Linstead's Going Down dinner was yesterday. I made a bet with Rich that I would take only an hour to get ready. I was out of my room in 45 minutes and carefully trying to climb 6 flights of stairs in my high heels to Lionel's room to fish for compliments before Amar could take me down a peg or two (I stupidly told him I was going to wear my birthday dress earlier... without thinking of the repercussions...)
Dinner was of course a dissapointment. But the pretty balloons kept me happy. There was clearly less excitement as there were many missing Linsteadians. Our own group was a rather small, only Amar, Soha, Fong May, Darren and me. And the music at the disco was all cheese! Oh well... an expected end to the year at Linstead.
Best part of the night: Rich impersonating Karim with the head of a mop under a baseball cap over his own hair!

Yesterday, Fong May, Chien Liq and I went canvassing for restaurant discounts in China town. There must be like 30 restaurants in China town. While Fong May did most of the talking, I hung around giving moral support - due to my embarrasing Chinese accent and lack of Cantonese vocabulary. (It's amazing how I understand everything everybody is saying... but the words just don't come out right!).
The three of us have also realised an obvious disadvantage amongst us. None of us speak Mandarin fluently enough. Yeah ok, go ahead and smirk and tell me off again for not trying to learn Mandarin properly off you guys. One day Lionel's just going to have to force me to speak in Mandarin.

I've got the contract in my hands right now. I've got my dream kitchen, the room with the fake fireplace and LOADS of storage space. No ensuite bathroom, but as long as the rest don't complain about my pink bathrobe, everything's fine!

Venki came to visit me today. I picked him up at South Kensington station and gave him the grand tour of Imperial College (which didn't take more than 20 minutes). I also gave him the grand tour of my room in Linstead (which wasn't very interesting) and also the grand tour of Hyde Park. We said hi to Albert on the way, in his glistening throne. Then we walked to Harrods to drool at the chocolates and sweets in the Food Hall before Venki went home. Yay! That makes a total of 2 friends from Singapore who visited me this year. I feel popular.

I don't want to jinx this, but:

We're signing the housing contract today! (*Woohoo! - Vivian style*, I don't think many would believe me if I say I have a friend who bounces around like tigger from Winnie the Pooh and frequently "woohoo"s, but I do!).

We being Yi Shan, Lu, Lu's sister Yue Shuang (Jac and I are still adamant we heard her introduce herself as Yu Wei!), Lionel and myself in one household, Jac, Vivian, Marvin and Fidel in the other. And we're going to stay in the same building! It'll be like FRIENDS.

And we're getting the most expensive apartment. It's going to cost me 100 pounds a week. But what the heck! Lionel's happy and that's priceless.

We've got 2 huge double rooms and 1 single room. And we've got a balcony! No fight for the ensuite bathroom (advantages of being the fairer sex in Imperial), and another one in the corridor. The kitchen isn't huge but it's cosy and modern looking and I had this strange vision of myself cooking in it when I stepped in yesterday even though I didn't know I'd be getting this house (I wanted the basement initially).

Well, wish me luck! I have to look for my cheque book now. I do believe I've forgotten how to write a cheque again.

Feeling much better now, thank you.

It's been a hard day.

And I'm not going to mince words. Because I'm upset. I'm upset that everyone is upset. I'm upset that people carelessly give their word without realising the consequences of it, that in the process they've caused so many people to become depressed and unhappy when the day started out so promising.

It's so easy to say "we'll find a place" and "don't worry, sure got one!". But did you ever try looking? Did you ever try worrying? Did you spend those late nights scouring online listings, visiting the accomodation office, calling landlords, emailing agents and calling everyone up one by one to get them to obligingly spend their precious time viewing the place as if its some great honour to us? And don't forget, we did all this even though we had our own unfinished revision and piles of notes in front of us. We did this so that we wouldn't be running around like headless chickens without a place to stay. We added this to our list of worries while we were sitting for our exams. We dedicated our time to trying to suit everyone's demands, and in return we got screwed over.

And I just have to ask... did anybody care about what WE wanted? Never!

And it's easy to just do nothing, isn't it? To give fleeting promises. It's all too easy these days. Your word means nothing. Sincerity is worthless. Everyone's too caught up in their own lives to care about anyone else.

I'm so pissed. F*ck off!

Everyone expects me to be a happy carefree june bug these days. It's been 5 days and counting since my last paper. But somedays when I look at the post-its on my desk, I want to cry.
Is it too much to ask for people to live up to the promises they made before accepting their responsibilities? Is it just too much to expect people to fulfil their promises which they noddingly agreed to? Or am I being to hard a task master? Perhaps I'm being overly ambitious and shouldn't expect things to be done efficiently without procrastination, day after day, week after week. It's just me isn't it?
I'm an overzealous committee member in any committee I've worked in. Before I go to sleep each night I tick off an imaginary checklist in my head, and I wake up most days with an alarming feeling that something urgent needs to be done TODAY. I can't let things rot... my heart palpitates if someone reminds me of something I haven't done. And I take on more than I can manage, always! I nag and I scold and I bug people. Sometimes it gets the job done, other times it turns things against me.
But what can I do? I cannot bear to see things fall to shambles, knowing that I know how to make it happen. You may not like me for it, but I WILL make it happen. I won't be Miss Popularity any time soon for it. It'll be a thankless job. But you are so darn right!

