirt, and jeans which were dark-enough to look like dress pants, so I thought, well, all right, then.)

Then Ivan came into the clubroom; the "British" had decided to *all* dress formally, and um, seeing Ivan for the first time in full formal wear was a little strange. Haha. He looked kinda nerdy. Or maybe it was the sling bag that he was carrying, slung across his chest, and he was actually hunched quite a bit. Otherwise, without it, he looked quite all right.

He kept saying I looked very nice in what I was wearing. Haha. Feeling a blushy moment coming on. I seem to blush easily. Dang. :P

I don't have pictures of us, so you guys can't decide for yourselves whether to agree or disagree with him. The two of us are poor, sad, little souls who can't afford good digital cameras. Sob. (Ponders setting up the "Gerri and Ivan Digicam Fund" :D)

And the long-and-short of the Conference proper? Well, the bloody Jap delegation refused to sign the 5:5:3 agreement for the ratio of the tonnage of American: British: Japanese ships, so in our rendition of the Conference, World War 2 started in 1921. :P

And the room was freezing; more so for myself and my "American" counterparts, because there was an air-conditioning vent directly above us, so by the end of the whole three-hour debacle, I was actually shivering. Which made Ivan start fussing over me. :D

I like being fussed over, haha. May sound like a selfish and horribly self-centred thing to say, but hey, I'll bet everyone likes being fussed over, haha... Although I did start to get worried myself when after lunch, in clubroom, I was still shivering rather violently. I find it very hard to believe that NUS has received zero complaints about the temperature of the air-conditioning. -_-

But anyway. The whole thing is over, and when Hock met Farrell in the canteen while buying lunch, he did remark that he was quite impressed with us (the "Americans", that is); Hock told Ivan and me that Farrell said that he could tell that we'd done a lot of reading and stuff and had discussed the whole thing.

Hopefully that means we'll be getting good grades for this thing. :D I need all the good grades that I can get for this module, man. I am seriously not history-inclined.

I completed Metal Gear Solid 2 yesterday!! YAY!!!!

The end-game stats say that I took 13 hours and 33 minutes, only about 4 minutes more than Shaun, which I guess is pretty good, considering I haven't played any of the MGS games before. But then again, I did get help from Shaun and Steven here and there, and I referred to a walkthrough in some parts during the beginning. Hee. :P

Oh, but I only killed 35 people in the whole game. Shaun says that's a good thing. And for comparison, he says that he killed 238 people. 0_0

I figure the 35 people that I killed were probably the ones that I *had* to kill; such as in those situations after Raiden finds himself already *inside* Arsenal Gear, and when he's already got all his gear back from Snake.

After that, you *have* to shoot your way through a room full of ninjas, and then proceed into the next room, a circular room, which you also have to fight your way through; although while I was busy running around using my new weapon, the High-Frequency Blade, Snake was just standing in the middle of the room, blasting all the ninjas dropping down from the upper floors.

By this point in the game, much of the story has also started to come out of the woodwork. We find out that the Colonel whom you've been taking orders from for the whole game is nothing but an AI program, Raiden's backstory reveals him to have MUCH more field experience than he claims to have (earlier in the game, he tells Snake that it's his first time in the field), everyone seems to have been deceived by everyone else (actually, usually Ocelot), and we learn that aside from the The Patriots, there's yet another interest group in this whole thing, a strange intangible... force(?) which claims to be the morality which Americans invoke so often, which has taken the form of the Colonel and Rose, and is really what Raiden has been communicating with all along.

And frankly, all these stories within stories within larger stories coming out all at the same time is really just confusing and disorienting. Albeit, they do make a small measure of sense and are really interesting, but being overloaded with all that information in the space of... twenty minutes? It's a bit much.

All in all, it's been fun and pretty thought-provoking stuff; I found the idea that morality could be something tangible, something in the form of a human being or some other lifeform, interesting, to say the least. And all the conspiracy theories; why the English alphabet has 26 letters instead of 30, why humans are said to have 30,000 genes or so instead of 100,000... very cool stuff.

