Proving ridiculously hard to find many papers on the subject of gendered roles in cooking. Online, at least.

Must polish up conclusion for American Law paper later.

Will also not play more than 4 NavyField battles in a row. Unless I'm on a roll and I get to know more Fubuki players and they help our team torp whore and-- Never mind. I probably don't make any sense to most of you reading this right now. So if you feel like it and have the time to spare, go take a look at NavyField's site.

It's an MMOTSG; unlike MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), the TSG at the end here stands for Tactics Simulation Game. You get to own ships, buy ships, outfit them with guns and enlist sailors, and when you reach Level 12, you get to choose one of four nations in the game (Germany, USA, UK or Japan) and buy a ship from there after deciding the nationality of your sailors.

This morning, I reached said level 12 and immediately set my top sailors' nationalities to German and bought myself a pretty Z1 Destroyer. Only problem is that I can't fit it with torpedo tubes till I reach level 15, but that's okay. Not too bad. I can deal. My credits are seriously diminished after buying the ship and outfitting it.

And I'm making friends in the game. Haha.

Some guy called "ogwarlord" declared me a "worthy opponent" earlier this morning, and in a rather funny episode, someone called "addenosis" tried to make friends, but there was a language barrier. So it basically went: he said hi, I said hi back, coz I recognised him from the previous room we had been in, and then he typed something in a language that I didn't understand. And I told him so.

And the one other guy who was in the room with us at the time started laughing at it all. :D

Good players that I see around lots of the time... "infernous", "indolent", "citan7"... among a few others. "indolent" gets really crazy with his Fubuki. A Fubuki is a model of a Japanese destroyer which carries no guns and only has torpedo tubes (a LOT of them); this means the ship is a lot lighter, moves a lot faster, and is a lot deadlier. Torps do plenty of damage, needless to say.

I almost laughed once when I was playing a small game, and when we first set off, one guy remarked to another who was keeping pace with the Fubuki on our team, "let the fubu get ahead". Yeah, so we can let the Fubu torp whore the other side. Haha.

I haven't even been playing for a very long time; only two weeks, and I'm level 13 already. It's really easy to advance through the lower levels.

This is giving me ideas, I'm telling you. I wanna get my own laptop and install NavyField on it... then I'll play in school, haha. And hopefully the wireless doesn't constantly die out on me then.

Shall get back to essaying away.

Status of papers and deadlines:

1. 31st Oct:
AS3213, American Law: Language and Gender; Research Paper due
Three-quarters done; need conclusion

2. 4th Nov:
SC2215, Sociology of Food; Essay due
UNCOMMENCED; need to borrow and request library books ASAP

3. 7th Nov:
SC2101, Methods of Social Research; Research Paper due
Have required literature and data, need to start writing soon

3. 9th Nov:
SC2220, Gender Studies; Project Write-up due
(one-week extension)
Rough draft; have required literature; need to start typing; editing group report next week


Shall head back to my American Law paper now.

Handed in Reaction Paper on Friday. One down, four to go.

My eyes are quite tired, reading stuff on the computer screen, reading stuff from books, reading readings from course packs... argh. Tired, period.

Shall draft my American Law Research Paper tonight and maybe let Prof Chng take a look if I have the time and she's in her office tomorrow. Just changed my premise this afternoon, which makes it a lot easier for me to focus on my topic of choice. Meh. Looks like I'm not sleeping tonight. But I can.. sort of afford it. 8 am Emotions lect tomorrow has been pushed back to 9 am; review lecture. And I'll never have to listen to that woman lecture again for the rest of my life in NUS!! Wahaha.

At least, I hope so.

Last training this Thursday. Thank you, thank you, all that is holy and sacred out there. Not that I hate archery or anything. In fact, with all the regular training this sem, I think I love it even more. It's just that... we're archers, but we're students too. Yeah. You get what I mean.

