Easter Hols Travel log

Day 1: 26 March 2004

Planned to meet at 3:45pm in the foyer. Surprisingly Amar is the first and only one there on time. I'm still trying to tidy my room, Lionel still trying to stuff things into his oversized backpack, Alex... no one even knows if Alex is back after disappearing into the abyss of frustration with his Arab and Hong Kong project partners! Left Linstead half an hour later than planned. True to Murphy's law the tube completely fucked up. Reached Heathrow just as our flight was gating. Heathrow highly inefficient with security check due to incredibly paranoid Ang Mohs. Lionel's bag had to be rechecked in case of stowaway screwdriver (WTF?). British Airways stewards very sarcastic, thanking us for arriving on time and calling the obvioulsy old and tattered plane a new airbus. Still think BA air stewardesses look like mother-in-laws. Got conned at Vienna into paying 9 euros for the train into the city centre. Train was the first sign that London is seriously backward! Was like travelling in something out of Star Trek (well we did pay 9 euros). Looking out the window of the train you immediately get the feeling that you've warped through time and landed some 10 years into the future - or else London is just 'ketinggalan zaman' (erm... behind the times). Walked through the sleet to Wombat Hostel. Nice 6 person dorm. Dinner at 1am in Mozart Cafe then nearly threw my pillow at Amar for bouncing around like an Energizer Bunny and refusing to sleep till 4am!

Day 2: 27 March 2004

Woke up later than initially planned - which was only an indication of our waking up times in the days to come. Went straight to Stephensplatz to see where Stephen got splatzed. Sorry, Lionel will account all cheesiness to the amount of kasekrainers (cheese filled sausages) and cheese I was eating! Let me start again. Went to Stephensplatz to see Stephensdom, where Stephen got... okay I won't continue. Then walked towards the Ringroad which seemed to be the main shopping area. Surprised to find H&M, Mango, etc. Must really think Vienna is damn ulu. Lionel and I tried looking for all the sight-seeing spots while the rest looked for food (sausages in particular). Viennese architecture really pretty and very intricate. Did the round of museums (so many!!! but couldn't enter any of them because a. they were expensive, b. we wanted to see everything and c. the group of four wanted to eat!). Our day was spent alternating between sight-seeing and eating: Art Museum - sausages - Kunstmuseum - tea and pastries - Rathaus - goulash - Churches - more sausages. Found Vienna to be full of dog lovers - much to the delight of Lionel and myself! Went back to Wombat Hostel after dark and unexpectedly all 6 of us fell asleep. I woke up at 9 something surprised to find the room in darkness. Lionel woke up too (or maybe I woke him up out of boredom) and we went down to write postcards and explore the bar. The rest soon woke up and as expected they were hungry - so went back to the same cafe for another midnight meal. Came back to hear Amar 'tell stories'. Not very pleasant ones...

Day 3: 28 March 2004

Woke up really early to see the Vienna boys choir. Everyone who seemed really enthusiastic the night before were quite reluctant to wake up at 7am, so only Lionel and myself braved the cold journey to the Hofburghalle in the crisp early morning. Could barely see anything of the Vienna boys for 8 euros (although the Japanese girls seated next to me were excitedly exclaiming "Kawaii!!!", they're barely 12 year old boys for heavens sakes!). Trying to stay awake while listening to mass in German was also really difficult but was wide awake during the singing. After mass, the choir boys were treated like celebrities - swarmed by hoards of japanese school girl tourists (nothing like the anime ones, dissapointing!) who were eagerly taking photos with them. Walked around Hofburg. Lots of unseen parts with beautiful architecture that we'd missed the day before. Then returned to Stephensplatz where we'd arranged to meet up with the rest. Figured the rest wouldn't be on time anyway so went inside Stephensdom (incredibly ornate!) and walked 1 round around the church and then stepped into Chocolates United to buy chocolates and stay out of the cold. Was very accurate about the rest arriving after 12 (they were having breakfast at a cafe of course - while Lionel and I were starving!). Walked around again in search of more food and souvenirs. Then went back to Wombat and then off in search of Schoenbrunne Palace. The nice people at Wombat had told us it'd be a 15 minute walk. My foot! Found it after much searching almost an hour later. The mass of land that belonged to Kaiser Franz Josef is crazily expansive! He probably never needed to leave his royal grounds. There is enough space there to fit in his own personal landing strip, ski slope, swimming pool and forest. There was a fair going on on the palace grounds. Lionel and I bought 5 painted eggs. A very expensive affair - and this was just the beginning of the egg-protection paranoia that would ensue in the days to come. The rest as usual went on a food tasting and buying round. Couldn't enter the palace as it was too late, but managed to walk around the gardens where we had a taste of Bollywood style filming - with the guys doing crazy stunts in the Bollywood worthy gardens. Took a tram back to Wombat, grabbed our bags and headed back to Westbanhof to catch the overnight train to Zurich. 6 people in a rather small compartment (about the size of my bathroom back home) was a very interesting experience. Especially with all the food making us look like refugees. Amar and his bedtime stories didn't make it any better!

Day 4: 29 March 2004

Woke up late. Last to leave the train. Wandered around Hauptbahnof (Zurich's main station) in search of anything that was open at 7am. Eventually got cleaned up in the incredibly sanitary and pampering toilets. Soha and I spent a good deal of time inside. Eventually decided to explore Zurich after stuffing our backpacks into the lockers. Lots and lots of mostly and clearly Protestant churches, many of them revering Zwingli as some great redeemer. Churches were very plain as should be expected as a result of the reformation. Walked along the river banks. Water so clear! Amazing! Then walked to the park. Discovered that when the group of four were not eating, they were then obsessed with taking paparazzi photos. So annoying! Sat by the lake and took more funny photos. Then headed back to the train station but got sidetracked by a chocolatier (Swiss chocs! They tell me they're divine... I wouldn't really know, would I?). Train to Bern and then to Interlaken very scenic. Interlaken quite different from what I recall when I was 13. Town is incredibly dead at night. Ate a McDonald's meal instead of the fondue we were so looking forward to. Fondue isn't cheap... really isn't cheap. Backpacker's Villa was really quite cosy and full of cute signs and a very well equiped kitchen where we had milo and maggi. Very satisfying!

Day 5: 30 March 2004

Skiing is not cheap and quite painful. Especially when you have no sense of balance - ala moi - coupled with a tragic fear of speed and heights (damn it... I have a phobia for all the joys in life!). Went skiing halfway up Jungfraujoch for the first time. Squashed my poor feet into very heavy and hard ski boots. Couldn't get pink skis. They're only for kids. *pout* Lionel and Darren tried teaching us to ski. Amar is a natural. Whizzing up and down while the rest of us skidded and collapsed in crumpled heaps. Lionel was very right about our legs being able to bend in amazing positions and angles. Spent alot of time on my butt, half giggling and half crying out in pain until someone rescued me from which ever new awkward position I had fallen in. Decided against rational judgement to try one of the beginner ski routes. That was just the beginning of our adventure. I fell down every slope, once crash landing into a pile of powdery snow. Soha fell down a ravine and had to be rescued by Darren and Lionel from the soft new snow which offered no footing at all. Darren twisted his ankle in his final crash test dummy landing on his snowboard. And when we finally reached the ski lifts we realised we had missed the last one. So it was either ski all the way to Grindelwald which was probably many many slopes away or climbing back up to the top with our heavy skis and constricting ski boots. Luckily some rangers found us and called for a rescue snowmobile. Ride was really fun, although I was clinging on for dear life sitting in the back basket meant for holding skis and stuff. Amar had dissapeared as he was far ahead of us when we started on the ski route. Much to our surprise he had the common sense to take the train back to the ski shop and collect our jackets and shoes and then returning to the Interlaken Ost station to meet the exhausted and battered group of us. Darren had to be pushed back on a trolley together with our skis. We had dinner at Hooters. Was obviously the guys' decision. Girls not really that great looking, but who am I to say? Returned back to Backpackers Villa, so shagged, so dead, so asleep...

Day 6: 31 March 2004

Alot of close calls today due to very high inertia. Left Backpackers Villa 15 minutes before the train was to leave. Amar pushing Darren, our casualty, in a trolley while the rest of us ran to the station as fast as we could with backpacks. Reached the train with 4 minutes left to spare. Changed trains at Bern and finally arrived at Zurich with an hour to our next train. Obviously didn't learn anything from our last dash - taking our time to buy Swiss army knives and eventually had to rush to buy some lunch and Lionel and I found a post office 5 minutes before our train for Munich was to leave and of course we had to post our postcards then. We began our 5 hour journey to Munich with a feast of Caesar rolls, chicken curry and tuna salad, bread and cheese and jam. Was incredibly annoying to sleep on the train as Mao Mao whose seat was facing mine was playing peekaboo. Darren, whose walking stick (a branch picked up from Backpackers) was now decorated with rope and a friendship band of some sorts, started snoring halfway. Scenary outside the train became alot more plain upon reaching Germany. Just expanses of flat land - very different from the Swiss Alps. Nothing exceptionally pretty except for some big lake we couldn't name and couldn't see the end of either. Arrived in Munich, cold and hungry and worse of all - without accomodation. Tried desperately to find a hostel but everywhere was fully booked due to the trade fair. After 20 minutes of searching online at a cyber cafe we found a B&B in Fussen. 2 hours later we found ourselves in the cosy, 183cm high attic of Suzanne's. Everything was picteresque and story bookish - except for the fact that the four of them kicked Lionel and me out of the main attic room so we had to sleep in the beds next to the landing. Hmmph!

Day 7: 1st April 2004

Refused to wake up because bed was so cosy and warm. Was finally forced to get out of bed when everyone else was packed and ready. Breakfast in Suzanne's was very traditional. The kitchen where we had breakfast used to be the barn and Suzanne, dressed in traditional German house maid clothes, lent to the authenticity of the atmosphere. Yummy hot chocolate! Then left our backpacks behind and walked back to the train station to catch a bus to Neuchwanstein (Lionel's dream castle which he's been obsessed about since we first started on our holiday plans). Sat in a horse drawn carriage halfway up to the castle and walked the rest of the way. Neuchwanstein (which inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle) is just eccentric! But at the same time romantic and fairytale like. The tale of the reclusive King Ludvig who lived within it was so tragic. I just love a castle with a good story behind it. Beautiful! Is definitely a must see! Ate an extravagent lunch of pork knuckles and sausages (our meals are getting more and more extravagent by the day!). We're back to our sausage cravings after Switzerland. It's becoming a 5 hour supplement. Walked around Fussen for abit then took a train back to Munich. Walked for like eternity past lots of adult shops and dodgy places to find our hostel only to discover that we didn't get the 6 person dorm we had been promised but the guys and girls had to split. Couldn't find a laundry so had to start recycling clothes. Gonna be so stinky till Berlin. Wished Mel Huang was here, but she's back in Singapore for Easter. Dreamt about her!