My aiming skills do seem to be in need of improving though. Although they seemed to improve as I got the hang of things in the game. And I seem to be pretty proficient at sniping. Or maybe that's because the scope is rather large and the crosshairs are quite clear and there isn't so much recoil in the weapon. Or maybe it's the Pentazemin. *shrugs* Oh well.

It was fun. I'll play again on a higher difficulty level after the exams, since Shaun says that Metal Gear has a tradition of changing little things here and there when you've completed the game. :D

Just found out the best thing ever (well, at this point in time, anyway); "Everwood" is back!! YAY!!! :D

Have been waiting FOREVER to see the second season since middle of last year, and now that stupid Channel 5 has finally brought it back, guess what; they're airing it at 1 am on Friday mornings. (-_-)...

And this is a good, clean family drama that we're talking about here. Whose first season they used to air at 7 pm on Sundays. And which my sisters and I just loved. Not a lot of people whom we knew watched it or had heard of it, but heck if we cared.

All we cared about was that it was heartwarming, funny stuff and that Gregory Smith was cute, and I loved that the characters were just so perfectly flawed.

If my sister hadn't mentioned it offhandedly tonight while I was eating my dinner, I probably would never have known that they were showing it now, man.

Another reason why I loved "Everwood" (and still do) is coz it's set in a small town. Always wanted to live in a small town. And here you have a small town that's hidden away in the Rockies, and the nearest city is Denver, a couple of miles away.

Always wanted to live somewhere quiet, isolated, where it'd be just me and my writing and I could watch the day go by, living in a place that was empty and mostly untouched and where the town was small and everyone knew each other. I've liked the idea of living in a small town for as long as we've been visiting my paternal grandmother every Lunar New Year (coz she lives in a small town in Malaysia), and I completely fell in love with it when I read "To Kill A Mockingbird" for my Literature O Levels.

But, you know, the funny thing is, as I was watching "Everwood" just now, I realised something.

I realised that all the plans and dreams that I've ever made or had for my life and my future involve just me. No one else.

I figure that means that, a) I'm really selfish (which really, I think I am), or b) it's just never crossed my mind that there would ever be anyone else besides just me.

And I wonder if I'll ever start imagining a quiet life with two people in it. And I wonder if I want to imagine that, or if I just want to leave it in the future, just leaving it to happen without giving any thought to it.

Because I dream, yeah, that's true. And sometimes I dream with no intention of letting those dreams come true. Sometimes I dream for the sake of letting my mind wander. And sometimes I dream because I'd like it to happen.

I know; in a time when everybody's planning for their tomorrows and next weeks and next years, my way of pretty much living for the here and now is going to backfire on me.

But I'll appreciate everything more because nothing will ever be the same as it is now. Everyone that I know could be completely changed over the course of one night if something big happened. You could migrate elsewhere and I'd never even know that you'd left.

And I may be almost twenty now, but before the M18 rating came about and when I was upset that I couldn't watch things that were previously rated RA, like "City of God", I was still happy that I could still do all the things that minors could do and really, were expected to do.

I'll see all the things that you miss. I'll watch a chameleon run across the path from LT 11 up to the Old Admin Block and scurry up the nearest tree; I'll watch birds drink out of a puddle of water and remember how the birds around my old house used to wash themselves in the puddle that'd gather behind the gate everytime after it rained. I'll watch the same silly mynah try to hop across the road instead of flying across; I'll watch a little spider catch and cocoon a flying ant the same size as it while sitting in the corner of a bus on the way to school, and I'll watch as those tiny birds build a little nest in my neighbours' rambutan tree.

And one day, maybe I'll imagine watching the rest of the world go by with you.

Because there was line in "Everwood" just now, towards the end, which I found oddly fitting.

"...I heard this laugh. This incredible no-holds-barred laugh like gravel on sandpaper. I had no intention to settle down, but it hit me in that moment that that voice could be opening the door to an adventure as profound as any I could ever have alone. And I chose it."