Stumbled across this article sometime last week about the different kinds of headaches (apparently there are 6 kinds, including "hangover" and "caffeine-withdrawal"); it says that headaches that only occur (is that the right word for it??) on one side of the head are migraines. Does that mean I have migraines?? O_O

Coz all my headaches only ever happen on one side. Never both sides at once. Or in the center. Huh. Oh well.

I'm not speaking/typing in complete sentences. Sigh. Well, I'm tired. Half-rambling coz of the mocha I drank an hour ago. If not, I wouldn't even be typing.

I need a laptop. Desperately. Makes it so much easier to get work done, you can put all your own stuff on it and nobody but you has a right to do whatever you want with it, and well... I've come to the conclusion that this sem has been ESPECIALLY laggy for me because my home desktop was down at the beginning of this sem, then it came back with its RAM drastically reduced to 64MB, thus making me very afraid to even switch it on for fear that it wouldn't even be able to handle opening the programs, let alone me using them. And then when I finally learned to cope with the slow processing speed, the monitor went *POP*. Yeah, a very loud pop. It was a very old monitor that was a bit wonky; we've been using it ever since the original monitor that came with CPU spoilt. So now we have a CPU which can't be used because there's no monitor. And we can't get a new monitor right now because of the usual financial problems.

You've probably figured out by now that in my household, when misfortune happens, unlike opportunity, it strikes more than once.

So I've been living off my mum's and dad's laptops. Problem with that, though, is that I can never actually use them for long periods of time, so ... yeah. That's self-explanatory, isn't it.

Archery stuff... my cell report is long overdue. Sorry Huiting and Nick... My attendance record is overdue as well. Sorry Imy.

Upgraded my bow limbs to 30 pounds. Then decided to shoot on Saturday without my arm guard. Figured it was pretty safe since when I shoot *with* my arm guard, my bow arm doesn't get hit anyway. Apparently though, psychological barriers are pretty powerful things. For some reason, without the arm guard, I end up getting hit.

F***, but that hurts. I haven't been hit by the bowstring for a VERY long time. And definitely NOT with a 30 pound bow. And NOT with a fast-flight string. Finally decided to wear the arm guard when it looked like if I hit my arm just one more time, the skin would burst right then and there.

Uh. Sorry for the gross image.

One small spot on my arm is still very brown and blue though. And slightly swollen.

Was looking at my MSN contact list. Suddenly my Archery group makes up the biggest group of contacts in my list. And Zhan Tao's nick is particularly... inspiring? Hm. Inspiring some deep thought, that is:

"We do what we must. Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us."

Sigh. My choices were always made for me. And when I thought that I could finally choose my path, the choice got made for me when I wasn't looking. Then it got handed to me and I was told to deal. Again.

And I can't help but let my mind drift sometimes and it wanders to how some people tell me that I'm a strong person. And I remember what Meiji told me when we were in J2, when she told me that she felt that I was an independent person. And I wonder. Am I really? Or is it just that I don't have anyone to rely on, so I don't have a choice? Or is it just that I never trusted anyone enough to rely on them, so I felt that I had no choice but to be self-reliant? Maybe I just thought that no one would care enough to bother about me.

I wonder if it's self-pity. It was something that I came to realise in J2, when I finally warmed up to my class (out of the blue and for no reason that I can think of, but they seemed okay with it); I realised that I could fit in almost seamlessly with all the class cliques, I could talk with them, joke with them, hell, even make the people laugh with my notorious sarcastic wit. But when I left, I somehow had this innate sense and understanding and even acceptance that I wouldn't be missed.

Is it self-pity if it's something you accept as a fact of life and you're not even complaining about it or anything? Hm.

Well, to quote one of the many inspirational nicknames that Zhicong has used on his MSN, "The truth will set you free. But before it does, it will make you miserable."

Suppose I'm at the miserable stage. Suppose I'm somewhere nearing the outer edge of it. Suppose it doesn't really matter and I just live my life the way I always have, just being happy to be where I am at the time I am.