Day 8: 2nd April 2004

Today was tour Munich day. Woke up late as usual and missed the eggs for breakfast - although in retrospect that was probably a good thing so that Amar wouldn't have to tell so many stories. But lack of eggs was an insentive to wake up earlier tomorrow. Stole more than 15 packs of Nutella spread! Then bummed around till 12 when we finally decided to go to Mariensplatz to see the Glockenspiel at the Rathaus (town hall). Then passed the toy museum (100 teddy bears!!! But no one wanted to let me go see!!!) to St. Peter's church. Very pretty inside. Had to exhaust my limited Bible knowledge explaining to the rest about the statues and pictures etc. Amar fell asleep, possibly in fear that he might burn (especially after all the 'chicken' and 'turkey' he had eaten). Then went in search of the English Gardens. Dissapointing for the guys as there were no nude babes sunbathing. Just some ghastly old nude men. Had a 1 litre keg of beer and sausages in the BierGartens (beer gardens). Huge lunch made us sleep, thus the 3 guys took a sunbathing nap for half and hour. Then back to Mariensplatz to see Amar buy a big ass cooking knife which he tried to convince us is worth all of the 30 over euros he paid for it. Then concussed in the hostel eating McDs and strawberries (gargantuous ones!).

Day 9: 3rd April 2004

Darren is sick. Mysterious illness causing him to throw up. Probably redemption for the highly immoral statements he made the previous day. Got him walking to the train station where he concussed in the train and couldn't eat anything but Nutella. 7 hour train ride to Berlin. Must remember never to take ICE trains on Interrail passes. Painful lesson of 35.20 euros each for Soha and Darren. After Munich, Berlin seems so much nicer! Fell in love with it just because it had Dunkin Donuts! Left Darren in the Club House Hostel with a hot and heavy party going on below (no, Darren was not at the party - instead trying to recuperate) and went back to Friedrichstrasse station and had a Thai dinner! Spent the night just talking and playing bridge till late. Night life here actually exists. Or perhaps it was just because of the club we were staying above.

Day 10: 4th April 2004

Could barely wake up once again. Alarms were a-ringing but no one wanted to get up. Finally managed to get our butts out of the hostel at noon. Made a beeline for Dunkin Donuts. A box of a dozen doughnuts later and we were on our way, this time with Amar navigating instead of Darren (our official navigator). Was probably a temporary lapse in judgement to give Amar a map as we were lead to Treptower Park in search of the non-existent Soviet war memorial, which was off the map anyway. Decided to give Amar another chance by following him in search of the flea market. Found the flea market, but there was nothing to see save for second hand remote controls, drill bits and pipes! We finally took over from Amar and made our way to Alexandersplatz which is the main city centre. Ate more sausages, then walked around a Kaufhof buying chocolates and coke. By that time Alex had already managed to plot some sort of sight seeing route, so off we went to see another Rathaus and more churches. Going into churches and just lepaking there seems to be a new habit of ours. Then walked over to Museum Island, and down Friedrichstrasse where all the buildings to see were. Found a Charlottenstrasse! The continuous drizzle of rain slightly dampened our spirits, but that was easily rectified by dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, where as usual the waitress seemed to pay special attention to Alex (similar to the waitress at Hooters too!). Back in the hostel we continued playing tai tee and bridge to see who would take turns to bathe. Alex, Darren, Lionel and I got a sudden craving for Maggi Mee after midnight so we went down to the reception where we met Pablo, an Italian architecture student who was manning the reception. Introduced Pablo to ramen. Perhaps should not have taken him for real when he said he liked spicy food as he seemed to be downing lots of cold water with his ramen. Stayed till 3am chatting with Pablo and finding out abit more about Berlin and the hostel. Nothing is as good as instant noodles early in the morning!

Day 11: 5 April 2004

Woke up in time for breakfast as we intended to go on the walking tour. However it started to rain as we were eating. So went back up to our room to think up a back up plan. Oh alright, I lie. The group of four went back up to play tai tee. Lionel and I decided to go sight seeing on our own, despite the rain. Walked to the Brandenburg Gate. The intriguing thing about the gate isn't the gate itself but this little room next to it called the Room of Silence. It's a non denominational room where anyone can just go in to find some peace and quiet and reflect or pray. Next to Brandenburg Gate is the historic Reichstag. There was a long queue just waiting to see the dome. Cannot understand it, since dome is very recent and there's nothing historical about it! Then tried to find Potsdam Palace which is NOT in Portsdammerplatz as we discovered but outside Berlin, so instead decided to go to Charlottenburg to see Charlotten Schloss in honour of my name! Charlotte's Castle is astonishingly huge! Queen Sophie-Charlotte was the resident queen, which I found quite amusing considering my confirmation name. The gardens weren't as huge as Schoenbrunne, but a romantic's kind of garden with flower arrangements and statues of little children and a pond with a bridge. We spent about half an hour scrutinising the ducks in the pond and their spring mating rituals. Ecology seems most interesting when you're not reading it from a text book. Walked to the end of the gardens then managed to find an S-bahn back to Friedrichstrasse to meet the rest. Wanted to try out the restaurant recommended by Pablo but we were curtly turned out without reservations. So walked back to Alexandersplatz to eat at Alex's restaurant - Alex! Then proceeded to see the Brandenburg gate which is quite a lovely sight to see at night. Back in the hostel I completely passed out while the rest went back to their usual card games.

Day 12: 6 April 2004

Lionel and I woke up earlier than the rest to go see Checkpoint Charlie. Interesting memorial of the Berlin war and a divided country. There's so much to Berlin's history that I still want to see. Will probably have to make a second trip back. Arrived at the station early for the train by an hour, a vast improvement by our standards. That gave Soha, Lionel and me enough time to run out to see the long stretch of the Berlin wall that was just outside the station. The colours and vibrance of the art on the Berlin wall makes you wonder about the painful parting and suffering the wall caused. 2 hours later we arrived in Hamburg. Pampered ourselves by staying in a 4 star hotel for the last day. Amar, Darren and Alex got an extra bonus in their room when they discovered free porn. Need not elaborate more. Later at night went to a fun fair - the typical American kind with glitzy rides and lots of games and food. Darren and the rest of the NS guys were of course gian to try the shooting games which they didn't win anything except 2 roses for the girls which were probably given to us for trying so many times. Back in the hotel, Soha dumped Lionel and me for the other room. Presumably they didn't sleep till 3 or 4am. No prizes for guessing why.

Day 13: 7 April 2004

Last day of our trip. Took our time to have breakfast, pack, and of course... watch porn! *glare* Then dumped our bags in the station lockers and took a walk around the city centre. Spent an hour inside a Lego shop reliving our childhood. Almost everyone came out of the shop with a Lego toy. Flight back was uneventful, save for trying to check in Darren's walking stick and Amar and Darren's knives. Made sure we were at the airport really early. Didn't want to risk making the same mistake as before. Arrived back in London, back to cold, gloomy weather. Back to Lu and Choon Sern and the rest of the Linsteadians. Back to work and self cooking. Perhaps only with the addition of the guy's new Lego toys to add new spice to our hall lives!

I'm back, and I'm beat, and I did NOT exceed my budget... although I don't really want to check my bank account right now.
Our amazing race truly lived up to its name (running for planes, trains etc.), but backpacking across Europe has to be the most enjoyably exhausting thing I've done since the Kinabalu-Trusmadi expedition. Will do a full holiday blog when I wake up. *WHEN* I wake up...

Just one day more to the end of term! One day more...

Tomorrow at this time the six of us (Amar, Soha, Alex, Darren, Lionel and I) will be in Vienna trying to locate the legendary Wombat Hostel. I don't know if I should be apprehensive about spending the next 12 days with this crazy bunch. But I do know that we're going to have loads of fun during our amazing race across Vienna, Switzerland, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

See you in 12 days, if I make it back alive.

p/s: TOCK!!! You are in charge of minutes for any meetings held in my absence, ya? Please make them as detailed as possible. There's a good comm. sec! I'll bring you back a present from Germany.

Just came back from a gruelling elections. Sitting in one stuffy lecture theatre from 1pm till 7:30pm has given me a throbbing migraine, nausea and gastric! Anyhow, congratulations are due to our new committee. I'll wake up to the reality of the job once I clear this headache.

Imperial College Union Malaysian Society Committee for 2004/5

President - Cheah Wen Tao
Vice - Ayishwariya Menon
Secretary - some dumb ass kinky pinky!
Treasurer - Chew Fong May
Sports Secretary - Sohasini
Communications Secretary - Chris Tock
Committee - Raja Iylia Diyana, Nicole Goh, Seong Chien Liq, Tan Jia Hong

IC Malaysian Soc. elections will commence in time, t = 2 hours.

I'm getting very jittery, even though I've already written my speech (which I doubt I'll actually follow when the spotlight's on me) and I've laid out my formal clothes. But I'm still suffering from prozac-high frogs jumping around my tummy.

Oh well, best of luck to us all - Soha, Amar, Chris, Ayish, Tao, Yi Shan, Jia Hong, Nicole, Khairul, Fong May, Iylia, Chien Liq, everybody! It's going to be one very long afternoon. Wish you could be there, I'm so going to panic!

I so need to get some things done:

1. Finish lab oral presentation on transistor switching and timing (transistor what??)
2. Change pounds to euros and swiss francs
3. Write Michelle's birthday card and remember to put STAMPS on before posting!
4. Get backpack from Zeus and start packing
5. Get sleeping bag from Rich and... no, not start sleeping!
6. Read up the Handel C programs on mouse movement (input device, not lab rats!)
7. Do laundry!!! Or else will have nothing to wear in Vienna, Switzerland or Germany
8. Return library books
9. Buy real gloves! Not the pink fluff I normally wear
10. Write election speech. "Why do I want to be secretary? Because I'm an organisational freak..."

Inertia is on high. Need to reduce mass.

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p/s: Barisan National rocks! Go Pak Lah!

Ouch! Pain! Every muscle in my body seems to be on strike today. I really deserve this for not excercising for months and then playing 4 rough netball matches yesterday (it was rough for me, having never played netball since secondary school!) at the Malaysian and Singaporean London Games. And if I wasn't worn out enough from playing netball in the freezing wind and icey rain, I played a few games of badminton with Darren, Soha, Vikas, Lionel and Alex.
Was so tired after returning from Fulham Broadway, where we had dinner at Chop-chop (love the hor fun!), I fell asleep while Lionel, Alex and Amar were in my room trying to book hostels for the Easter trip. Woke up 2 hours later and found them still there... doing dodgy things to Choon Sern's air bed. Was trying to block it out as a bad dream, but couldn't pinch myself awake, so obviously wasn't dreaming.
Anyway new link to Hunger Site. Please click.
I can't type much more
Too tired
Need
Nap
...

This is my management essay question (due in 12 hours and 30 minutes):

'Critically examine the linkages between motivation and reward'

Currently I'm not very motivated to write this. It's bad enough I'm already stuck at 146 words (I need to make it to 1000 by 3pm). And I'm not doing this for the reward (how is writing an essay that accounts for 30% of your grade a reward???). I'm doing this out of the sheer terror of failing this course!

And I just can't kick start my writing engine. Hell! The last essay I remember writing was a badly written Chinese one for Mandarin class. The last time I wrote something that was more than 500 words in English was for my GP paper more than a year ago! (And it couldn't have been very good since I didn't get an A for GP!) And in the midst of calculating fourier series and analysing transistors, these jokers expect me to come up with a 1000 word essay? Hell! I'm an engineer! I'm not supposed to be able to string a sentence together!

