Gerri's Ikea day out. :)


Yesterday, kor dropped by my room. After lunch at Fong Seng, we made a spontaneous decision to make that trip to Ikea that had been put off for so long. :)

So we hopped onto bus 33 (good thing for all NUS Hall people that we have a straight bus there and back) and were back in a little over an hour, with the following:

One bedside table ("sponsored" by kor as a super-belated birthday present), one table lamp (and two bulbs which were purchased separately), one shoe rack, one doormat, one cushion, and one rug. All this for the amazing price of $54.10! :D

So now my room is that little bit more homely. :)


Now for the mini-picspam:

Here's kor looking silly for the camera, at the bus stop outside Ikea.


This is my new shoe rack, already in service, as you can see:


Here's kor putting in the bulb for my lamp; note how cute the lamp is-- it has two little "eyes", haha. I think it's meant to look like a little alien that way.

I wasn't able to get a shot of kor fixing up my table for me because he was too fast! I was fixing up my shoe rack at the same time as he was putting together the table.

But here it is in all it's lovely beech-coloured-finished glory, anyway:

Ah.. except that you can't really see the beech-coloured finish. :P Yes, that's the rug on the table. I'd originally planned to have the rug on the floor between my desk and bed, but then I thought that it looked kinda weird because there was so little floorspace! Rugs look better when they're in a nice open space.

Then kor picked it up and put it on the table, and I had an idea. So after a bit of rearranging, there it stayed. :)

So this is what my room looked like before:

I know, it was nice then too. :)

And here's the refurbished (refurnished??) product!



Finally, here are the two people that made this blog entry possible:

Kor and me! :D


And this morning, I decided to utilise the table; I was quite glad that kor suggested that I get a bigger table instead of a smaller one. :)

Meiling and I had breakfast in my room this morning; bread with Nutella, and I made cream of chicken soup with my handy dandy travel cooker. Yay. Room party for two, haha. :D


Hall is just so much fun. :)

Links to a few YouTube videos... coz I got bored while studying and you probably deserve a break too! Hee. :P Note that all videos will open in new windows


First is a video for a campaign to stop online child pornography:

Click here.

Please light a candle at www.lightamillioncandles.com and pass the word on. This petition aims to have a million candles lit by the 31st of December this year; currently about 240,000 plus are lit, and I lit the 72,000th candle-- such a lovely round number. ^_^


Next is this video for the Free Hugs campaign; I just happened to see it yesterday while I was taking a break from mugging, and it made me all warm and fuzzy inside. :) Spread it around and share in the love. :D


And one last little clip, a short animated one. I showed this to Ivan yesterday and in his words: "OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) never looked so amusing." :P

Clicky. :)


That's all, folks. :)

At some point in time, my holidays have always felt more packed than during semester time. This holiday seems to be no exception.

Yesterday was the start of a one-and-a-half day archery training camp; while I wasn't really involved (since it's meant to cater to the new juniors, and the "old school people" like us don't really matter), I was there to train myself and to help if my juniors (the current exco) needed anything. Was fun. :)

And after that ended at about 2 pm yesterday, I rushed back to hall to get ready for Arts Club's Thank You Dinner, coz Theresa and I were sharing a cab down to the hotel with Meiyi, who had to be there by 4.30 pm since she's part of the 26th comm (who's stepping down, so they're the ones organising the dinner, so to speak). Meiyi managed to stall for time though, so we got there at about 5 plus. :P

And finally, today I can wake up late and not have to rush off for anything. :)

Time to start studying for those mid-term tests now. :)

The things you'll do when you're bored and sitting down in a quiet place in school at night.

Meiling and I were sitting down at one of the benches at the Forum just now, having our dinner, and I started talking about how I'd like to rob the Co-op. I know, it sounds loser-ish, but that's me for you: people talk about robbing banks, and I dream about robbing bookstores.