Have taken to reading a bit of the book of Plath's poetry that Kenny gave me, every night. She's a fantastic poet. I completely understand when people say that she's just a mad, sad, depressed woman, but at the same time, I think they don't understand. It's that madness which is creativity. It's the madness which inspires it and is it all at the same time.

I completely understood what she meant when we were in JC and we were reading Plath for Literature, and she wrote "The blood jet is poetry".

When Rudolf Nureyev died in 1993, I remember the paper running a simple piece on him, with a picture of him and Margot Fonteyn in a ballet pose; and next to the picture was a single quote, wherein he said that dancing was his life, and he would do it "till the last drop of it leaves my body".

And I understand that too. I want to write. I want to write until there's nothing left; just give me the time. Give me the time to write till there's nothing left in me that I can put on paper and maybe then I'll stop.

Mr T. used to say when he was teaching us Plath that lots of writers don't live long. Isn't it ironic that when so many people create, they destroy themselves at the same time.

Have always loved Plath's writing. Have wanted to be her ever since I first read her work when I was 14.

Guess that's not a very good thing, considering she stuck her head in an oven when she was 33.

But, her writing. That's what I mean.

Am now for the first time actually seriously considering publishing. Maybe I'll ask Kenny if he knows anyone. And in the meantime, I'll get back to another sort of writing, which distracts you from life in another way by telling you that it's urgent urgent urgent, and that you just have to finish it or you'll be so screwed seven ways from Sunday that you won't be able to tell up from down.

Huh. I have no idea where that came from.

*Shrugs* Oh well. It's just me. Sitting here all by my lonesome. Typing. Nice of you to drop by. Thanks for reading. And listening, maybe.

And it's funny, but when I first started writing, I never wanted anyone who knew me personally to read what I wrote. Writing is.. awkwardly personal stuff, after all. Anyone who reads it would know what you're feeling inside, under all those layers. Also makes it a lot easier for people to criticise your work if they don't know you. And if they don't know you personally, well... then they can't place all those emotions to a person, a name, a face, and you're safe really. Because they can't get to where you are and look at what you wrote and look at you and put two and two together and they'll see through and through, inside and out.

But I suppose that's why half the time, this blog is coded in abstract half-poetic prose and stunted, paralysed verse.

Lookie what I found!! :D

All six episodes of TIm Burton's "Stainboy"!

Clicky-clicky:
Ep 1|Ep 2|Ep 3|Ep 4|Ep 5|Ep 6

All hotlinked from The Tim Burton Collective. :)

It's that time of the year (or sem) again. Papers, papers and more papers due.

1. 21st Oct: SC2220, Gender Studies; Reaction Paper 2 due

2. 31st Oct: AS3213, American Law: Language and Gender; Research Paper due

3. 2nd Nov: SC2220, Gender Studies; Project Write-up due

4. 4th Nov: SC2215, Sociology of Food; Essay due

5. 7th Nov: SC2101, Methods of Social Research; Research Paper due


And I haven't even got started on the Soci of Food essay yet!! I'm not even sure of what we're supposed to be writing about! Argh.

And I'm sick again. For the third time this year. Although now it seems to have mostly cleared up. :)

Finally finished that survey thing that I've been doing for the Soci department. If there's anything that I've learned, it's something about the "wildlife" of quiet HDB estates at night.

There're what Pam likes to call, Ratticus Giganticuses; giant rats. And there are plenty of stray cats. (Some of whose colouring really is quite nice.) And then there're suspicious looking men and bad tempered old men and middle-aged ladies lurking behind their curtains in their flats and screaming at you from inside. Or sometimes they open the doors and do it.

Oh well. Let's hope that I get paid for all the trouble a lot sooner than later.