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I'm getting obsessed about my tulips. Someone will have to forcefully stop me from mothering them too much. I practically check on them every 10 minutes, just in case they decide to die while I'm not looking. I've resisted from changing their water again. I've checked that the heater isn't causing them too much strain umpteen times today. And I've just got to stop misting them. I haven't gone to the extent of chatting with them though.

I've got a penchant for killing plants, of all shapes, sizes and colours, but I've been warned not to ill treat these ones. Lets see if they'll make it through the weekend.

On the otherhand, Kristina's palm plant is looking good! It can't be too easy to kill a palm, even for me!

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Will be attending LSE's MSS night tomorrow. You guys had better make it worth my time because I could be doing lots of important things. Like... erm... well... I was about to say studying, but lets not go there...
I'm sure you guys will be great!

It's spring...

... because I've got a bunch of red tulips sitting on my window sill, and three more in a pint glass on my desk *grin* Thank you!

It's spring...

... because my ears no longer feel numb
... because the daffodils are everywhere
... because I'm wearing a skirt today
... because the Sri Lankans were playing cricket in Princes Gardens
... and some guys were throwing a rugby ball on Queen's Lawn
... because its still bright outside when we're having dinner
... because we can stand outside Linstead at 11:30pm due to the fire alarm... and still not shiver
... because the tree outside my room is covered in white cotton buds
... because I have to keep my windows open or I'll suffocate from the heat
... because I kick off my duvet in the middle of the night
... because I want to be outside, walking in hyde park, not working in the gloomy electronic labs trying to process digital images...

Let me do an annoying 3am kiasu rant... (if this in anyway resembles any particular person, living or deceased, believe me it is not intentional...)
Haiyah! Today so wasted leh! Whole day in uni, from 9 to 6... then come back for dinner. Acherly, plan to do work after dinner. Got so much work leh... got essay due on friday, got oral presentation next week, got design project due next friday, then haven't read through lab stuff yet. How leh? Cannot get anything less than B+!!!
But instead make me stay 6 hours in the bar, until past midnight, playing kiddy kiddy games.
"If this is a stick, and this is a stick, is this a stick?"
"Red, green, blue, silver, what colour am I?"
"you can have the moon but not the sun, you can have a spoon but not a fork, you can have Darren but not Vivien..."
wahlaueh!!! Siao boh? And now I got to try finish reading my management notes before going to sleep. Aiyah, past my bed time already. Just because we were doing such bo liao things down in the bar! But must give support to Jacq mah since she on bar duty. Haha, and we confused the ang moh's kao kao. They so thick! Cannot get most of the IQ games.
"you can be happy but not delighted, you can have a butt but not an arse, you can have Rich Arckless but not a gay..."

Only 6 days more to General Elections. Barisan National is doing well. Die, PAS, die! I still bloody cannot vote, because bloody Malaysian embassy still not bloody replying my email on registering as a voter. Complaints to daddy (the civil servant and defender of entire government) not working... instead got told off for not remembering to register while still in Malaysia.

Result's of the previous night's photo shopping in Amar's room were not quite what we expected. The four of us culprits are treading very carefully around Lu. 18 years olds are quite emotional these days... or we've just forgotten how turbulent being 18 could be.

Must repeat to self several times - staying up till 3 30 am just talking is highly detrimental for academic health! Must keep EVERYONE out of my room for the next week. Owning a double room all to myself is NO EXCUSE for the Linsteadians to use it as a communal after dinner meeting point or interrogation room!

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Ponning Management lecture right now - to start on my management essay. How ironic.

While sifting through my management notes, found little footnotes written in what must have been utter boredom. Here's what my mind tends to drift towards during management:

"Thinking of living a little on the edge
...
maybe with just 1 toe dangling off it"

"my new management lecturer looks gay.
Not only does he look gay, he looks completely out of place in a classroom full of engineers. He's got that Greg Kinnear look, business suit (without the elbow patches! whoa...), square rimmed glasses... and then he opens his mouth and out comes an Italian accent. Oh my! The corporate mafia has sent us a teacher"

"In management there are 5 types of power: reward, coercive, legitimate, referent and expert. Me? I have a false perception of power. I don't know how people see me as a leader but they still put me up there time and time again to take charge... idiosyncracies and all included. Define that professor"

I went to sleep about 4 hours ago. It's interesting to watch things change overnight. They say London starts to wake at night, but she usually mellows around 3am. Then the birds start chirping at four. The sky's black blanket turns shades of blue slowly melting into a soft, velvety morning. I like mornings like these - when everything's still shrouded by a veil of greyish-blue. Only the wind's alive while the whole of Princes Garden hibernates.

Yesterday Lionel and I walked for 7 hours without a break. You can't sit down for even 5 minutes in the British Museum. You have to keep on moving or you won't get to see everything you want to see! And if you have to see only one thing, it'd better be the library. Imagine walking into a huge circular conservatory like building and just seeing a breathtaking circumference of shelves surround, level by level. It was like being in Beauty and the Beast! And if you have time to just squeeze in one more exhibition, it'd better be the whole Egypt (and perhaps the Near East) section. The Rosetta stone, sarcophagi, mummies, sphinxes, anubis, amon-re, scarabs... the whole of bloody Egypt is here with the exception of camels and pyramids! A good part of the Roman Pantheon is also there. Makes you wonder what is really left behind in Rome (blank walls according to Alex... they just came and took almost everything!). And if you can just nip by one more section - make it the Asian section. I couldn't believe my eyes were looking at artefacts from Malaysia (the loceng logam or iron bell from Klang and pottery and iron instruments from Pahang and Johor! They weren't lying to us in our textbooks after all!). And if you have an entire day... for heavens sakes, you've just got to walk the entire museum! Pity we missed out the Sainsbury's African gallery and the buried treasure exhibit, but hey, we did well for 7 hours worth of walking.

Followed this by dinner in Chinatown and then participating in some interesting photoshop-ing in Amar's room with Alex. We are going to see some shocked faces today... *evil grin*

Does she dance?
Does moonlight glow on her skin
And fireworks light up the scene
As you take it all in
It's a trance
I'm a forgotten glance

Does she dance?
To the tune that only you play
Does she twirl only your way?
Sway to what you say
It's a trance
Why did I never...
Learn to dance?

.........

You're forbidden to psychoanalyse... just some song that's been writing itself in my head for the last few days. Need to find some quiet time to listen to myself... they wipe all the artistic creativity off you once you step past those gates that clearly state 'Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine'

Just returned from Darren's room. 15 people and a cake in one single room does make for an interesting birthday celebration. Wait! Rephrase! Amar, Alex, Choon Sern, a camera and Darren's FHM posters make for a rather dodgy but hilarious birthday celebration.
Happy 22nd Birthday Darren ta ge

Congratulations are also in order to the 22nd Singapore Society Committee. Proud of you guys!

I was amusing myself while putting on my socks this morning... as I sat on my bed which faces the window overlooking the path through Princes Gardens that everyone uses in the mornings to stroll or run to classes.
I was keeping count of the number of people I recognised and the number of people I didn't.
First two were Ruby and her bright red bag and tall Melissa with her blond hair.
Then Aaron ambling along clumsily
Followed by Salman and Uju, talking and walking fast
Then Alex, with his usual 'let the world slow down for me' walk
Not long after that Lionel appears in a half walk half trot
Then little Jac, a little black figure walking as quick as she can
And then EE John, slowly taking his time, obviously not in a hurry to get to labs

-------

Someone rang my phone at 3am last night. Thinking it was 6am and it could be mum I picked up the phone. Some guy was asking me why I was still awake and I blurrily said "Huh? Who's this?". A conversation in French followed for some time before he realised he had dialed the wrong number and I realised I was awake! Tossed and turned in bed for the next half hour. Should always remember to take my phone off the hook before sleeping.

-------

SingSoc Elections this afternoon. Best of luck Lionel, Darren, Vivien, Jac, Kai Leng, Marvin (whom I really do not think is gay!). MSoc Elections in 3 weeks. The campaigning has become rather blatant and in your face... but interesting...

Before the night is over and I wonder how I've managed to spend a whole day doing absolutely nothing...

Happy Birthday Anu Babu!!! *Hugs* girl! Hope you get my card this year, or else I'll just give up sending ANYTHING to you! Know you probably had a super bash in Melbourne, and sometime in June we'll be meeting up at some mamak or Swensons looking through photos of it with Sugi, perhaps even with Bhai, Ravi, Menon and co. and nothing will ever change... nothing ever has!

Random thoughts on your birthday, Anu:
--------------------------------------------------

The amount of sleep I get is proportional to the rate at which I fall asleep in lectures. 7 hours of sleep and I still drifted off to slumberland before Professor Dracotti even started talking about transmission lines.

Living on vegetables alone has caused a surge in my appetite. Wrecking the idea of sylph-like self emerging after 40 days of vegetarian Lenten diet. But these muller corners are just so yummy...

Decided to fill the void of Kristina's absence with 2 new posters, a Pink Floyd one of naked women with painted backs (back catalogue) and a Kim Anderson one of a cute little girl with dreamy eyes (dreaming of you). Not really the same as having Kristina's wild life posters... but I'm doing my best

Really need to write to my family soon... the entire clan of aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. Not that they'd really understand my life... no, not when you're a mystery to your family... but they would like to see my photos, they always have time for that.

Singapore Soc. elections are on tomorrow. Really hope the Linsteadians do us proud. Would like to see Darren and Lionel making their presidential speeches. But the Malaysians will be shopping at King's road instead. Seriously can't understand why Lionel would iron his pants but not his shirt for tomorrow...

The lull after M-Nite seems quite surreal. Its like waking up from a weekend that went by like a dream... a very nice dream, really. I couldn't picture a better way to end the whirlwind of late nights, painful feet and cold dinners. Going to Fulham to watch Big Fish the day before M-Nite was a breath of fresh air after realising I had only been travelling between Linstead Hall and Imperial College for the last 2 weeks! Seeing a Sainsbury's for the first time in 2 weeks was like being reborn again. Eating seafood hor fun (for only 3.90 quid!!!) and just talking, laughing, feeling relaxed without needing to remember if I had practised my dance steps... was just something! Thanks... I really needed the break.
Then hanging out in Amar's room till 6am in the morning after the show... we heard the birds start to chirp at 4am and by the time we went back to our rooms we could see little streaks of sunlight across the sky (if I looked high enough out of my window). I don't even recall the last time we just sat in someone's room and talked cock the whole night.
I woke up at 11am on Sunday morning and the first thing on my agenda was to visit the big Sainsbury's at Gloucester! I've missed it! And with a whole FREE Sunday afternoon in front of me I just felt I had to get out of Linstead, and so Lionel and I took a walk across Hyde Park to see the artists displaying their paintings on the park railings. We found a part of Hyde Park we'd never seen before, where ducks swim in stone fountains and rabbits were hopping about unassumingly and a dog was walking itself with its leash in its jaws. Then we walked back past the embassies to High Street Kent (the last time the Linstead gang had dinner at Wagamama on High St. Kent seemed like eons ago!). Followed with an Easter Holiday meeting in my room (our new common room since Kristina moved out), the day just seemed to go on endlessly with too much time to do too many things! The guys finally left at 2am after I fell asleep listening to the holiday plans.
And now I'm smacked face first into a new week, without any rehearsals... and it's just... just... surreal... (you're right! surreal is a really cool word to say...).