I'll do it anyway because that's just me.

What swear word are you?
Full Name
Age
Your word of choice	Slut
Why you swear	You only swear if something really pisses you off. You genereally don't swear much.
Your motto	Move Bitch, get out my way!
This fun quiz by Thy Beloved - Taken 3786 Times.

Get Free Daily Horoscopes from Kwiz.Biz

I must be the only EEE/ISE first year who's not in a post-exam high. Honestly I don't really feel any different today than I did while still in the midst of exams. Alex say's it's because I was too slack throught them. He might actually be right.
So while everyone was at Ministry of Sound getting wasted, me being my usual anti-social self went straight home right after exams and started filing all my notes since Lionel was at the A*Star dinner. By dinner time I had completed 2 terms worth of notes. And by the time Lionel came back from dinner I had filed all my past year papers, lab reports and courseworks and was just about to take a nap.
But instead of a nap, Lionel came up with the brilliant suggestion of watching the last Friends episode I had been denying myself for ages! Went over to Jac's room to confisticate her entire 10 seasons of Friends from her (btw, if you're reading this Jac, you ought to be studying!!!), remembered that my CD player wasn't working, so went up to Lionel's room instead to watch it and promptly fell asleep after that. Didn't realise I was THAT tired as I didn't wake up till the sun was peeking in through the windows.
After dragging myself out of bed, I managed to catch hold of Lu to help me carry stuff back from Diana's (the ex Msoc secretary) flat. It took half an hour to reach Diana's flat and probably longer walking back with 4 plastic bags of stuff! And the lack of exercise after 5 weeks of studying was really punishing! Ran a few errands on the way back which included picking up a bottle of shower gel for Lionel. Bodyshop has discontinued the grape seed line (much to Lionel's dissapointment) so I picked up a melon seed one following Lu's discretion from a selection of strawberry, papaya, mango, coconut and brazil nut (Amar says he would have picked mango! G--)
Reached Linstead to find there had been a fire alarm... on polling day! What with Linstead being a polling station and all. Sabotage, I tell you! Then hurried off to college to pass a backpack back to Zeus, picked up 2 paninis for lunch (no not for myself alone!! For Lionel too... I'm not THAT piggish!) and back to Linstead again... feeling highly accomplished for having run so many errands in one morning alone.
I think the effort of it all just got to me, as I fell asleep in Lionel's room after wolfing down my panini. I can't stand my room anymore. The still air and all 23 degrees of heat is unbearable. Lionel's room on the other hand is the proud owner of a desk fan! Sometime while I was sleeping, one of the spanish cleaners knocked on Lionel's door and handed him a parcel with Amazon printed all over it! Yippee! Our books had arrived. Which included Alex's scouting for boys by Sir Baden Powell. Incredibly dodgy title when you think about it. An old man like Sir Baden Powell writing a book on how to scout for young boys and where to find them... *cough cough*
Another fire alarm later (this one smelt of char kway teow! Oh damn... now I'm feeling hungry), and a phone call to mum and a much needed second bath (honestly it's hard to survive a day in this heat without at least 2 baths!), all of us traipsed over to the Main Dining Hall in college for dinner, as our Linstead dining room was still full of voters. What a sight! Everyone's allowed to vote. Even us! And I haven't even voted in my own country yet. How ironic!
After our usual dose of Simpsons, I started to tidy up the dinner accounts and do laundry simultaneously. Panicked for a moment when they didn't seem to balance. But after a few thorough checks everything balanced perfectly! I'm so proud of myself and my rusty accounting skills! Although we haven't really worked out how much each of us has to pay for Carla (Amar's birthday present... go figure!) and the alcohol of which there is still enough to try and get Amar wasted again.
Wrote 2 Brownsea postcards to my brother. Flipped through some of the holiday photos Lionel wants me to sort out. And now I think I'll finish reading my new book before going to sleep.
It's been a long day...

Charlotte's brain status - on long hiatus!
(For those who question it ever being there anyway, well f- ...nevermind)

Exams are finally over. I can now look forward to sorting out Msoc stuff, sorting out accounts, sorting out next years accomodation. I don't need to sort out my notes. I already did that first thing after my last paper yesterday.