After watching Shaun play Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty on the PS2 in clubroom on Friday night, I became rather enthralled with the game, so made up my mind to try it sometime, perhaps when the exams are over.

However... I came into clubroom today to study and found, when I first stepped into the room, that I wasn't really in a studying mood.

Long story cut short: MGS2 kept me entertained for the better part of two hours. :D Haven't gotten very far yet, but that doesn't really matter.


Things that playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty teaches you:

1. You require a lot of patience.

2. Usually a lot more patience than the amount which you know yourself to possess.

3. Weapons ar good, weapons are handy, but in the end, don't forget that you still have your hands and arms and legs and are still perfectly capable of unarmed combat. Only in really desperate situations, of course.

4. Trying to sneak past an entire room of people makes for a very amusing situation. Especially when you tranquilise people and they fall asleep standing up. That, or you tranq them, they fall over, and no one notices. (Yes, this is the stage where Otacon wants you to take pictures of the Metal Gear.)

5. The little voice in your head telling you to go study can be really annoying. And loud. Or maybe that's just me.

6. Explosives and infra-red sensors are really... quite... annoying. Especially when you can't bloody see the control unit for the sensors.

7. "People" in games are sometimes blind. Really.

8. I need to learn to threaten people properly.

9. Sometimes you'll wish that Snake could run faster.

10. After a while you'll wonder why the hell you started playing but you'll shrug it off and continue playing coz you'll think that it's "really damn fun" despite the fact that you're trying to take out the bloody infra-red sensors (again) that've blown you up about five times already.


Shall return to my work now. :P If I gain any more... enlightening insights, I shall update this list. :D

Oh for goodness' sake.

Does someone up there want the island of Singapore to drown?!?! Enough bleedin' RAIN already!!

Well, okay, if it rained while I was at home and snuggled under the covers, I wouldn't mind. Heehee. But NOT while I'm in school, already half freezing to death with the 24-hours, almost-subzero air-conditioning in clubroom; I don't need the rain to further add to this!! *sniffle*

*Looks around* Ivan's at tutorial now.. hm. Maybe when he gets back, will try convincing him to sit down on the sofa and huddle for a bit. Freezing.

Oh, but he has to go down to Goh Bros. at SRC to get posters printed for Exam Tea. And if he sits down anywhere, he'll probably fall asleep. But he shouldn't be walking around so much, anyway; he's headachey.

Argh. Bleah. Lousy girlfriend I am; can't do anything.

*Frowns, looks around some more and sighs*

Think I'll get back to my revision. Got a B- for my History essay critique, by the way. Pretty good considering I wasn't exactly very sure what I was supposed to do (how do you critique an essay when it isn't a work of literature, but a compilation of facts???) and it was pretty last-minute work too.

Anyway, I think A/P Farrell was pretty lenient; nice of him. He seems to have a pretty fair system of marking, at any rate. So hopefully my field trip report will fare better. Coz I did know what I was doing with that one, and I was quite happy with it.

Sigh. All right. Back to revision. And waiting for Ivan to get back.

My hands are freezing.

“Young son, it argues a distemper'd head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.”

-Friar Laurence, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Sc. 3


Gerri has not been in bed either. And is now the worse for it.

Stayed up the whole night to write my second Philo paper, or at least to try and think up points to discuss/argue with, but failed miserably. Second paper was a thousand times more difficult and WORSE than the first; Rene Descartes’ work is interesting and easy enough to understand, but damn it, it’s bloody difficult to argue about in an essay.

I’ve never been so tired in all my life; even the day after Rag last year, I still had more energy than this. Right now, it feels like all my individual organs want to go into hibernation somewhere and not reappear for another 3 months or so.

