Facebook seems more amusing than Friendster.

I'm not on either of them, but I'm sitting here in Qualitative now and Greg's just shown me one of the most amusing things I've seen this whole week.

There's a group in Facebook called "If I Weren't Christian, Chua Beng Huat Would Be My God". Chua Beng Huat being one of the more widely known (and illustrious?) lecturers in the Soci department.

And apparently there's another group called "Why is Daniel Goh so Hawt??" much to Greg's mollification.

Well, on the bright side, at least it shows that the Soci department's a fun place. Lol.


And on another note, methinks someone's screwed up the timer for the corridor lights in my block. When I got back last night after dinner, the corridor lights in my entire block were out; I thought it was a blackout or something, but they didn't come back on in the night. No matter though. But this when I woke up this morning to go wash up before class, I noticed the lights were on in broad daylight. *snicker*

Honours year is killing me slowly. :(

And Gerri has a craving for hot chocolate right now. Maybe when baby and I went out to the supermarket last week, we should've bought Cadbury's hot chocolate too. And there's no need to look at me like that, it's useless; I'm one of the last people in the world who's gonna feel guilty about what they eat.

There isn't gonna be much time before you're too old to eat anything which has too much sugar/ salt/ oil, which is too cold, too spicy, too whatever, so you might as well try everything and look back on it happily later. :)

Wai Xin made me realise that I need a special blend of hot chocolate; a special recipe. So here's mine. Gerri wants hot chocolate just so:


ONE LARGE CUP of hot, creamy chocolate
ADD:
ONE LARGE DOSE of Motivation
TWO SHOTS of Inspiration
SPRINKLE on Happiness

Serve with a plush toy on the side for hours of squishy amusement

Serving suggestion: ideal for rainy days in bed with lots of warm blankets and someone else to share the joy with.


Sigh. I really do want hot choccy right now.

I'm leaving terribly long periods in between blogging nowadays. Very unlike me, I know. Oh well. No time, and what's more I feel completely unmotivated to do ANYTHING.

Not studying, not reading, not researching, not training-- absolutely NOTHING. ARGH.

I need to do reading, I need to get my lecture notes all inked/ printed/ in order, I need to do research for my term papers, I need to get that interview assignment for 4213 done, I need to do research for my ISM (so I can finally define a research question and scope), I need I need I need. AAAARGH.

I need um... a good kick to the head or something which will galvanise me into action, to make me realise that GERRI GODDAMNIT THERE'S ONLY ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOUR FIRST TERM PAPER IS DUE!!!!


And even typing that out myself only made my brain just go kinda like: "Ngh. Bleah." Kinda like the brain-equivalent of "rolling over and going back to sleep".

-_-... stupid brain.


I need someone who makes me feel better about being me.

Wow. Haven't blogged for quite a while.

Honours year surprises me in some ways; I seem to be spending more time this semester having group discussions and such than I ever have in previous semesters. Perhaps it's coz most of us have similar timetables, given that many of us are all taking the same level 4000 modules, so we kinda have more time to discuss group projects and such.

Readings are also snowballing a lot faster this semester than in previous ones; some of them are really deep and philosophical and confusing-- they make you wanna throw them aside the minute you read the first paragraph, which utterly confounds you. Some of them are incredibly long; you wouldn't believe they're just "papers"-- you'd think they were whole chapters of books. Very long chapters, at that.

Some of them, for some modules, are just intimidatingly numerous-- how to complete four readings for one class when you still have to complete the others for the other modules??

But I suppose I'll have to do catching up in the week of the mid-sem break. Sigh.

Misery does enjoy company; it's relieving to know that among my Honours batch, I'm not the only one whose brain feels rather "dry" this sem-- this sem, of all semesters, when we're supposed to be formulating research questions and planning research and interviews for theses and ISMs and whatnot.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who hasn't yet figured out how exactly to approach their ISM topic; I'm glad I'm not the only one who hasn't found a supervisor.

I'm glad that my batch are friendly people who can let their hair down and have a good party; I'm glad that the professors and lecturers in my department are the amiable, sociable folks they are-- it's times at these that I especially love the major which I've chosen.


SAFRA shoot is this Saturday and Sunday; I didn't want to participate in Pesta Sukan earlier, in August, coz I felt I didn't have enough stamina yet; not enough regular training as of late.

Thought I might have had some time to build up stamina in time for SAFRA, but it seems that I wasn't fast enough and was probably a bit too slack during training. Add to that the fact that we're shooting triple-face targets for the individual round as well as the team round, and I know I have a mental "problem" with the triple-face.

I hope my "competition sense" saves me; *something* has always spared me from doing too dismally during competition-- I don't know what it is, but I hope it doesn't desert me now. I hope I still have some time to build up more strength and stamina, no matter how limited the time seems. I hope I don't let myself down. And even more, I hope I don't let my teammates down.

Sometimes I feel we should just forget about the prizes and awards on Rag Day, since everything's partly like a scam.

There's no transparency at all in the judging criteria, and the same Faculties win the same top awards every year. The only category which I can safely say is without bias is probably that of the Halls.