In Germany a shallot is known as Schalotte. In Spain it's Chalote, in Denmark it's Skalotte løg, in France it's Échalote and in Sweden it's Schalottenlök.
Now I understand how easy it is for particular friends of Lionel to mistake me for a small purple onion.

Credits to Alex for surfing upon : Shallot.com

p/s: Amar, you are still not forgiven for using Shallot instead of Charlotte just because it's in your sms dictionary and is 2 letters less to key into your phone pad!

When the temperature rises above 25 degrees here, all things seem to come to a halt. Today is a sweltering 27 degrees and I'm sitting here like a hippo, looking for ways to keep cool. I can't be expected to understand caches in this heat! Tomorrow will be 29 degrees and I think it's possible my brain might just melt and ooze out from my ears.
One last papers to go. In two parts. Principles of Computers and Operating Systems. While the triple E's will be done by 12 noon and whizzing around like crazy june bugs I will have to hold out till 5pm. Then come back and rearrange my room and start bugging a few selected people - namely the MSoc Committee.

I've learnt my lesson this time. No more sleeping after dinner. Especially not after gorging too much of Amar's fantastic tandoori chicken with dhal and naan (with half the required amount of ghee - Lu threw it away when Amar wasn't looking. Way to go, Lu!)
As usual I crawled under my duvet while everyone was still chatting in my room after dinner and fell asleep... even after Alex's threats that I'd grow fat. Lionel woke me up at 1am, which was probably a good thing because I felt a horrible surge of indigestion just well up inside me.
After several toilet trips and detoxing tea and ENO... I think I've paid my price for gluttony and pure laziness. I'm kicking the sleep-eat-sleep routine.
Or at least I'll try...

Certain crazy caucasians outside my window are serenading me to sleep with Tenacious D's F*ck Her Gently. Not sure that should be the last thing on my mind before tomorrow's digital paper. Unless it's an omen of tomorrow's exam.

psst!

I'm not supposed to be here. I have another 4 more papers to go, which include the very horrific Circuits module.

I just got up from a lousy nap. Lousy because I couldn't really sleep. Too many things on my mind. The more I tried to push them out, the more other thoughts came rushing in to fill the vacuum.

I worry way too much. I'm worried I won't know how to answer a single circuits question on Monday. I'm worried we won't be able to find a venue to hold the Fresher's camp. I'm worried the camp won't be interesting enough, or they won't be interested in our ice breakers or listening to us talk about MNite or Imperial or London. I'm worried about whether the other committee members are as worried as me about the camp. I'm worried about how the video Chien Liq and Chris are going to produce will turn out. I'm worried about not being able to get enough funds for the camp. I'm worried logistics will be problematic. I'm worried we won't be able to bring back enough stuff to sell for the Pasar Malam. I'm worried about next year's housing and who's going to live with who. I'm worried I won't have enough time to sort everything out before going home.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I don't really feel like joining the EBay craze just yet, but I'm trying to find a cheaper way to get the Jim Brickman Greatest Hits CD. I think I'll just pop by the Virgin megastore after exams if I can tahan till then. I can't believe no one has any of his songs on Sharescan!
By the way, Matt Redman is very inspirational.

I'm sorry.
I'm really bored.
And it's been 3 hours since my devastating Analogue exam.
Maybe I'll feel like studying again after this.

Name Four Bad Habits You Have

1. never brushing my hair
2. not exercising enough
3. eating... followed by sleeping... followed by eating again... followed by...
4. instinctively replying with "huh?" even though I did actually hear the question the first time

Name Four Things That You Wish You Had

1. a real brain
2. a real butt
3. a real heart
4. more wishes

Name Four Scents You Love:

1. food! any kind of food! the more garlicky or buttery or chocolate chippy.. the better!
2. people - after showers!
3. Body Shop Brazil nut body butter
4. lazy hazy rainy summer days

Name Three Things You'd Never Wear

1. stripey designs
2. A line skirts
3. those pumps with gigantic heels that could break an ankle

Name Four Things You Are Thinking Of Right Now:

1. I am thinking that I can't think of 4 things simultaneously

Name Four Things That You Have Done Today:

1. Woke up
2. tried to get out of bed
3. dropped alarm clock on the floor thinking "that should do it!"
4. got out of bed to pick up alarm clock which stubbornly refused to stop ringing

Name The Last Four Things You Have Bought Recently:

1. *rummages through hand bag for last week's Sainsbury's receipt*... here we are.. Item number one...

Name Four Drinks You Regularly Drink:

1. water (like a fish!)
2. green tea
3. nes-lo
4. milk (like a cow?)

First Grade Teacher's Name?
Mrs Loke! She still bakes cheesecakes for me when I come back for holidays. This is how much my teachers adore me *grin*... teacher's pet!

Last Words You Said:
(In reply to "So how was the Analogue paper?")
I AM SO SCREWED!!!!!!!!