And Venus is high in the sky tonight. A beautiful constant point of light which doesn't flicker, unlike all the stars around it, with a strange sort of pinkish aura ringing it. Or maybe that's just because of all the pink clouds in the night sky, looking like someone's been through them with a comb, faint furrow lines scored into them by the wind.

Met Wei Jian at Clementi today as I was waiting for 156!

Was kinda just standing there, waiting for the bus to go home, and out of nowhere, someone calls me, and who do I see walking up to the berth but Wei Jian! Haha... Turns out that he was on the way home from church. And apparently, "church" is in Boon Lay. Which is odd, coz Clementi and Boon Lay aren't exactly very near each other, and the few friends he had with him had come to Clementi for dinner, I think.

It's been ages since I last saw Wei Jian, man; probably the last time I went for alumni band, which was probably sometime earlier this year. He looks a bit more "normal" now, and not so "inverted-triangle" shaped. Haha. Still skinny though. Bloody hell, I want your metabolic rate!

And his hair's grown out, so his head doesn't look so weird, especially since he's all sharp angles. Haha...

He talks more nowadays; or maybe that's just because something kinda changed between us in J2 and we could talk to each other a lot easier. Used to be that in band, he'd almost always only talk to the trainees, and of the nine other trainees besides himself, he'd only really talk to Wai Lun and John and me.

So we talked for a bit, stuff about how life is and how school is for me and how weird it's going to be when he comes into NUS and I'll already be in third year by then! And how Sheena mentioned that Guan Jing left his hair really long and he's almost unrecognisable now; and despite all this time, I've only seen Chin Khiong once in the whole sem. Although he's in Engin, so I guess that would explain it. But Sheena says that he's in Arts all the time. Hm. *shrugs*

Someone out there's being very nice to me. Lately I've always had someone to talk to when my day's being screwy. First there was Paul (really out of nowhere, like someone had known that I'd like to talk to someone and so dropped Paul right in the middle of my path, haha), then there was Khim and Zhicong last week, and now there's Wei Jian, out of the blue!

Still got all those essays and research and personal problems and irritations to deal with though, so life isn't really as wonderful. Shall get my 2101 crosstabs done tomorrow. Once I have my second independent variable I can probably get started on my paper...

And I hope I get the work that Pei Pei recommended. Really need the money after watching "Quidam". :P

Shall go to sleep soon; meeting Chwan early tomorrow morning for shooting-- might be nice to shoot early in the morning for once, before the sun really gets too hot.

Piling up. That's the only way to describe my life right now.

My readings are piling up.

My archery stuff is piling up.

My term paper and project deadlines are piling up.

I need to get everything done.

I need time to slow down but it won't.

Maybe I just need time to break myself into small-enough bits that will drift away on the wind so no one will have to pick up the pieces.

I am my own undoing,
This hardened core that keeps its grudges
Like marks scored in the walls
Four strokes down and a stroke
'Cross them all;
Such sweet nothings you spoke
And it turned out they really were
Nothing at all.
How blind is blind
And what faith are words worth?

This is the sharp point of my paralysis
And the fine edge of my anger;
It bleeds out forced and concentrated--
Mars the endless white expanse.

Cold nights alone with a seething darkness
And a wish for a dream
For a lightbulb to shatter
And to rip its filament to shreds
That its light would never again shine
So it would only last have shone for me

But I do not hate you enough
To not want to love you.

And to throw myself against the walls
Hard enough to splatter;
Hearing all those cliches about
All that really matters,

Amor Vincit Omnia.
How beautifully you lie.

"Quidam" was just awesomely beautiful.

Benedict got us seats quite near the stage (Row G), so we had a pretty good view.

For those who don't know. "Quidam" (pronounced as "KEY-dahm") is a Latin word which refers to "a certain someone/thing". So in the essence of the show, Quidam is everyone and no one at the same time, the headless character in the show, the embodiment of the faceless society.