Elections around the corner. Quite determined to run for secretary. Do we foresee a Linstead domination of both the Malaysian and Singapore Society committees? Never can tell...

Statistics for the week leading up to Malaysian Night 2004: The Art of Wok

23 hours of rehearsals in total including long tormenting tech runs and messy costume changes
2 full dress rehearsals, which where never run in their full entirety and we never ever ran Act 2 in techs at all!
5 times I found myself landing wrongly on my weak right ankle, stubbing my toe on the stage's raised platforms or tripping on the uneven blocks on the stage as well stepping on my long skirt during rehearsals and thinking to myself "Really... where did I leave my sanity when they put me in dances???"
5 days I had to miss dinner and get it packed
3 days I found myself eating nothing till after 11pm, and even then it was soggy leftover veggies from dinner
6 days of carrying heavy bags and suitcases full of costumes back and forth between rehearsals and Linstead and using my room as a store room for props and costumes - (glad to see the 4kg gong leave my room!)
9 lectures/study groups slept through due to the lack of sleep coupled with long rehearsals
23 tickets sold but not necessarily paid for
1 lectured ponned just to find enough time to run down to Virgin Megastore to buy a CD for my godma to give to my brother (prior to that, had not left South Kensington in a week! Have not even seen Sainsbury's in 2 weeks! In dire straits since running out of milk!)

And in the end - man was it worth it!

Art of Wok was a tremendous success! So there were a few slip ups here and there like the damned lighting crew putting spotlights in all the wrong places and the mikes deciding to turn off when ever they felt like it... but my goodness! The crowd (which was a full house! all 700 tickets sold!) just loved it and what a lovely audience they were! They laughed even when the script wasn't meant to be funny. The lapped up all our corny jokes. They cheered for all our dances (and I *will* kill Ruby for screaming "Go Charlotte!" during the quiet romantic intro to the modern dance which completely threw me off) and even overlooked all our horrible mistakes (which included Nicole appearing late for Chinese dance and then grabbing my ribbon which was placed on stage-left such that I had to do abit of spontaneous dance steps to grab another ribbon from stage-right and finish up the dance!)

It's all over too soon...

Malaysian Night practices are now on crazy mode. Danced for almost 9 hours straight on Saturday, with what I would hardly call breaks in between. Then rushed back to Linstead where Ruby's birthday party was already warming up in the bar. Slumped in the B Landing corridor eating dinner cooked by the Singaporeans (really grateful, guys!). Then got dressed up for the continuation of Ruby's party at Opium (bar-pub-caberet as Darren pointed out). Got Amar to come down and veto my outfit - didn't get the green light for my light blue cotton MNG dress. Laid my entire wardrobe out before Amar. Amar not a very encouraging person when he suggested I take my stuff and match it with Fong May's. Defied Amar by putting on pink halter and denim short skirt. Of course regretted this totally when stepped out into subzero weather (plus denim skirt has this nasty habit of not staying put). Opium has really great chinesy ambience - but seriously... the old photos of Chinese families or just maybe the annual gathering of all those of Sino origin in London was really OTT (my first true Brit phrase which stands for 'over the top')! Dance floor was over crowded. I doubt I was dancing... perhaps just being pushed along by the particles in the human jello. Was already exhausted after such a long day of rehearsals that I was whining at 2am to go home. We made it home - after a pit stop at McDs, trying to find a night bus, losing half of the group and then rejoining at the bus stop, gossiping or trying to gossip on the bus - and it was almost 4am by the time I went to bed.
This morning woke up at 10, rushed to Sherfield building to pass ribbons and stuff to the Suraya (Mnite dance manager and first person on my list of people not to piss off), then rushed to church and back. It was moving day for Kristina, and I watched as half my room slowly became blank, empty, nothingness - cold and foreign like a hotel room. Kristina gave me a lovely palm tree (ok, palm plant because it's only about 8cm tall) to fill in the big gaping hole left by her absence. After she left I complained to Lionel about being lonely and not having breakfast or lunch when I realised I was supposed to be at rehearsals again. So back again... dance, dance, dance for 6 hours. Manage to pull everything off rather clumsily. Then came back to find my MSN blinking... yay! We're eating out for dinner. Jed brought us to Spago's (suspiciously recommended by the Beit Hall guide book). My pizza was really cheesy (if there was corn in it, it would have been corny too...). Just as we were leaving the restaurant it started to snow. Well not really snow, but sleet - which falls down in big feathery pieces and melts when it touches the ground. The sky was amazing though. It looked as if God had decided to shake out all his featherbeds. It was a really quick job though, before we were halfway back it was barely a drizzle of rain.
Came back to Linstead bar to support Soha and Yi Shan on bar duty. Did the usual sitting around and chit chatting. A smirnoff ice and a bath later and I'm ready to start on Communications tutorial... or maybe not...

Woke up to an email from my daddy - my little brother got 10A1s for SPM!!! Brilliant! Always told them he was the smart one in the family. Mum will be pushing him towards Cambridge now! Thank goodness! They'll finally stop bugging ME! Although I still think, for heavens sakes Sheng, go to MIT or Caltech or even Harvard! Don't go to god forsaken Cambridge! But Mum wants her Cambridge graduate, doesn't she?

psst! Happy Birthday Ruby!!! Love ya, babe!

Played such a good trick on Ruby on Wednesday night. Don't know why I forgot to blog it. Possibly because I'm still cowering in my room avoiding Ruby (whom I've noticed has been using the phrase "fuck you!" rather liberally since that night...)

But believe me, it was worth it!

And it was so simple! The only props: Farhad's 2 walkie talkies. One cunningly hidden under Ruby's bed when Sachit, Farhad, Kristina and I burst into her room singing Happy Birthday (why Ruby never questioned the randomness of it all was a great advantage) and the other in Farhad's hand... waiting for the clock to strike 1 (Ruby's so good. She's always asleep before midnight.)

So at 1am, Rich, Eric, Adrian, Avik, Farhad and Sachit come knocking on my door and dragging me ("You came up with the idea and you're in way too deep now... you can't just quit now!") and Kristina ("What? You helped us plant the walkie talkie too... so you get in there!") out of our room and into Rich's room. Sachit, camcorder in hand, is stationed outside Ruby's door while the rest of us stifle laughs and giggles while Farhad starts moaning into the walkie talkie. As Farhad starts to reach orgasmic heights... Ruby bursts out of her room and all we can hear in the corridor for awhile is the liberal use of "WTF?". I don't know how Sachit explained the camcorder he was holding, but he must have because Ruby soon went back to sleep.

15 minutes later, Kristina and I swapped places with Sachit... but this time the guys were having a field day portraying noises from every horror movie they'd ever watched. It wasn't long before Ruby burst out of her room again... clearly annoyed and peppering her sentences with more expletives. No one says a word... but Farhad gives it all away by giggling in the kitchen. (You idiot!)

Ruby goes back to sleep, but by this time everyone's bundled in my room and Rich is doing an impression of me in my pink scarf and teddy bear bag. They soon find the dikir barat gong and more evil misuse of the walkie talkie ensues (Sachit makes really really eerie high pitched screechy noises... if anyone's interested in hiring for a new horror movie...). Suddenly a beep resounds from the walkie talkie. "Oh shit! Ruby's found it!"... Farhad's really scared now ("What if she throws it out the window???"). Not daring to go retrieve it everyone just sits in my room and bullies me... and finally leave at 2 something.

Don't really know if anyone's dared to approach Ruby for the other walkie talkie... Doesn't help that all of us are also on her guest list for her birthday party at Opium tomorrow...

while running to lectures today...

saw a tall ang moh guy holding the hand of a girl who looked 10 or 11 while crossing exhibition road...

made me miss my little sister very badly... my little sister who's not so little, but almost my height, who still wants me to hold her hand when I take her out, who still insists on sleeping in my room when I'm back on holidays, who likes me to plait her hair for her and paint her nails, who still calls me 'chappy' and talks in her baby way, whom I really wish was here in London right now because I have so many things I want to show her... because even though she thinks her chappy's life is way too tough for her, she knows she wants to come here some day.

too busy too busy too busy
lecture after lecture
tutorial after tutorial
zzzzzzzzzzzzz through it all
with just a brief pause for a quick bite of breakfast? lunch? brunch?
labs labs laborious labs
lecture tutorial lectorials
bag dinner and run
dance dance dance
point kick flick
arabesque pirrouette chasaise
(not sure if pain is worth it)
walk home
cold cold cold
stacks and stacks
piles and piles of homework
come on, just pick up that pen
curse Laplace and Fourier
math not the right thing to attempt after midnight
msn chat blinks on promptly at midnight
Lionel complaining about studying or being hungry
Amar complaining he is bored
Lim complaining about Communications
Me complaining for the sake of complaining
program program program
error
debug debug debug
error
WTF!!!!
close laptop and try to get 6 hours of sleep
with luck maybe tomorrow will be different...

The sad boring facts of life... when I have too little time but am still waiting for Kristina to come back and collect her key from me...

DESCRIBE YOUR...
1. [wallet] black, simple, too many coins, too few notes...

2. [hairbrush] girly - purple with silver sparkles

3. [toothbrush] lazy - electric automatic braun

4. [jewelery worn daily] minimal - one gold cross

5. [pillow cover] blanche - just plain German no nonsense white (Thanks Godma!)

6. [blanket] not mine - Thanks again Godma!

7. [coffee cup] oriental - Chinese tea cup with typical blue chinese designs pretending to be coffee cup

8. [sunglasses] lost - speak no more of my DKNYs... I'm still in mourning

9. [underwear] kinky - no not really and they're NOT pink!

10. [cologne / perfume] non existent - I have an undeveloped sense of smell

11. [CD in stereo right now] invisible - but playing Misha Omar's bunga bunga cinta on my itunes

12. [tattoos] imaginary - a ring of stars on the small of my back

13. [piercings] wanted - belly button piercings and more on my ears

14. [what you are wearing now] too much - jeans, cashmere top, cardigan, socks (v. v. important) and still shivering like a hairless polar bear

15. [in my mouth] residue carbon dioxide

16. [in my head] one big mess

17. [wishing] idealistically - for things that can't be changed

18. [after this] hasty dash for last lecture of the day

19. [Fetishes] all too weird

20. [if you could get away with it and murder anyone, who and for what] Fourier - current bane of my engineering existence

21. [person you wish you could see right now?] ridiculous question

22. [is next to you] the darkness of my room

23. [some of your favorite movies] Breakfast at Tiffany's

24. [something you're looking forward to] Easter holidays!

25. [the last thing you ate] a milk chocolate digestive

26. [something that you are deathly afraid of] infinity

27. [do you like candles] possibly... do they like me?

28. [do you like incense] in what cense?

29. [do you like the taste of blood] let me bite you then I'll tell you...

30. [do you believe in love] everybody's a cynic... even you, huh?

31. [do you believe in soul mates] for awhile

32. [do you believe in love at first sight] hell... no!

33. [can you eat with chopsticks] yeah... but I still don't know how to eat rice with a knife and fork! Siao ang mohs!

34. [what are some of your favorite candies] toffee

35. [what's something that you wish people would understand] Fourier transforms... so more people can explain it to me!