This current state is the result of not sleeping on Friday night and coming to school early on Saturday morning to help with the semi-finals and finals of Futsal Open, and then staying in clubroom till 11.30 pm that same night to finish and send in my History field trip report. After which, I went home and got about 6 hours of sleep. Then, on Sunday I came to school again to start on the stupid Philo essay, but could not formulate any kind of thoughts on it whatsoever. Damn it.

So here I am now, STILL working on it. I think I'm not going to be very happy with this one and I don't think I'm going to do very well for it. But then again, I doubt that many people will. Friggin' Descartes and Mill and Berlin.

So this Philo essay might probably upset my nice record for this sem: to date, every essay that I've received back has been at least a B-something. Unlike how last sem, I got a C+ for two papers. I hope I get an A- at least, for the History field trip report; I was quite happy with that one.

Sigh. Will get back to my Philo essay now.. darned thing. And hopefully I'll be able to come up with something presentable and hand it in before 1.00 pm, so I'll be able to get at least an hour's sleep before E Lang lecture; otherwise, I'll probably just be concussed throughout the whole two hours of lecture. :S

Oh, the joys of uni life.

Funny. It's April Fool's, but everyone's dying.

Terri Schiavo's finally been put to rest, the Pope has been given his last rites, and two more conjoined twins have arrived in Singapore for separation, of course with a high risk of death for both, especially since one of them has a hole in her heart.

Turned on the TV for a short while this morning while I was eating breakfast and saw that Terri Schiavo had finally passed on, and then George Bush came on; they showed an excerpt of his speech about how "today, everyone mourns the death of Terri Schiavo".

No. Not everyone. She should've been allowed to move on a long time ago.

All right, so I understand; to say that it's difficult to deal out "mercy killing" to a family member must be one of the greatest understatements ever made. But if you ask me, her family's just been selfish all this while.

Fifteen years. Isn't that enough to tell you that she isn't coming back? Wasn't the scan showing that her brain was complete mush enough to tell you that she hasn't been in there all along?

Have they just been afraid to let her die because they'd like to convince themselves that as long as her body draws breath, she's still alive, in some sense? Have they refused to let her move on because they want her around?

I wonder what makes you think a person is alive.

If I have a routine that I follow, doing the same things day in and day out, am I alive?

If I lived for the moment and stood in the sunshine and sat by my window and slept and woke as and when I felt like it, am I alive?

And what if I saw the same people everyday, ones that I hate and ones that I love, and ones which are everything in between and I loved and laughed and basked in their companionship; would you think me truly alive?

And what then if I ran from everything and everyone all the time and lived in a world where I never saw the same face twice and my world was full of strangers that I did not wish to talk to, but I walked in sunlight and I breathed fresh air, would I still be alive?

What then if I simply breathed and did nothing more?

Would you tell me that I am an idle daydreamer, taking joy in the world without giving anything in return? Would you think me useless, making nothing of my life? Would you think me "alive" if I watched Life run on and pass me by and never gave thought to give chase?


And Bush said that Americans should value life and treasure it, and treasure the lives of those who live at the mercy of others; how about the Iraqis, then? Do they live at your mercy or at the mercy of your soldiers?

And don't we all live at the mercy of everyone else, then? No one could have everyone else in the world like or love them, and if someone so decided to kill them someday because of this, who could stop them if they'd made up their mind? Discounting the arm of the law, that is.

Funny; when humans first lived on this Earth, we knew that life and death were natural and could let each other go because we could do nothing about it.

Now that we can stave off death and prolong life, we grow tired of it and wage wars and commit suicides; we use more resources than we've ever had to in the past and we leave less and less for those who may or may not come after us, even as we talk of increasing our populations; we fool ourselves into believing that our doctors and their instruments will always be able to keep Death at bay, and we believe that those whom we love will always be here because we don't wish them to go. We won't let them go.

Until everything else in the world reminds us that we don't really have a say in it. It makes for a good wake-up call, and everyone mills around in despondent thought for a while (or not), but in the end, we all still go back to laughing and walking in the sunshine, and back to sleep, waiting for that next rude awakening.