So in the end, here's what we came up with:

I'd like to steal their books; some of their literature selection and some of the academic titles, because some of them really do seem interesting. I'd steal some of the stationery, like all the expensive pens and those lovely notebooks that they have from A'Zone and the like. And I wouldn't mind stealing some of the Haagen-Dazs ice-cream from the refrigerator.

Meiling would also like some of the books, but unlike me, she'd much prefer the sports merchandise (there's a small corner of the Co-op devoted to selling Nike merchandise) and Blu-Tack. Because she's crazy about it right now. :P

Damn tired.

Was running IBG road relay just now.

Our route: Starting at the Eusoff bus stop, run up to the Temasek Hall carpark entrance, then continue up the slope, past Kent Ridge Hall, past Sheares, right up to the research buildings next to Sheares. Then come back down, running along the main road outside AS7, turn into the Eusoff Hall carpark entrance and end at the bus stop.

2.2 km (that's how long it's supposed to be..) isn't such a big deal, but the slope up to Sheares Hall is effing bloody KILLER.

I think my legs are gonna hurt tomorrow. My lower back already is, and that's actually kinda weird. It's never hurt after a run before.

But anyway, on the bright side, our guys finished first. :)

They're damn fast... Allan and Peter were first and last runners respectively; they started the guys' event three minutes after the girls, and Allan still came back a few minutes before the first girl...! 0_o And Peter took only 6.5 min to complete his lap...! Wah, if he can do that on slopes, imagine how long he takes to finish 2.4 on flat ground, on a track... 0_0..

And last but not least, C Block is overall girls' champion...!! :D

When it rains, it pours.

The strange, bizarre story of my life. Like my perpetual moodswings (which apparently, are definitive of someone whose zodiac sign is Cancer), my life is always rosy one minute, and absolutely dismal in the next.

It's difficult to find balance. So much for my birthday being "Pi Approximation Day".

With regards to that, you learn something new everyday: apparently, the 22nd of July (22/7) is Pi Approximation Day, for the simple reason that 22/7 is a popularly used approximation of Pi. No wonder I've always felt like there was something I should've realised everytime I write my birthdate.

But I digress.

Whenever anything goes wrong in my life, everything that goes wrong happens at the same time.

I think I need time to find... something. I'm not sure what it is. I've been told that I need time to something which makes me happy, and not just spend all my time running around and doing stuff which just fills up all the space in my life.

But I don't know what makes me happy.

Writing used to make me happy, but my muses have been asleep a long, long time, because I no longer have the time to dream, and all the vestiges of dreamland that cling to my waking eyes in the mornings are dreams of endings and breakings awash in a rain of acid tears.

I dream of disappearing faces; I dream of arms around my shoulders that I can't really feel; I dream of empty corridors; I dream of quiet park benches where I sit alone.

I dream of broken glasses.

I dream of watching people inside a bubble.

I dream of cars passing clean through me as I walk across a wide open road.

I dream of phones ringing without anyone to answer them.

And there's that dream which I've had for the longest time, that dream of sleeping and never waking.

Except.. that dream is the only one which lingers without any visual memory. And perhaps it makes sense; the absence of vision for eyes that have lost a purpose to open for.

Must've been a long time ago that I recieved one of those forwarded emails-- you know, the kind which you're compelled to send to about half the world if you want good luck-- and I remember one of those as saying that friends are like balloons, lifting you up when things are down.

It's been a long time.

Time enough to think on that analogy.

If, like balloons, you hold them too tight, the strings cut your fingers, and I suppose both sides get hurt. And if, like balloons, the closer you are to them, the more a break in your friendship hurts; but I wonder then.. if the balloons burst, then how do people ever get friends back?

And then there are the people who seem to be somewhere between going and staying.

Somehow Life drifts the two of you closer together, but Life is never about just two people, is it? There's everyone else to consider, and sometimes everyone else makes things difficult to see, difficult to understand.