We went to wagamama for dinner today, because Fong May and Yi Shan had eleven 2 for 1 coupons. Interesting place. Very reminiscent of Nooch in Wheelock in Singapore. Thus making us think that Nooch must have been replicated from Wagamama... thus examplifying the typical Singaporean without creativity and originality. But seeing that Brits aren't blessed with much creativity either, the Wagamama concept must have been stolen from some new fangled Japanese dining concept.

My verdict? My grilled seafood ramen (with shark, swordfish, cod and salmon) wasn't very filling... and also was a teensy bit disappointed that I couldn't tell which bit the shark was.

------- Later post after the shock settled -------

For a teacher who will be missed...
and as every Odacian knows, adventure and risks are inseparable foes...

Rafflesians might find this interesting... got this link from wind

Shaping Elitist Mindset

and just for the sake of applauding the big, gargantuan, dinosauristic flag (which was VERY impressive, especially Darren's bit of the stars and crescent - you go, taikor! - and even more impressive when viewed from Queens Tower which Lionel managed to sneak us into under the pretext of taking down the Flag-gel-lah banner. Pity we didn't have a camera with us, Yishan's lousy phone camera very lousy...) here's another link:

Flag-gel-lah

More Clickables for you

The Art of Wok [Click!]

I'm now off to see the IC Singapore Society build a 22.5m by 15m Singapore Flag made of agar-agar on Queens Lawn as part of the Flag-gel-lah project. This would be hilarious if it weren't so many of my poor, poor friends who are working in the 7 degrees weather outside with 9mph winds just to place 16000 little plastic boxes of red and white agar agar on the ground. Am going there to cheer them on... they've been there since 6am, and I just rolled out of bed!!!

** later edit **
sorry for the broken link... the above link has been fixed, please click! oh, and check out my socks in the gallery section! Mine are the pair on the right!

Buy Imperial College Malaysian Night Tickets!!!
I'm supposed to be promoting Malaysian Night. But I'm not going to drag anyone kicking and screaming to it. I believe you'll do it out of your own intuition.
6th March 2004, Saturday
Besides I so do not wish to see faces I know in the audience when I publicly humiliate myself in 3 dances (all of which you cannot miss me in, even if you sat right at the back and your glasses fogged up... I'll be the one who's a step behind everybody else and occasionally tripping and falling).
Sold out event 2 years in a row! So get your tickets early!
So there will be no blatant advertising. No begging you to come and throw tomatoes at me. No coaxing you forcefully to buy a ticket so you can see me say 2 lines in the play. Nope, none of that. None at all...
GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!!!

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY SUGI!!!!!!!
You're the best, girl! haha... sorry, from where I am it still seemed like the 19th of Feb when I made this blog entry... and NO, I didn't forget! Do I ever???

For fun and laughter, peace and joy...

Want a good study companion? Mine's Diana Krall. Khim Nyang introduced her to me when we were back in TCHBS and for many, many late nights she would croon away while I fell asleep over further math tutorials in the darkness of my room with only the silent spotlight from my desk lamp focused on my exhausted face and the musical campfire on my Winamp flickering away.

Right now, I think I really shouldn't be listening to her... especially not when she's singing things like:

I get along without you very well,
Of course I do,
Except when soft rains fall
And drip from leaves, then I recall
The thrill of being sheltered in your arms.
Of course, I do,
But I get along without you very well.

Everyone from Ruby to Choon Sern asks if I'm still missing... sometimes I forget I am... but most times I wish I wasn't...

I've forgotten you just like I should,
Of course I have,
Except to hear your name,
Or someone's laugh that is the same,
But I've forgotten you just like I should

Do you know what that's like? Seeing or hearing something you would have cried laughing over... and then remembering you're not there to see or hear it... (especially when I walk into a flock of fat English pigeons and they waddle away from me, pigeons are no different the world over!)

Should have continued to listen to the Church of Latter Day saints songs as Lionel suggested instead of switching over to Diana Krall. Mormon music most normal... I think...
-------------------

In other less melancholic (sounds like an addiction to melons) news...
My ODAC junior, Suh Yueh, arrived yesterday evening, stayed a night in my room and is now off on a bus to Glasgow for a 15 minute interview. Medics are so sad... they have to fly thousands of miles to be interviewed while the rest of the simple people just have to write that UCAS essay and sit back and wait. She'll be back on Monday for another interview at Imperial. My friends are not creating the best impression. No, really...

--------------------

am freezing my little pink toes off! eeps!

And this would be the one where Charlotte had an excellant night playing barmaid at the Linstead bar and ended it by being part of Amar's legion of bodyguards.

Bartending is pretty easy and fun, especially if it's not too busy a night with just a steady flow of 2 or 3 people ordering drinks every 15 minutes. No absurd orders tonight (if I disregard the three double JD cokes I made for Phil Loh who was in depression... third time round he didn't even need to ask, I automatically grabbed a glass, poured 2 shots of Jack Daniels, popped in some ice and handed it to Phil with the Coke bottle).

We're playing the Bond Game in Linstead now. So everyone's afraid... nah paranoid... about walking around halls alone. However tonight's assasination attempt on Amar will go down in the annals of Linstead history. Imagine 5 tall beefy ang mohs waiting to pounce on Amar and drag him off for Rowan to kill. Then imagine Amar hiding within a circle of 10 rather small sized Malaysians and Singaporeans (more than half of us girls) while Lionel calls Darren on his handphone for back-up in true ah-beng tai-kor style and Jaq runs off to get her fencing saber while Amar gets Aaron to bring down his pen knife for him. The Ang Mohs not wanting any blood shed start to circle around us like hungry sharks but not daring to approach us... because maybe it's taken 4 months for them to wake up and realise they can't bully us into submission and we won't go down without a fight. Darren arrives with Zi Ming in tow... NS guys to the rescue (Darren's all ready for a fight... "my hand very itchy wei!"). Operation Relocate Amar proceeds with great care... 12 people escorting Amar to his room (and to the toilet as well so he won't have to come out of his room in the middle of the night without any bodyguards). We only leave when we're sure Amar is safe and sound in his room and we've made sure he knows he owes us! Big time!

The one where Charlotte hid in her room on Valentine's Day because she was afraid of stalkers

Kristina is now the designated room butler. She's screening everyone who knocks at the door. Because I am afraid. I am very very afraid.

You don't just profess your feelings in a valentine's day card and expect me to know you from Adams! And you don't gather your possy and knock on my door on valentine's day night asking me why I'm not on a date because, well, I still don't know you from Adams (whether or not we may have been classmates when we were seven? eight? I don't even recall!). And how DARE you insinuate that I have no life on valentine's day just because I was studying Communications in my room while waiting for my friends to return from dinner and rescue me!

Valentine's day should not be spent in your room feeling very shaken because your own hall doesn't seem to be a safe place anymore and your room isn't as private as you think! What am I going to do when Kristina moves out at the end of this month?

Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.

Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you it's only seed.

It's the heart, afraid of breaking,
that never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking,
that never takes a chance.

It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dying,
that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely,
and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,

Just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snow,
Lies a seed, that with the sun's love,
in the spring becomes a rose

Amanda McBroom

*** sorry, honey, it isn't such a cheesy song after all, the more I listen to it ***

Just woke up from an absurd dream where I was buying carrot cake from some makcik who refused to take my money and made me run and hide before her old mother found out she'd given it to me for free... I will refrain from eating whole garlic baguettes before sleeping next time.

Woke up to Sachpal's scathing e-mail. Live a little, bhai! Let the little people have their Valentines Days and RM5 a stalk roses and plastic, consumer-ridden romances... even if some Ah Beng wants to drive all 600km to Cameron Highlands and back just to give 214 roses to some Ah Lian who already has a boyfriend and then publicise to the entire nation that he only paid RM408 for it when it would have cost RM2000 (hmm... like lionel said: wah... telling the whole country he's a cheapskate) let them be, dear, let them be... it drives the economy anyway! (you dunno what I'm talking about ah? Read here lor...)

I want to be celebrating Valentines Day, and NOT by rehearsing 3 dances from 10am till 5pm in the Union Dining Hall. 21 years of living and I've never even been on a proper Valentines Day date! I want to do the whole believing the whole world is in love bit. I want to be given at least 1 flower which will not be a rose because he will know I don't like roses. I want to be given a tiny momento gift that isn't chocolates because he will know I don't eat chocolates. I want to be taken out to dinner, somewhere nice and quiet and he will let me split the bill. I want to be taken to see Big Fish even if it's not his type of movie and he won't make fun of me if I cry at the end.

And it'll be highly unsurprising if I find myself cooking dinner for 10 people again tomorrow night... Happy Valentines Day to all!

ps: I'll miss you tomorrow, but I know you'll be happy... *hugs*

was practising dance steps in my room just now, twirling rather unsteadily and falling down quite abit. everytime i pick myself up i can see nicole's face twitch in front of me ("shoulders back, Charlotte... no no just move your head... arms straighter... legs turned out..."). i need to get more sleep... but i'm a little too dizzy now

This candle is burning at both ends, but it always ends with a lovely glow... Here's a log of yesterday -

Woke up at 7 30am... wide awake, but too early to be out of bed and mobile... go back to sleep
Woke up at 8 30am... aaargh! sleepy... WTF? Labs begin at 9!!!
3 hours of laborious agony in labs... actually fell asleep standing up while Prof. Tom Tate was trying to explain timing transistors in front of me
1 hour of software engineering... made an entire row of 2nd years get up for me to crawl into the middle of the row... spilt my hot chocolate on one of them in the process... Andrew, my senior, shakes his head and says, "Charlotte, you can't do this next year, you know"... Nir and Rich tell me to stop being a geek and reading the entire lecture in 10 minutes... I ignore them and promptly fall asleep
Half an hour for lunch... made tortellinis in record breaking time!
2 hours of optional Java Lectures... still managed to fall asleep (and it's not as if I didn't get enough sleep the night before!!)... Liam Madden is gonna think twice before giving me any more A pluses the next coursework, especially when I blatantly snoozed off in the middle of his explanation on inheritance
Rush back to get changed for dikir barat... take a self declared half hour break and then run back to the Union for dance practices
One dance just blends into another... from bhangra to contemporary to dikir...
At 6 30, Soha and I plead with Colgate (I don't really know what his name is!) for a half hour break to get something to eat... run back to hall... eat what ever is left of the apple crumble desert... then run back to Union
2 hours spent at International Night tech rehearsal... it was a good show if only I wasn't constantly worrying about my loose pants falling off...
Finally crawl back to Linstead at 9:30... but as I was halfway through dinner had to go back down to open the door for Suraya and Julian so they can store the huge heavy gong in my room (which is now staring at me)
Decide that it's about time I ended my day at 10pm... and go off to take a shower... come back to my room to find a present on my table... "Oh damn," I tell Kristina, "I think I know what it is!"... "Looks like a piano book", Kristina says... "And if I find out it's the right one, I'm gonna kick myself for telling him I was going to buy it!", I say...
and it IS! Les Miserables Piano Solos!!! (albeit the one I was going to buy was Piano, Vocal and Guitar). I'm so ecstatic I completely forget how tired I am and how much work has been piling up on my table... I just run down to the dining hall to try it out! Busy busy days don't end better than this!