John, the ringmaster character in this show, was really funny. He was the first to make his appearance on the stage even before the show proper and started to hurry people to take their seats, since it was almost time to start; even did a bit of ushering. Haha.

The Diabolos act was cool; it was a very Chinese sort of act, but the music and the speed and mood were just so different that even if you'd been thoroughly jaded by all those cultural performances that you had to watch in school, you'd still be amazed by this one.

Contortion in silk was something that I'd seen in "Dralion" before, the German Wheel was quite amusing, especially since the artist seemed to be taunting the audience nearest to the stage by constantly rolling the large wheel that he was in over to the edge of the stage and stopping at the last possible moment; one of the men in the Spanish Web act looked eerily familiar in both his face and gait and poise; he reminded me of the Flying Man in Alegria. When Arts Central aired a recording of Alegria, I taped it and everytime I watched the Flying Man, it'd almost make me cry; something about flying and the music which made the mood so longing and so hopeful and so despairing all at the same time.

Oh, but I especially loved the Banquine act. Involves performers being thrown into the air and caught on nothing but two men's joined hands; reminded me a lot of Alegria's Russian bars.

Of course, there were the clowns. A staple in almost every Cirque du Soleil act, just as they were in every Shakespearean play. The two in "Quidam" were especially funny; haven't laughed that hard in ages.

Red balloons everywhere throughout the show.. well, maybe not everywhere, but at certain points; Zoe (the main character, a little girl) carrying one, then later she appears again carrying a few small ones all tied together; her mother, carrying larger ones tied together, and then later, dragging a string of deflated red balloons as she walks along the edge of the stage.

Like the end of childhood and becoming bored with the world. I thought that the red balloons symbolised childhood, anyway. Balloons for innocence and childishness and red for a burning kind of curiosity that every child has because the world is always new to them. Until they grow up and grow used to everything. Until they grow up and grow bored of the routine.

And Quidam is part of them and apart from them all the same time; because he is one of them and symptomatic of all of them all at once. And as the acts come and go and the faceless and veiled characters mill around and vanish in the background, Quidam appears and disappears from time to time, till he comes forward in the end to take back his hat, a hat without a head to cover, and everyone sheds their white coveralls and become different people.

And red balloons rise from all around the stage.

This is what happens when you start to miss trainings. Feeling damn lousy and useless right now coz my bow arm wasn't steady just not during training.

But on the bright side, Khim Nyang dropped by. With his brand-new iPod Nano.



It's so DAMN beautiful that I want one for myself. And I've never really been a huge Apple/iPod fan. He got his online, I think and it cost $403; reasonable, I think. 4 GB, and it's personalised. Sorta. It has his nickname laser-engraved on the back; it says "Greenlamb's iPod".

I know what I want for Christmas. Hahaha... :D

And I'm going to watch Quidam tomorrow! YAY!!! :D :D :D

Went for the Yulia concert in school; they were giving out free tickets for it.

Was nice; she sang pretty well. Though her mixed Russian accent and NZ/Aussie twang did cause some problems with her pronunciation. But she does have a lovely voice.

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight...

Bleah. Damn tired. But feel quite... accomplished. Yeah. That's the word.

Managed to go around to all the ten addresses that I had in about two hours, and I gave out 5 surveys! Yay!! Though on hindsight, it was probably only that fast coz most of the people weren't home... :P

But still. Not bad. If those 5 surveys are nicely completed, that's $75 for me. :D Plus it's not very strenuous; the blocks are all in the same neighbourhood, and thank goodness for lifts, haha.

Pam didn't have much luck with her addresses though.. she ended up having to replace A LOT of addresses due to ineligibility of the occupants to answer the survey, but finally, the last house that she went to, the lady agreed to do one! Yay! :D

So I'll collect them back tomorrow and turn them in on Monday... hopefully I'll get paid for it on the spot, but even if I don't, that's okay as well. After all, if I don't physically have the money with me, I can't squander it. Haha. :D