Between going and staying, between drifting away and coming closer, strings sliding back and forth between your fingers, cutting deeper everytime.

And at some point in time that my own subconscious hitherto has known better than me, it starts to hurt more than you thought it could.

No more pulling. No more hurting and trying so hard to understand. It's a lot easier to just cut the strings and let them drift away.

Twice it's been done. Twice it seemed like it'd hurt forever after it was done. Twice that I've been selfish enough to drive away what I could no longer understand-- but I wonder sometimes if I was being completely selfish if they were the ones who seemed like they could no longer bear to carry on.

Third time's a charm. The only thing I regret is that this time, someone else got caught in the crossfire.

And maybe it hurts even worse to let them go. But there's the long-term to think of, isn't there? So grin and bear it and tell yourself that it's better this way.

Because I got tired of trying. Because I got tired of not being able to understand. Because I've learnt that I couldn't handle it any other way.

So I guess this is goodbye all over again.

And I wonder how many more times I can take doing this, and if I'll ever need to anymore.

More pictures of school life and hall life.

Theresa, Meiyi and I were at studying at one of the benches at the Forum till about 11 pm last night, after which Meiyi walked back to Eusoff Hall with Theresa and me; Meiyi and I then sat around in my room chatting for a bit.


That's Meiyi with my chair cushion on her head. :D


Justin dropped by later and said he was heading to Sheares Hall for supper, so we went along with him.


I now love the Cheezy Fries on Sheares' supper menu. XD Justin ordered his with extra cheese and it looked heavenly. Speaking of which, Justin ordered an obscene amount of food for supper-- a whole plate of spicy fried rice (and the plate was not just full, it was *piled* full with rice), a packet of cheezy fries (with the extra cheese, mind), and two drinks-- and all it cost him was $5! You start to wonder why people are still allowing themselves to be exploited by Fong Seng's exorbitant prices for such small pratas. :P



Here's Theresa and Meiyi while we were in Sheares' dining hall. :) Justin declined to have his picture taken. :P


But speaking of Fong Seng... I was at said place having supper with Meiling on Monday night, and someone pulled up in a car, reversing so that he could turn in and park near the prata shop. I thought the car looked awfully familiar while it was reversing. But it was when it turned in that it was confirmed.


It was a Maserati. XD

Gerri *loves* Maseratis, and I was in heaven for 15 minutes, because I was seated facing the road and the lovely baby was right in my line of sight. XD You can tell that I couldn't resist taking a picture of it as we were making our way back to Hall. :P

Hey, you can't blame me; this is only the second Maserati I've seen in my life in Singapore. :D

Some of the reasons why I wish I never had to graduate. Some of the reasons why I love NUS.


I love the Central Library. This is a picture of the Journals collection on the fifth floor, but what really was love at first sight for me was the open shelves section which takes up more than half of the third floor. I still remember my first day of school when the librarian informed us blur little freshmen that the open shelves were downstairs, and upon rounding the corner, we were greeted with literally hundreds of shelves, *filled* with books. I was immediately besotted. :P

Yes, listen to my inner nerd waxing lyrical. :)




A sign posted beside a Literature prof's office door; most likely put up by he himself. This prof was my lecturer when I took the Literature intro module in my first semester, and he always has funny stuff stuck on his door.

The second picture is just to show you that "six doors away" is actually the door out of the Literature department. :P



After stepping down as exco, I'm now just a school archer. And this is how we occupy ourselves when the new batch of juniors are being taught how to shoot. Here's Nic and Weizheng playing tic tac toe, archery style. Other activities in the lao jiao club also include playing blackjack, *also* archery style-- a score of 21 is counted as blackjack. :)



Now for something from hall. When room doors become like a chatroom for the entire floor--posting one message after another, yelling at each other, goading each other on, and all the other things friends do for fun.


When else are we ever going to have the chance to experience things like these again...?

Getting swamped by readings all over again.