Sometimes I'm amazed you actually listen to what I say. I told you I was going to get it for myself... and you HAD to get it for me! A month late for my birthday, but possibly my best present this year (despite the minor glitch of it being the wrong book, and I didn't notice it myself till I started playing) it was still incredibly sweet of you! Thank you!!!

Tomorrow my vegetarian and fish diet begins. I know it isn't Lent yet, but I've got to account for the Vienna-Switzerland-Germany trip where I don't intend to be vegetarian when there are German sausages to be tasted!

to think my ballet teacher told me to quit ballet 10 years ago...

and with Malaysian Night just 3 weeks away, every single free afternoon is being taken up by dance practices. Yes! Dance! I'm not singing, I'm not playing the guitar, I'm not even acting... but I'm dancing??? And not just one dance. THREE dances (and that's not including dikir barat)!!! At first I thought I was just going to join the banghra - fun! fast! About 20 people on stage! And no one would be able to spot me... then I got conned (no threatened more like it...) into chereographing the finale Chinese dance (joke of the century!) due to a lack of first year Chinese girls in IC. Then today, as I was running back to Linstead in the freezing cold... I saw Tao waving to me from inside the dining hall. I waved back. But he kept on waving and gesturing to me to come inside. So fine, I walked into the dining hall... nice sociable me... and found Nicole, Ayish and Yanti practising the contemporary dance for MNite. And before I knew what was happening, I'd given up my entire lunch break to be the fourth member of the dance (despite numerous protests and "reeeally!! I *was* kicked out of ballet class!!!" and "can I please stand behind Tao so I can be blocked from the audience?").

Dancing is a world apart from singing. When I'm on stage with my guitar, I can totally believe that I'm charming and captivating. I know how to bluff my way with songs that make it sound as if I have talent. I'm never scared, I'm never afraid of messing up... and even if I do, I know how to cover it up and smile. But dancing is different. Even without an audience, I feel as if my limbs won't do what I want them to do because I am watching myself. I'm constantly trying to remember what step comes next, which foot first? right or left? Palms turned in or out? Dancing with the professionals - Nicole (ballet), Ayish (classical indian) and Yanti (Latin and ballroom) makes me (ballet school drop out?) feel even more nervous. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. I love performing but... hell, what am I doing???

p/s: Nearly forgot... it's the Tai Kor's birthday today. Feliz Cumpleaños Lee-yo-nal!

Think cooking has become my new emotional outlet. Every weekend as I spend a few hours cleaning, chopping, slicing, stirring, boiling, frying for no less than 5 people... no more than 10... the vision of my corporate CEO girl-power super engineer self slips further and further away. And I surprise myself by not even complaining. I like the washing up and the tidying up of the kitchen. I don't mind the hours spent just deskinning a chicken. I can't wait to get my own apartment next year and become a Monica. I'm becoming obsessed. And it all started with a certain table somewhere in RJ.

some song is writing itself in my head... i need my guitar here...

Pain always creeps in when you are alone... silently, stealthily. When you're sitting face to face with just your thoughts, your mind can be the cruelest thing. Tiny pin pricks which most unfortunately have pierced all the most vital pulse points of my being.

ringraziarlo per dire me, è che non posso essere... dovrei essere felice per lei ma duole

Stop thinking! You've got to just stop!

Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and its a broken Hallelujah...

Is this the way to be? Face to the sky? Wings pinned to the ground? Please save me...

Phrase of the day: Calm as a Hindu cow
Heard while watching Fight Club... when I should have been at Chinese dance practice. Screw it!

Oh happy day... oh happy day!!!

Now what could make my favourite day better than it already is, with classes starting at 10am and ending at 1pm? How about an A++ for my very first lab report? Top that with Cirque du Soleil's Dralion matinee this afternoon (Lionel is an angel for taking so much trouble to get tickets! Centre circle... and I really mean CENTRE!)... not any ordinary circus gets to perform in the Royal Albert Hall! Add to that a new book to read from Soha as a belated birthday present (Alex Miller's Conditions of Faith) and right now I'm sitting in my room eating a huge slice of chocolate fudge cake (Kristina saved it for me from dinner) before I leave for Bling Bling to dance the night away, and the only other thing I want is...

--- later edit ---
Ok, so I didn't go to Bling Bling because Ruby was tired... but I still had a pretty relaxing night sitting in my room, eating toffee and vanilla ice cream, reading my new book, chatting with Lionel, enjoying the peace and quiet of not having Amar and Soha around... haha... life doesn't get better than this if I make myself believe so...

I'm staring at my desk.

Somewhere in room 427 is a very empty desk belonging to Salman, with a placard on it that reads "A clean desk is a sign of an insane mind". Wonder what my desk says about me.

A good 3 quarters of my desk is covered with... well... stuff! On one side is my phone, my desk lamp and my cup. On the other side is my laptop. And somewhere in the middle is an ever-growing stack of papers and plastic folders which I assume is work because I've put post-its on some of them with "SORT OUT BEFORE EASTER HOLIDAYS!!!" written in big bold fonts.
Verdict: A sure sign of a procrastinator who loves using post-its

The the little space of wall infront of my desk is covered with post its too. Alot of them say "Things to do" and "Things to do SOON" and "Things to get done NOW!!!". A few more have formulae and theorems on them. One particularly colourful one has logic tables on it. Another has the number for Chinese takeaway (v.v. important!) and yet another one says "Easter Hol's Research: BERLIN".
Verdict: I am definitely obsessed with my post-its

My left shelf is my food and personals shelf. My breadsticks, honey and teacup is carefully arranged just the way I like it. My lotions and creams and lip balms are carefully stacked in order. A japanese box that I made when I was 13 holds all the odds and ends that end up on my desk. A porcelain candle holder with my name on it, which Ruby bought for my birthday sit's prettily on the shelf. And all my religious items (glow in the dark crucifix, piata, holy water, divine mercy picture, rosary lie quietly in a corner). A tiny little box holds stuff from Greg that I'm slowly storing to put away... that too sits quietly, very quietly, in a corner.
Verdict: I've marked my desk with my own personality...

My right shelf is my academic shelf. All my text books sit prettily arranged from short to tall... did I mention that they just sit there? Once in a blue moon I pull one off the shelf to stare blankly into their crisp pages while I scratch my head in bewilderment...
Verdict: It just looks like I'm working hard... but I obviously am not. After all I'm here blogging when I should be reading up on analogue electronics.

My top shelf is quite foreign to me. That's where all my files are stacked... and once something goes into a file, it means I probably won't see it until final exams are around the bend. My lab booklets are also on the top shelf... banished there as a punishment for tormenting me. Once in awhile I do visit my top shelf to grab more sheets of A4 paper or foolscap... but I try not to reach for anything above the height of my head if I can help it.
Verdict: Lazy bugger...

I'm rambling... I should be shot!

Useful things I learnt today:

The product of 2 even functions or 2 odd functions is an even function
The product of an even function and an odd function is an odd function
Microwaving bread with peanut butter makes it stick to the plate

Received a very belated birthday card and letter from Michelle over the weekend. Getting stuff in the mail can really make your day, especially if you recognise the handwriting. Thanks Miche, dear! Miss you loads! Other things that put a smile on my face this weekend: seeing buds start to appear on the trees (bye bye winter!), finalising our easter holiday plans, talking to Greg (its so heart warming to hear a familiar voice after weeks of silence... miss you incredibly! especially miss not having someone to ramble away to anytime I feel like it, someone who understands... but I've got to move on, whether I forcibly make myself or let life slap me back into reality), making teriyaki beef that was actually edible and did not take 3 hours to cook (unlike someone else's dinner preparations!)

Overall : a rather good weekend I must say. (disregarding the fact that I only managed to cover a fraction of my work)

Believe it or not, my current playlist consists of 35 Chinese songs playing back to back. There's Tao Ze, Jay Chou and some A*Mei in there and even a little Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng (I didn't know he sang!). Chinese music seems to be a pretty good accompaniment for studying... because I can't understand any of the lyrics therefore I can't pay much attention to them. I do however find David Tao incredibly cheesy! What is up with the english lyrics which are then repeated in Chinese??

2 am
and the swirls through the darkness of her mind

she's a little girl again
sweet smile
dark eyes
with dreams of dreams
of dreams

i used to read chicklit
and snigger
because i believed
(naively)
i'd never become one of them
women of the millenium
confused with what they want
with dreams of dreams
of dreams

and she has fears
little girl fears
which cloud her mind
and translate into tears
but she still
dreams of dreams
of dreams

and i'm afraid
of becoming bitter
before i'm properly
forty? thirty? twenty five?
because of
unfulfilled dreams of dreams
of dreams

she feels little
a little girl
in a world too big for her
but not for
her dreams of dreams
of dreams

**** 2 packets of Nescafe Mild 3 in 1 + 100ml of skimmed milk + 2 table spoons of honey + Norah Jones' latest album + blurring pages of a microelectronics textbook = 1 rambling mind. I have so much to tell you, but do you have the time to listen to me? **** I miss you so so so much! I still can't get you out of my system... and I'm wandering aimlessly... wondering if I still mean anything much to you. Or if I've been replaced... completely. There really is no place for me, is there? That's the part that just breaks my heart

The lure of the snow is just too great... I ponned 2 lectures to walk in Hyde Park with Lionel and Alex to see simple things like grass covered snow, pigeons roosting on snow covered bushes, snowmen and other snow creatures, ducks paddling hard against the Serpentine current... but it was certainly 2 hours well spent!

psst... New Photos!!!

It snowed today
Beautiful light feathery snow
All over Beit quad
Sugar coating MSoc first years
Giggling and screaming
Shouting and squeaking (that's me!)
"It's snowing! It's snowing!"
Aiming and flinging
Crisp, packed snowballs
at my back
on my head
down my blouse
Just my blouse
because I forgot to put my coat and gloves on
Walking back in the snow
Pointing at the frosted white cars
Shuffling through the fluffy white streets
Catching snowflakes on my tongue
Blinking at the skies
as more flakes appear out of no where
catching me unaware
And the cries of first years
Filling Princes Gardens
"It's snowing!! It's snowing!!"
Snowballs whizz by
over my head
behind my back
in my ear!! Ouch!!
Amar, Alex, Darren, Lu and Lionel on one side
Vivien, Val, Ee Wen, Trinh, Ruby and me on another
It's a warzone out there
No one even remembers its dinner time
Not when
"It's snowing!! It's snowing!!"

of El Nino and lightning - like all things spanish, it is dangerous

and wouldn't I love to hand in my lab reports like this

Priorities!!!

My math homework, due tomorrow, is protesting... but here I am surfing for places to visit for a weekend day trip (Lake District? Stonehenge? Bath? Dublin?)
Perhaps I should have been eating my lunch today... but instead I was waiting in the STA travel office with Lionel, Alex and Darren trying to plan an all too expensive weekend to see the Venice Carnival and fulfil what I thought could only be a dream (245 quid?? maybe next year...)
And maybe I have 2 weeks of Delphi GUI programming which I really want to do... but it's all too easy to get caught up in planning our Easter holiday trip (Vienna - Switzerland - Germany - Copenhagen!!! This is the beauty of studying in Europe!)

Back to work! Back to work! Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...

