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.

Decisions, decisions.

Today was a good day at work. Well, several good things happened, really.

Although I woke up late. XD (Good things seem to happen everytime I wake up late for work...) But I'd packed my stuff the night before, so all I really had to do wash up and rush downstairs and buy a curry puff from Old Chang Kee for breakfast, then wait at the bus stop. And the MRT is lots faster than the bus, so I still got to work on time with almost no hassle at all.

So, I suppose the first good thing is that I managed to make it to work on time.

Secondly:
I'd kinda gotten it into my head that I wanted to try and see if I could finish off what I have early, so that maybe I could leave early, since there's competition tomorrow and the day after.

And I did manage to finish early; at around 4 pm (I'm supposed to be off work at 6 pm), I'd cleared my desk, and Priscillia and Evon (the nice ladies who let me know what I need to do) were shocked. I think I'm getting used to it and I'm getting faster. Lol.

Priscillia found some other stuff for me to do, so I took my time with it, and was done at about 5.45 pm. At which time they told me I might as well go off early. Heehee.


So, off to get my timesheet signed by Joyce. I'm still not really sure what her role in the office is, just that she's right next to the GM's office, and I think she's something like the office secretary. Coz everything in the office seems to go through her.

Joyce handed me my new timesheet for the month of March, and at the top of it, I noticed that my pay rate had been increased from $7 to $9 per hour. And Joyce tells me that she's given me that rate for my February pay too. Wheeee.

So that's the third good thing.


Joyce also asked again when I'm graduating and whether I'd be interested in working as permanent staff; told me to give her a CV when it's nearing the time I'll graduate.

And then when I was walking to the MRT station, this lady called Jocelyn calls from the office, telling me that apparently, the feedback about me has been quite positive, and asking me if I'd be interested in a permanent job, and about an interview next week.

Fourth good thing.


So now I'm thinking... should I be considering part-time Masters instead of full-time Masters now? If I even decide to do Masters? Hmm.

I feel... kind of like I've just done one of the most stupid things in my life.

Something in me knows that it's not really that important, and yes, it's true, I don't really need it since I'm graduating this semester, but still.

People train long and hard for this, people work for this, people fight for this; and I gave mine away.

I don't know why. Sylvia says it was nice of me to do it, but I *know* that I'm not a "nice" person. So I don't know why. I really don't know why.

Finally..!!! My IVP Gold trophy, which has eluded me for the last three years!! :D

Good competition for the whole team as well, and for the first time, we won more awards in the higher Recurve categories than in Standard.

So, first time shooting 90 arrows instead of 72; my individual score on Saturday was actually quite lousy, I think.

My 60m round went fine; score of 211 out of 300. Good, I suppose, considering that I only finalised my sight for 60m on Thursday, when I went down to Zhenghua to shoot with Wai Xin and Weiquan.

My 50m and 40m rounds, on the other hand, were not as good, at least not by my own expectations. I missed the board twice in each round, and ended up getting a score of 230-plus for each. If I'd landed those arrows, my 50m and 40m scores would've been nearer to 250... damnit.

Tired, lah. Plus my stupid cough wouldn't leave me alone and go infect someone else.

But it turned out to be good enough. By the end of the FITA 900 round, I was ranked third, but first for IVP, since the two girls with higher scores than me were not in IVP. NTU held both Open and IVP Outdoor together, so technically, this means that IVP archers will be ranked in both categories. So in Open, I was ranked third, and in IVP, ranked first.

So, individual knockout on Sunday for Open; damn shocked when I found out there's IKO on Saturday-- I haven't been to a competition that had IKO for almost two years...!

But went well, haha. Me versus an NTU girl first; 3rd vs. 6th. I forgot her name. Oh dear. I won by 12 points.

Next, me vs. Winnie Khoo from RP. She's actually pretty good! :) The two of us were talking crap half the time, behind the shooting line, *at* the shooting line, walking to collect arrows, talking nonsense while collecting arrows... *rolls eyes*

It's actually the first time I've ever been friendly with an archer from another club during competition, haha. I usually keep to myself and only talk to NUS people. Must be getting soft in my old age. :P

Beat Winnie by just one point. Really close. In the first end, I led by one point, in the second end, she led by one; in the third end, we tied, and in the final end, our arrows had almost all the same score: we each had one yellow, one red, one blue, but one of mine in red cut the line. XD

So, onto gold medal and bronze medal match for myself and her respectively. Me against a girl from HTNS, she against Crystal from NTU. I ended up losing to the HTNS girl by just 7 points, but at least it was a good fight. I knew she'd be pretty tough to beat anyway. :)

So 2nd place in Open instead of 3rd; IKO actually turned out to be a good thing. Lol.

I wasn't in the team event, but Linette, Mengyi and Serene later beat the NTU girls' team to get Gold for team. Yay. NUS now officially holds both the FITA 900 Ladies' Golds. XD

At the same time, Joseph, Joshua and Connor beat the NTU team they were up against to get bronze. That was a great moment, man.


The best picture of the whole competition. Hafiz with Joshua halfway over his shoulders; Connor and Joseph in the background on the left. A little to the right is Mengyi, and that's me hugging Serene.


Now for more pictures.


FITA 900 Ladies' Team: Linette, Serene, Mengyi
Gold Medal




FITA 900 Men's Team: Connor, Joshua, Joseph
Bronze Medal





FITA 900 Ladies' Individual (Open): Me!
Silver
(the guy standing in first position was just collecting the trophy for the girl coz she'd left early, but his club made him stand up there and take the picture, lol.)


FITA 900 Ladies' Individual (IVP): Me again
Gold


Standard Class Ladies' Individual: Sin Kei
Bronze


All the medallists, plus Coach in the middle...


...and one of the whole team. :)

A Valentine's caper.

In which Gerri bakes an Oreo cheesecake for the first time. :)

I've only ever baked cheesecakes before, never the version with Oreos added. So for this version, I used 11 cookies for the crust (which still turned out to be pretty thin); which means 22 Oreo biscuits, with the cream removed and added into the cake itself later, so I used less sugar in the cake since I figured the cream would make it pretty sweet.

Then just went about my normal cheesecake-making process, cheese and (less) sugar and eggs and all, and then threw in the remaining um... 19 biscuits, broken up into chunks.

The mixture turned very brown indeed. Lol.

And it very nearly overflowed the dish that I use for baking cheesecake all the time! I hadn't considered the fact that adding in the cookies would make that much of a difference in the volume. :P

But it turned out okay; Joseph and I had two slices of it each, he took three slices home for his grandma and his parents, and all the archers in RVR had one slice each. :D

Everyone said it was nice; pretty good for a first attempt, I think. Haha. But I think Connor was right in that the crust was a little soggy. Sigh. The biscuit crumbs refused to stop clumping together when I was making the crust; they're really different from Digestives that way, and I have no idea why! Oh well. Shall try to improve on that on my next attempt, haha. ^_^

Saw Connor had this thingy on his blog. So decided to play with it. Lookie at my score. ^_^

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