Getting so tired of trying to keep up with the workload, but at the same time, I know that I really can't afford to fall behind. Argh.

Running away isn't the solution, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to. However, my timetable for this semester ensures that the only "free" night I have (when I can stay up late and do anything I want) is Tuesday night, because Wednesday is the only day of my four-day week which does not start at 8 am. Sigh.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm sure I really wanna go for Honours year when I'm still struggling the way I am. I hate the system, but without the system, I have no direction, I have no idea what I'd do with myself; this is all we've been taught to be.

Who really cares what you believe if it isn't what everyone else thinks is true?


Fidelis probably hates me for neglecting her for the past month or so. She hit me in the face just now after training. On the other hand, it probably goes to show that I shouldn't shoot when I'm sick, contrary to my own belief.


And speaking of being sick, meanwhile, my throat feels likeit has a pincushion (with pins) stuck down it, and my own nose tries its very best to suffocate me.

If you're in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS, then you should know by now that the faculty club's student elections are coming up soon... on the 7th of September, in fact. If you didn't know, where've you been..?

Anyway, just helping out a few friends:

This is a link to a podcast by one of the teams contesting in the election; there're actually 13 members in this team, and their website can be found here.


To all in NUS FASS, please vote on 7th September. And please vote based on who you believe can best represent you; this is not some simple popularity contest.

Overslept.

And I missed Science of Music lecture.

No, it's not that I've never missed lectures before (let's not forget that in my second semester, I skipped my E Lang and Philo lectures from week 4 onwards, haha; I *so* should've taken 6 modules in that semester.. I had too much free time), it's just that I've never.. um.. overslept through them before. :P

Oh well.

First time for everything.

But the really bad thing about this is that I think I'm falling sick. Sigh... I'm starting to wish I had Vitamin C in my room or something. I like those nice orange-flavoured types that you can either chew or suck; I hate tablets and the like.



Archery AGM yesterday was quite the farce... not enough people so it was a walkover for almost all the cells. Bleah. But it seems that there're a lot of Eusoff Hall people this year! Almost everyone who was there who stayed on campus said that they're either in Eusoff or PGP... cool. :)

Hm.. speaking of Hall, I decided to sign up for IBG (Inter-Block Games) road relay. I've been thinking of running road relay for sometime now, but since it isn't confirmed that I'll be staying in Hall next sem (and I don't even know if I'll be allowed to) and I don't have that much running experience, I thought maybe I'd just try out in IBG first, haha.

I can't do very well in all the other sports, anyway. The only other thing I could play would be netball, but for some reason, I can never seem to gel with netball players, so playing netball is kinda out of the question.

Road relay... I'm pretty good at pacing, I think-- I paced my whole JC class for 2.4, haha. Excluding the one guy in our class, of course. :D So, I figured that if I had enough time to build up stamina, I might probably be better at distance running than sprinting. I just hope my knee doesn't give out on me though. I have stupid knees and ankles and arches and whatnot.



Went over to KR last night after Archery AGM; Kristy came over to Eusoff to have a look at my room, and the first thing she said was "Waahh..!! So big!!" Then she said the same thing about Jasmine's room as well when we dropped by her room. Haha.

Then I walked with her to Kent Ridge, since it was about 11.15 by then and the shuttle buses had stopped running. It's not very far anyway, and it's pretty nice to walk in school at night.

KR is nice... very lovely and new and all. I can't get over just how much it seems like a hotel! You use your matric card to open the main door and to lock and unlock your own room too.

The rooms are pretty small; the last time I saw a KR room was when I was in Year 1 (bleah, now I feel terribly old) and I didn't think they were that small before. Now that I look at it, they're probably about half the size of Eusoff's rooms! But they're still cozy. And they have nice views. I really like their windows!

Chwan stays one floor above Kristy, so we spent a couple of hours in Chwan's room talking about archery and other crap and watching archery videos, haha.

Have I mentioned that I love staying in school? :)