Random reflections while mugging in Science Library.

Just washed toilet floors are not always a good thing.

Was in the loo just now, and when I entered a cubicle and happened to glance down at the floor, I noticed--to my horror--that because of all the water that was still covering the floor and the flourescent lights above the cubicles, I could see what the person in the next stall was doing!!

And then I quickly averred my eyes and checked the floor of my stall.

Okay, mine wasn't so bad. And then I quickly did what I had to do and scarpered. :P

Compared to the Honours Thesis, the ISM is basically just "an extended term paper", but with a topic that's entirely up to us to choose. 5000 words, compared to the Honours Thesis' 12000.

Thesis has a page for acknowledgements, where you can thank all the people in the world if you want to. ISM doesn't.

So here's my list of people to thank.


To my supervisor:
Prof. Waterson, words cannot express how grateful I am to you for being so understanding, for giving me the time to finish what I started, for helping me to conceptualise and structure my paper.


To Mr. Michael Fernandez:
Thank you for an eye-opening experience, for sharing your experiences and those of your compatriots with me. It's not everyday that we're allowed a glimpse of how different things were, seen through the eyes of the remainders of a time that has been allowed to fall through the cracks and cemented over.


To my teammates in NUS Archery:
In my years at NUS, archery has always been my escape route. Thank you all for giving me somewhere to run away to. Even if it's just our crummy little range and lounge which SRC refuses to renovate or upgrade or improve. Thank you to my bow, Fidelis, for living up to your name and being my loyal companion all these years.

Thank you to all the archers who lived in school; for all the dinners, the late night Bridge (and German Bridge) sessions, mugging together, watching the guys play Counterstrike at night, room parties with green bean soup, red bean soup, chips and tidbits and movies and anime.

Thank you for being so much fun, the whole RVR gang; Sylvia, Connor, Nicholas, Huiting, Mengyi, Xingjuan (although you only stayed one sem) and Joshua. I'll miss living with you guys.

Thank you for the breakfast company on Thursday mornings, talk about shooting in the future and bitching about SRC, Wai Xin and Weiquan.

Thank you to one of the most stressful people on the face of the planet, my dearest Joseph. Thank you for always telling me that I should be working, for always telling me "you can do it", for being the chalk to my cheese, the night to my day, the sedateness to my hyperness, and when we both go a little bit nuts, it makes my day that much brighter. :D


To the Sociology Honours class of 07/08:
Thank you for the fun and laughter, the times of shared stress and deadlines and "Jiayou(s)!!" all around, the birthday parties and cakes and outings, the whiteboard in the Honours room that almost always had nonsense doodled on it; thank you for all the terrible jokes and wonderful times.

Thank you to Weida; coz you're such a great class rep, sending all those emails and communiques and helping us ask for extensions, and thank you for always asking, "How's your ISM?"

Thank you to Wilson ("task-oriented!!"), and Ling; the quirkiest project groupmates I've had in all my four years at NUS, and all that time we spent tearing our hair out trying to juggle the Urban Anthro project and our ISMs at the same time.

Thank you to Shawn Chew; just for being you, haha. And for wearing that silly shirt with the departures board on it. That shirt always made my day. We never did get around to that whisky appreciation session... haha. The image of you high on whisky coke will remain with me forever. :P

Thank you to Dorcas and Shufen for "mothering" the whole Honours class; Shufen with her Royce chocolates and Dorcas for being caring and always so cheerful.

Thank you to Eng Soon; keeping you awake during class was a challenge at times, but it was always amusing.

Thank you to Nicole ("neko!"); for being the one person I could make silly noises at, and have them made back at me. ^_^

Thank you to Yan Ping, for always being so quirky. Good things come in small packages.

Thank you to Dongchou, our resident "North Korean", for your wry sense of humour.

Thank you to Greg for the prayers and the advice.

Thank you to Pamela, my oldest and dearest friend (I sound like a book...); we've definitely known each other for too long. :P But it's good to know that you're still just about the only person I can talk to, wherein our conversation never has to make any sense, and yet we still understand each other. :D

Thank you to any other Honours folks I haven't mentioned yet; I just don't know exactly what to write for you guys! Bobby, Fiona, Charissa, Charmaine, Isabelle, Wei Loon, Melvin Chua, Melvin Lim, James, Yi Ding, Mas, I'dil, Hafiz, Jonny, Diana, Si Ying, Adeline, Pearlyn, Sheilla, PJ, Ana, Clement, Xin Yi, Daryl, Charlynn, Chongwei, KC, Winnie, Daniel, Bianca... and everyone else, because I know I've left out people, but I just can't remember all of you... :P


Thank you to my family:
To my parents; for making me the person I am today, for nagging me, for pushing me, for not giving up, for loving me in your own very different ways.

To my maternal aunts; without you, university and all the experiences which I have gained through it would never have been possible. I have lived on your borrowed dreams.


Thank you to people who don't fit in the above categories:
Thank you Eugene, for being the annoying, sarcastic pain in the arse you always are. Hahaha... Well, in all seriousness, thanks for all the fun times and the overnight mugging which seems so long ago now. Thanks for being a great kor, and here's hoping that your Masters application goes through, and we can all go to New Zealand and run wild for a couple of weeks. XD

Thank you Alex, for keeping me awake on MSN when all the essays were due, feeding me pictures of hamsters, YouTube videos and various other things that make time fly by. :P

And last but not least, the most unsung hero of all unsung heroes in the writing of any essay: my laptop. Thank you for not giving out on me when it was the most crucial time!!

I'm in a strange kinda mood at the moment.

Still doing reading and drafting for ISM at this time. Got allowance for extension, but my new hand-in date hasn't been finalised yet. Thank god for such nice supervisors.

I've gone mad lately, Tsubasa Chronicles has come back to haunt me with a vengeance. I remember when I first got my laptop almost two years ago, I found all sorts of amazing things on YouTube at the same time. Like the fact that you could watch whole episodes, whole seasons, whole shows on it for free.

And I stumbled on Cardcaptor Sakura clips, and out of curiosity, decided to watch the whole series. And then that led on to Tsubasa (Reservoir) Chronicles (TRC), the most confusing crossover series I have ever seen, despite the amount of fanfiction I read; not only do characters appear almost randomly and not necessarily in their original kind of roles-- this "crossover" is canon. And to add to that, TRC's universe can be terribly complicated and confusing.

Also promptly fell in love with the music for Tsubasa Chronicles. Kajiura Yuki is amazing.

I watched them off YouTube till episode 40, after which I stopped keeping up-- the series was still broadcasting in Japan then, and you could wait anywhere from two to four weeks for a subbed version on YouTube-- the waiting only became obvious when I caught up to where they were showing, and then at some point I just didn't bother anymore.

So I'm on a TRC craze at the moment. Always happens. My wallpaper folder has about ten TRC wallpapers, my desktop is hosting one currently, and my Tsubasa music folder has only increased slightly.

"Aikoi" (from the fourth TRC soundtrack) has been on repeat for the last three days; it keeps me awake. Works almost as well as caffeine. Or better. Since it looks like my system is metabolising caffeine faster and faster now.

I remember in year 2 Alex used to take caffeine pills to mug, haha. Dunno if they ever worked as well as caffeine though. I never asked.

Ah, caffeine. The world's most popular and "legal" drug.