This year, I think the Most Creative Float Design award was a sham. The judges must be blind. Apparently, attention to detail means nothing at all.

But, my dear fellow Arts Raggers-- those whom I have seen four years of Rag with, those whom I have seen become Raggers in their own right, and those whom I have only come to know this year-- we can take pride in the fact that no other faculty used the tessellated-can design that we used; and we're probably the only faculty who knows how to do it. We can take pride in the fact that we created our own "new technology"-- those folded paper flowers. We can take pride in the fact that our float was mistaken for a Hall float (twice) while it was in the static display area. :)

And I hope that all of you have enough pride, that despite not winning what was rightfully owed us both this year and last year, you will get back on your feet and build an even better float next year.

Arts Rag and Arts Raggers, we've come a long way since I was a first-year, and I'm proud of all of us. :)

Coin counting for Flag today.

Was feeling oddly nostalgic.

I wonder if I'm one of the few people who's been involved in Flag this many times; as it is, I was one of the more "experienced" coin counters in the room today. Some people like Eileen and Reuben were doing it for a second time after last year, and maybe the NUSSU people were doing it for a second time too, but I might've been the only one in the room doing it for a third time.

What's more, there were people in the NUSSU Flag comm whom I'd seen in the last two years, but I didn't see any of them around the function rooms today, where we were counting.

And it did strike me yesterday morning, when I arrived in school at 7 am to help Meiling and Xinyu distribute the Flag logistics, that this is the last year I will do any administrative work associated with Flag. This is the last time I will wake up at an ungodly hour to send people out to collect money from the general public; this is the last time I will get stressed out over labels, stickers, T-shirts and NUSSU's crazy directives; this is the last time I will get frustrated over freshies not giving a damn about Flag and just going off to sing karaoke with their OGs and bringing back nearly empty cans in the evening; this is the last time I will sit down with fellow Flag comm/admin people and bitch about said freshies' laziness, other faculties, NUSSU, and many many other things, passing the time till the collection cans are returned to us safe and sound.

And every year around this time, I find myself wondering the same thing: why have I so actively participated in the two most under-valued orientation projects for almost every year that I've been in NUS?

People argue that it's useless, people tell me that I'm stupid, people say it's a waste of time. Almost everyone else whom I see in these projects for a second or third year running gets this kinda feedback from the people who know of their participation. And every year, I do wonder, why is it that despite what these people say, there're always about 20 who come back to slog for virtually nothing at all?

I certainly hope that we're not "stupid" and "wasting our time" as everyone has said. Rather, I think that aside from the feeling that we do this (take part in Rag and Flag) for the friends who are in it with us, it might be because we are among the strange minority of the faculty which has an unusually strong sense of faculty pride.

That feeling of satisfaction as the faculty's float rolls into the performance area; that feeling when the cans are collected back at the end of Flag Day and every faculty does its best to convey to every other faculty present during the collection time that its tins are so full of coins that they need four people to carry a box of twenty tins; that feeling when it's over and you want to come back next year and make it even better.

This year I'd like to feel proud, for one last time. :)

Just moved into Ridge View this morning.

I came early, hoping that I'd be able to change my room (coz Nic told me it might still be possible), but alas, no can do.

So here I am, sitting in my newly cleaned room (except for the floor) and bemoaning more than just a couple of things about it, while sorely missing my Eusoff room.

To begin with, my room windows face the road, and sitting here, listening to the buses go by is making me lose almost all hope of sleeping in late in the mornings. Not to mention that all the vehicles going past are going to make my room get dusty a lot more often. I am definitely keeping my blinds drawn.

At first glance, the room seems a bit smaller than my Eusoff one, but on second thought, it might just be the arrangement of the (mostly-immovable) furniture fixtures that make it seem that way.

The bed, most of all, is quite annoying. There're shelves at both ends of the bed, and the shelf at the foot of it is really quite unnecessary and looks rather out of place. Especially when you consider that the shelf faces outwards (not back onto the bed) and because of where it is, the entryway of the room is barely half a metre wide.

There're lots of cupboards, but most annoyingly, few drawers; there're no desk drawers, only shelves, and I'm definitely not going to climb so high to reach the top shelf all the time. So I moved the board separating the first and second shelves in each of the cupboards above the desk and made a big, tall space for files instead. :D

The toilets aren't nearly as big or as brightly lit as the ones in Eusoff, but I suppose they're passable; at least they're still quite clean. It's just the dreary grey and white colour scheme which makes everything look rather shabby, I think. The Eusoff toilets were big and well-ventilated, with light orangey-pink tile and yellow lighting; yellow lighting always makes a place feel more homey.

But there is one good thing. Half of the shower cubicles here have shower heads that can move; in Eusoff, all the shower heads were fixed into the wall. I was actually quite surprised to find that Ridge View has ones which are movable.

Shall be off now; going to have lunch with Connor and Nicholas. Later, I still have my Honours briefing to attend-- *finally*. Almost every other department seems to have had theirs already.