Tube tickets to Leicester Square and back - 3 pounds
Jacket potato lunch - 2.60 pounds
Lebanese dinner - 10 pounds
Ben & Jerry's ice cream - 1.60 pounds
8 hours of pure fun spent with you guys (watching fire crackers in Leicester Square, moving along with the human traffic jam to Trafalgar, watching football at the Jacket potato stall in Covent Garden, allowing me to revisit my childhood by bringing me to the doll house shop, bullying my red balloon, not going to McDonalds, staring into the candle light watching Darren's 'skin' melt in the wax while Amar and Soha get high on shishah, sharing our Ben & Jerry's outside in 5 degrees weather...) - priceless!!!

time spent not getting any work done... we'll probably be in debt for the entire term.
next weekend we're locking ourselves in and surviving on bread and butter!

And so it's already lin chor sum (third day of CNY), and we're still in the festive mood. Our large appetites and constant cravings for Chinese food are definite signs. The angpows are still hanging on my door and my lovely little paper fire crackers with the word fook(luck) written on it is still perched on the edge of my shelves. When I get the little blinking red lantern lights back from Trinh, they will go above my windows so that my room will probably look like Geylang from the outside...

My sleep cycle which had been tuned back to normal is now once again wrecked. Beginning with Tuesday night's 12 till 3am chit-chat (I had 5 hours of sleep and you slept till noon!!! Next time we decide to hold early morning conversations can we NOT have it before my 9am classes!!). Then preparing for the new year's eve steamboat - 2 hours in the kitchen chopping meat and deboning chicken drumsticks!! Followed by a dinner that lasted late into the night, watching everyone get drunk. Then the Chinese New Year party at the bar. I have never organised a bar party before, and even Xinyi couldn't imagine me doing it... but I did! And it was surprisingly successful! Never had this much fun at the bar before. Then there was the Malaysian Soc. CNY dinner on the 2nd day at Chuen Cheng Ku... the company made up for the tasteless food... and then back to Linstead to find everyone playing mahjong. The temptation was just too much. Found ourselves (or rather just me, alex, lionel and lu) playing till 5am in the morning (we planned to stop at 4am, then as I started losing drastically we planned to stop when I'd become bankrupt, after which I started to win miraculously, then we planned to stop when I reached 50 dollars or it reached 5am... which ever was sooner). Today, after very few hours of sleep, I proceeded to go for bhangra dance practices, skived Chinese dance practice, and went to Portobello Market where we found lychees for 1 pound per pound! We then walked an amazingly long way to Nahar for dinner (teh tarik!!!) and then returned to Linstead to find everyone watching Once Upon a Time in China. Proceeded to finish off ALL the lychees rather quickly... and then started to plan for Easter holidays. It's not easy to plan a holiday for more than 10 people... in fact it's impossible. Finally decided on Austria, Switzerland and Germany... while the rest who want to shop will probably go to Italy and Paris. By the time we'd decided it was way past midnight. And now I'm so stoned that this entry isn't even interesting... apologies!

when I am no longer severely suffering from sleep deprivation I *may* blog about Chinese New Year... that may only occur sometime next week... when I stop playing mahjong till 5am in the morning

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le, Wan Shi Ru Yi...

Yesterday- 20 Malaysians and Singaporeans, 2 tables filled with meat balls, crab sticks, salmon, beef, chicken, pork, bee hoon, seaweed, prawns, tom yam and 5 rice cookers, 1 bottle of pimms, 1 bottle of wine, 1 bottle of rum and 1 bottle of absolut vodka... one Happy new year!

Chinese celebrations must be one of the funnest (ignore the grammar) ever! Or maybe in my case, anything that involves food and eating is always fun. But its only when you're a thousand miles from home do you actually pay attention to the details and traditions. The distance makes you stop grumbling about having to cook and clean and wear red. Forgotten lantern making skills are brought out and dusted. Traditional recipes are remembered even though not too particularly well prepared. I strangely feel a deep sense of Chinese-ness in this foreign land and I'm eager to share it with the ang mohs!

Eager enough to actually plan a bar party... although I fear horribly that everything will go wrong. The decorations will look loud and gawdy. The food will be weird. And the music... erm... well, seeing that it's not Chinese opera music I suppose it'll be bearable. And the ang moh's will ask "Why aren't there any red flags and pictures of Mao Tse Dong?"

...

Just don't get drunk tonight, guys! Please! Last night was bad enough with 2 people extremely wasted and a few more slightly off the edge...

... also realise I have not lost my 'mothering' ways and cannot sit still and let things be a mess but feel a terrible sense of urgency to always clean up, even when everyone is having fun. I swear I'm happy to do it... don't look at me as if i'm so ke lian.

ps: The Blogouts are on annual holiday... for Charme's witty sake, you can leave your comments in my Guestbook. I'll try to get a temporary commentor up soon... ok not so soon, probably after Chinese New Year...

I'm suffering from jiwang-ity... I've been singing this song incessantly... I think I no longer live in the real world

Jika dunia
Aku yang punya
Akan ku dirikan
Sebuah syurga
Malam tanpa siang
Untuk ku bermimpi

Sepanjang masa
Tanpa kecewa
Bertemankan bintang yang setia
Bagaikan puteri
Kisah khayalan
Yang hidupnya suci dan sempurna

oh...Tapi sayang
Hanyalah impian
Bulan tak bisa tumbuh ditaman
Dan bila mentari datang
Pulanglah segala kenyataan

Jika dunia
Aku yang punya
Akan kuhiaskan
Sepasang sayap
Putih dan berseri
Untukku kemudi

Sepanjang masa
Tanpa kecewa
Bertemankan bintang yang setia
Bagaikan puteri
Kisah khayalan
Yang hidupnya suci dan sempurna

oh...Tapi sayang
Hanyalah impian
Bulan tak bisa tumbuh ditaman
Dan bila mentari datang
Pulanglah segala kenyataan

I realise I'm living in the University student's real world when:

I find myself eating cereal for lunch... because I haven't had time to buy proper lunch from Sainbury's (proper lunch meaning 8 min microwaveable pasta and soups)

I stop believing in lab demonstrators... as much as I have stopped believing in the tooth fairy. They demonstrate nothing apart from their great skill at giving a very different explanation from the next lab demonstrator. (I also believe one of the computing lab demonstrators is gay. He is bald, well toned and tells me things like, "Oh dear, I really can't fathom why this isn't working. Sorry, my dear" and blinks his enviously long eyelashes. I really should ask him what scent he's wearing. It's really quite snazzy yet floral.)

I stay awake in Communications lectures because Professor Pier Luigi Dracotti cracks me up everytime he says, "Letta me-a give you a flower of-a information" or "The Fourier transforms-a, yah? They are your-re bestest friend!" and not because periodic waves are in any way exciting.

The adrenaline to finish a coursework only kicks in the night before the deadline.

Taking naps are the only form of sleep I get.

Relaxing means watching an episode of Friends, Scrubs, Southpark or Family Guy.

Swear words have no more essence. They are just means of describing the latest coursework, assignment, tutorial or lecturer.

When all forms of electronic devices have personal vendetta's against you and not only do not work when you have a deadline... but just NEVER work at all!

I'm purging my room of... stuff...
I'm putting everything into a box labelled "Things to forget... but not quite". It's not going to be an easy task... it's not going to be quick and painless... everytime I think I'm done, there's still a little bit more... at every corner, nook and cranny. There's always abit more.

Mind over matter... matter in this case being my unruly sleep cycle. Trying to force myself to stay awake past 9pm by watching Legally Blonde 2 (very puzzling plot, but as I said "the pinkness makes up for everything!"), then my first episode of South Park (limited animation somehow manages to provoke unlimited laughter!), Family Guy (ah... just screwed! bwahahahahahahaha) and Friends (season 8? only??? I'm sooo behind!!). My mind and body both finally gave way after 1:30am.
And now my body is acting like a reluctant kid who doesn't want to go to school. Dance practice at 10am. "Noooooooo!!! I can't dance! I don't want to dance! Dance is NOT my thing! Singing is my thing, not dancing! Acting is my thing, not dancing! Particularly not traditional dancing!!! But no one actually recognises that, do they? It's just - dump Charlotte in dance, because she's nice and doesn't complain much... singing? acting? sorry, that's for those who are chummy with us". Without trying to sound like a snob... I actually *cringed* when I listened in on the acting rehearsals. I'm sorry... but I'm an IC DramaSoc member. I've seen some of the best rehearsals, directing, actors and scripts right here in IC. And I know bad acting when I see it. So tell me why I didn't make the part again?
Nevermind, just shut up. Go practise your bhangra with Ayish (who's such a lovely person... and as we said, we'll run it the way WE want to next year). And then smile patiently when you have to imitate the all too flexible Chinese dancers, knowing damn well you'd rather be holding a guitar and singing "You Were Meant for Me".
It's possibly your own fault too. No one gets anywhere by being modest and suppressing your own talent or saying "yeah, she's really good... I think she's better than me". You get more things in this world by grabbing people by the collar and saying "shut up, listen and watch me! I'm bloody good at this!". *sniffle* I AM good... I'm just too shy to say so in real life!

*** later edit***
Back from dance practice!
I love bhangra! I do! Maahi ve *boom boom boom* maahi ve...
Think I'm also putting my head under the knife by auditioning for Absent Friends and A Little Hotel on the Side, both of which coincide with Malaysian Nite. Priorities... where are my priorities???

Why won't it snow in London? Then I won't have to resort to making my own snowflakes!

Weather check: Max - 8 deg, Min - 2 deg, Wind speed - 13 (Imagine's self blown away on umbrella ala Mary Poppins)

My brother has been sending me birthday cards saying Happy 21st Birthday... blah blah blah... you're finally legal... blah blah blah... it's time to move out of the house!

Really... if you want my room just say so!

appeared in my inbox:

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going
along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about
yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling
insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get
scared because you barely know where you are now.


You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you
thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have
ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most
important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing
that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they
are as confused as you.


You look at your job...and it is not even close
to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a
job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and
that scares you.


Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing
and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize
that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding
things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One
minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.


You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel
alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try
and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past
is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where
you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how
someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder
why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know
better.


Or maybe you Love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you
are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.


One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting
wasted and acting like an idiot doesn't seem as fun. You go through the
same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends
about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You
worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and
while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to
be a contender!


What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to
it.
We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard
as we can to figure this whole thing out.


Send this to your twenty-something friends...maybe it will help
someone feel like they aren't alone in their state of confusion........
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments
that take our breath away."


It's really amazing when two strangers become the best of friends,
but
It is really sad when the best of friends become two strangers.

Listening to Tori Amos can be quite poignant, especially past 1am in the morning - when the rest of the world is sleeping and I'm sitting by the light of my desklamp writing up my lab report, pulling my cardigan closer, not daring to look into the darkness of my room, trying to ignore the beckoning of my warm bed, telling my rumbling stomach to shush, and all the while Tori is crooning into my ear... and I tell myself, I've got to make you listen to this:

... she's been everybody else's girl, maybe one day she'll be her own...
... i've been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets... looking for a saviour beneath these dirty sheets...
... excuse me but can i be you for awhile?...
... when you gonna make up your mind? when you gonna love you as much as i do?...
... in your eyes i saw a future together, you just look away in the distance...
... green limousine for the redhead dancing, dancing girl...
... sombody leave the light on, just in case i like the dancing, i can remember where i come from...

I'm not saying anything. I'm glad for your company. Really I am. Especially on late nights like these.

Movies I'm just dying to see in no particular order:

Mona Lisa Smile
Something's Gotta Give
Big Fish
Peter Pan

Anyone coming over from Malaysia??? I'm dying for our very own local brand of VCDs! Pirated of course!

Sometimes I wonder that journalists are just trying to fill up newspaper space...

Read in The Star today:

"This is the first arrest of a suspected JI (Jemaah Islamiah) man this year"

But the year is only 13 days old... unless Malaysia makes it a habit of arresting JI members weekly.

My sleep cycle is totally wrecked. My sleep diary over the last 2 days would go something like this:

Sunday
8:00am - Wake up, all bright and cheery, find out I've no breakfast, not so bright and cheery, go to Church, go to Sainsbury's, go back to Linstead, get started on ARM coding, go me! *yawn* feeling sleepy
1:00pm - Think I'll take a short snooze
2:00pm - Aaahh... That was just what I needed- ooh Val's sent me a URL... some words pop up on my screen, try to blink the sleep out of my eyes, a part-time exorcist actor look alike pops up on my scream accompanied by bloodcurdling scream!!! AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Shut all windows, jump back into bed, pull covers over head.
2:30pm - Still shaking, damn you Val!, but hungry. Obviously cannot stay in bed like this all day. Carefully extract myself from bed and check for ghostly ghouly images on laptop. Phew... all gone. Make some soup and garlic bread. Think I'll do my ARM coding while eating lunch. *knock knock* Ruba wants to know if she can use my mirror. Will just chat with Ruba for awhile since haven't seen her in a long time... since yesterday
4:30pm - Starting to feel light headed, but Ruba is still talking. Not very sure what she's been saying over the last half hour really. Excuse myself as feel like a nap is much needed
5:30pm - Rich knocks on my door. "Need help with the ARM coding?" "Hrrm? No... sleeping... go away"
6:00pm - Salman knocks on my door "Helooo?" "Bffwhat??" "Lazy pig..." "Snore..."
6:30pm - Wake up and see msn message blinking. Lionel : wakey wakey! Restrain impulse to say 'damn you!'. Good thing did not say 'damn you!' as Lionel seems to be only unselfish person in the whole hall who has not already cooked and eaten dinner without me (of course this is besides the fact that Lionel cannot cook!!). Manage to concoct some dinner from my spaghetti and pasta sauce and Lionel's suspicious looking mushrooms (display date was 9 days ago!) and French cheese.
9:00pm - Mmm... dinner not too bad. Tummy very satisfied. *yawn* bed looks very inviting. Oh well... cannot possibly code if sleepy.
11:00pm - Wtf? Tumble out of bed for 3rd? 4th? time today. Look despairingly at code. Lionel says: You were sleeping rite? *sheepishly* yeah... Lionel says triumphantly: I knew it!!! , complain to Amar about Lionel's expiring mushrooms giving me nightmares.
Monday
2:00am - Haven't felt this wide awake in awhile. But must get some sleep... early morning classes...
2:30am - Toss and turn in bed. Who ever thought trying to go to sleep would be this difficult?
8:00am - Spring out of bed, make some toast and eggs and head off for first lecture
4:00pm - I can't believe I didn't fall asleep in a single class today! It's a miracle! *yawn* think nap is in order
6:00pm - Ruby and Cheryl knock on my door. "I'm sleeping!!!". "But it's dinner time Char!". "WTF???? already??"
8:00pm - Dinner seemed abit hazy. ARM code looks hazy. Bed is the only thing not hazy.
11:00pm - Why's everything so dark? Look at clock. Curse! Swear! Jump out of bed and attempt to code in frenzy. Lionel smirks: You were sleeping again rite?. Where can I find friends who won't find me so predictable?
Tuesday
2:00am - Half of code is working! Yay! But need to stop sleeping like this! Oh what the heck. Maybe just until the end of this week...

My 21st birthday party photos are up. I just have one thing to say: I LOVE my dress!! I really do!!!

I'll think of more constructive things to say after I've eaten something

At the current time:

1 Malaysian Ringgit = 0.14231 British Pound or 1 British Pound (GBP) = 7.02707 Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)

This is highly depressing. Maybe I should go shopping at Sainsbury's to cheer myself up. *Ouch*!

How many people can say they've celebrated their 21st birthday for 32 hours?
I think I qualify.

From 12am Malaysian time till 12am London time I have been celebrating the legalisation of my adulthood (although 13 hours were spent on a plane, enduring a very bumpy ride... heck, who am I kidding? I kinda like turbulences! It's like a super long theme park ride). ]

And so, I'm 21. Everyone's been reminding me that I'm legal to do so many things... of which the only one I'm looking forward to is voting and not losing the chance to be tried in a juvenile court.

I also love the immunity my birthday gives me... like not having to do the washing up...and the indulgent nature it brings out in people... like being offered 5g of Berthoud Cheese because I asked nicely... and the sudden surprises it springs on me... like the fire alarm going of 3 times in 1 hour shortly after my return.

It's been a great 21st. Thank you everybody!!!

Today is Sachpal's turn to step into the adult realm. Happy 21st Bhai!!! You may be spending your birthday getting laid in Hawaii, but we love you all the same! *grin*

I said goodbye to my Nokia 3310 today. We've been through thick and thin and it's never failed me. From the rains of Ophir to the cold of Mt. Kinabalu and the salt waters of Ubin... it has amazingly survived. But now it is time for us to part. I took a last flick through the menu... browsing through my favourite profiles (HunnyBunny, X Angel, Smile, Giggle and Laugh), my favourite pictures (the Raffles Odac Logo, my teddy bear, the kissing heads...), my game high scores (Luke's amazing 3051 snake high score which i still can't beat)... there's just so much of myself in my old phone that I just can't help but feel emotional about discarding it. My new Nokia 3100 (I'm a Nokia fan... so sue me!) is like a brat! Sure it's small and funky and coloured... but it still needs some toilet training before I become attached to it. It has so much to learn about me.

Last night I went through all my photo albums, trying to pick out photos to bring back to London with me. When I left in October, I arrogantly thought I could do without my photos and that the digital ones in my laptop would suffice... but I didn't know how empty and cold the walls of my room could feel without that little personal touch of home and the familiar faces of friends. A voice in my head has been nagging at me for taking friendships for granted and thinking that the memories in my head alone can keep me sane.

But photos say something. That maybe there will not be a future, but at least... at the very least... there was a past.

And as I flipped through the pages of my album, silly, funny and long forgotten thoughts came back to me...
like the first Ubin cycling where Luke, HX, Greg and Kin were balancing precariously in some formation and I grumbled about being the only girl...
like when we reached the summit of Ophir and left Kin down at basecamp with Miss Elaine and running down the mountain in the rain...
like Odac's rain God...
like our kayaking expedition and the jelly fish at the frog island
like YEC camp and the XVII candles
like stairclimbing at Bukit Timah hill and then arguing about BTC during the batch meeting
like the guys choosing to dress in gay red for the J1's inaug
like the scandolous Kinabalu expedition when Shan was flirting with me and Greg with Mel... to annoy the hell out of Ms Lim and Mr. Shah
like arguing with Greg halfway towards Laban Rata (I don't actually remember why)
like singing the Odac song at the summit of Kinabalu
like leaving Greg's huge bouquet in the room during prom and making him miffed
like midnight snacks with Charme and Sherene and pissing off the PRCs in the study room
like leaving our books to watch Friends on Mondays and Restless on Tuesdays without fail
like watching Charme play edelweiss on the guitar in her hippy blue top which she said made her look small

Like so many memories... not really shown in photos, but so easily evoked. And you can't help but smile or cry and try to console yourself that at least there was a past

I'm so proud of myself. I just completed one third of my holiday homework! (Of course the fact that I should have been consistently updating my programming log book throughout the term and not leaving it till the last minute will be ignored!).

I am now currently sorting out my birthday presents. Greg and I stayed up till dawn on Friday night opening them and awarding 'best present' and 'worst present' awards... for which Richard's piggy diary came in first for best present, although I really thought the scarves from Jun Ling and Sue Yen were definitely my ideal present (I love useful things!) and Daryan's batik coloured sand monkey won worst present hands down! (I'm so sorry captain, but really the moment we saw the monkey there were just no contenders! hahaha... but I must say we had alot of fun trying to hit each other with the poor monkey. It makes an awfully good weapon!). Ok there was also one more contender for worst present... which was the bottle of Chanel perfume which smelt rather strange until we realised that the words 'pour homme' were printed on the box. I'll have to forgive Choo, Chua and Teck Hui for not knowing French, I suppose.

I've also managed to collect a significant number of angpows, for which I guess went to my birthday dress... no sorry, dresses... and there is just enough to go back to london and buy the one thing I've been longing to get for so long. The Les Miserables piano score! Can't wait to hit Foyles.

Hmm... I don't know if Trinh reads this blog but anyway... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRINH!!!

Dear 2004...

It's been strange having 2003 sweep by just like that. As if it wasn't a proper year at all. The days went by so unconnected with either huge pockets of idle time or little flecks of unforgetable moments. If there was a year I could just forget about... it might be 2003, and yet if there was a year where my own self confidence and respect came back to me... it might be 2003.

Thinking back... 2003 felt like a twilight zone. Not having the usual academic schedule turned the months and dates slightly topsy turvy. Starting university in the last quarter of the year (after 13 years of Jan - Dec academic years) made the year feel rather skewed. Then there were the 9 months of sheer bumming around. Sure I picked up the violin, I learnt basic French, I brushed up my Mandarin and I studied for A Levels Econs in 5 months and turned up with an A which helped to repair my battered and bruised self esteem, but still where did time go? There were the occasional trips back to Singapore, BTC, interning at Motorola, Odacia... but still the year felt lifeless. Maybe time loses its essence when you're not in a routine. And there was of course the painful absence of Greg and learning to cope with moving on and starting a new life all over again (I've perhaps never cried more in my life than I did in 2003) There was the hesitations when the acceptances for both Brown and Imperial came. The tedious process of scholarship interviews. The griping fear I felt of going to Imperial and not knowing anyone and not knowing that I would come across the crazy bunch of Linsteadians that I am so fond of now. And now 2003 has left and I'm standing in between here and there.

But 2004, since we've only just met... maybe you'd like to consider some favours my way... before you really know what I'm like. Because maybe I don't want to be me anymore. Perhaps I need a change. To look at things from a different perspective. To learn from the stumbles and falls of 2003 and to grow on from the opportunities laid out in front of me.

So here's my 2004 wish list:
1. Maybe I've been too dependant on Greg for too long. Maybe I need to find friends I can open up to, and stop hiding everything inside of me.
2. Maybe I've been too idealistic, too romantic for my own good. Maybe I need to wake up and live in the real world.
3. Maybe I should start taking my course seriously and do all my tutorials on time.
4. Maybe I should stop being late and realise that punctuality and not procrastinating will not kill me.
5. Maybe I should try keeping in touch with friends and make time for people I normally push aside.
6. Maybe I need to be more discerning about the things I say and do and how they affect everyone around me.
7. Maybe I should keep that adventurous odac spirit with me... carpe diem!
8. Maybe I need my head to remember, but my heart to forget.

It's perhaps alot to ask from you, but I'm doing my part in asking alot from myself. Especially this year.