Last Song You Sang?
Somewhere over the Rainbow

Last Person You Hugged?
Lionel! So so happy he's back from Bath! And I got presents! That deserves a double hug and kisses!

Last Thing You Laughed At?
I dunno... after the Analogue paper it surely seems like a long time since I laughed

Last Time You Cried?
In church

What's In Your CD Player?
It's bloody not working!!! It's decided that it doesn't like me

What Color Socks Are You Wearing?
Grey trainers

What's Under Your Bed?
Food!!! (all together: "DUH!!!"), shoes, sundries, luggage

What Time Did you Wake Up Today?
8am (you didn't ask what time I actually got OUT of bed)

Current Taste?
On the tip of my tongue I'd say green tea with too much honey!

Current Hair?
Too long! Badly in need of a cut and some good scolding and nagging on hair care from my all-time favourite hairdresser Shaun (who will never give up on persuading me to straighten my hair!)

Current Clothes?
T-shirt and tracks... It's comfy and baggy and messy and 'I'm tired of looking drop-dead-gorgeous since no one is looking' day for Charl...

Current Annoyance?
6 papers to go... SIX papers to go... did I mention how many papers I have left?? it's SIX!

Current Longing?
For freedom from this misery...

Current Desktop Picture?
Awfully cute photo of Lionel making a face at the cafe in Vienna (in retaliation to the awful photo of me making a face on his desktop previously)

Current Worry?
I failed Anologue... didn't I? Didn't I????

Current Hate?
That's tough. It's between myself and my procrastinating, lazy self and my 'where are your brains??' self.

Favorite Physical Feature Of the Opposite Sex?
Anything huggable!

Favorite Place To Be?
In my bed, under my duvet on a rainy day!

Least Favorite Place?
Anywhere within a 5 mile radius of an exam

Everyone's back from Brownsea! (Everyone being Lionel, and the not so random Linsteadians: Amar, Alex, Jacq, Vivian, Lu and Jing Ye and of course Jed who's almost a Linsteadian). I have new blue and purple wooden tulips! (So, someone thinks I need to be introduced to some new colours, huh?) My msn 'online' list looks more like it should. I am not lonely anymore! Everything is right with the world!

John Keats said "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" and because of that we have A Thousand Beautiful Things

whine

Everyone's on the Brownsea pilgramage road trip (everyone being Lionel and some other random Linsteadians), except me! Well ok, I wasn't the only one left behind. So were the rest of the EE engineers who have the joy of sitting for a paper on Monday. And it really shouldn't bother me so, because I should be mugging my brains out... but I'm lonely!!! Linstead is so strangely quiet! And eating dinner by myself on a Saturday night - I haven't done that since like... never! This is depressing. I should do more problem sheets to cheer myself up before I update Alex on the FA cup score and keep him in suspense for awhile...

I have an Analogue paper at 10am on Monday. I really should nail that to my wall in BIG BOLD red letters. I'm far too relaxed for my own good. And I don't know why I'm not freaking out yet. It's not that I'm any more familiar with analogue (which is now no longer a distant relative thrice removed but an unbearable in-law). I'd have to be (what's that word Sanjeev used? oh yes) a muppet to fail Analogue... but I do believe I might just be one!

I have to admit to a conspiracy regarding next year's group research projects. After struggling by myself to complete this year's design project (which is 10% of the year!!!) due to my two rather non-existent group mates (whom I honestly hope and pray pick up at least SOME programming skills before the end of the course or else become only PSEUDO Information System Engineers) I quickly made a pact with my new ISE buddies (who bully me like hell, but are at the very least competant programmers and interesting people) Kunal and Jeff, and well Sanjeev (because I pitied him) and my lab partner, Menaka (because I pitied her too) to form a project group for 2nd year. Much to my horror I discovered yesterday evening that one of my 'would-rather-sleep-than-go-to-labs' design group project mates had intruded into our little group without my consent. Sanjeev wasn't too happy about it either, so this morning as I dropped in the group project form I nonchalantly filled in only 5 names. It's probably mean. It probably means there will be a drifter who will be chucked into one of the smaller project groups. But I just CANNOT work with my group mates again. Not after what they did to me! Not when I almost single-handedly programmed an entire project meant to be handled by three people! Some days, you just have to guard your own ass.

I think some people are playing table football now. 1 AM is always foosball time in Linstead for us.

I think the engineering work has finally cracked me... or else I'm a programmer with a warped sense of humour...

{you know you've been programming too much when you end all your sentences with a semi-colon; and you enclose them in curly brackets without thinking twice;}

macro proc CodeToSummer(sunshine, flowers, &summerloving)
{
while(1)
{
do
{
hitch up those skirts
and in flimsy flip flops
or thongs
blatant on your feet
discretely beneath sheer clothes
run to lectures
past the wilting bluebells
forgotten in the bloom
of the red red roses
the daffodils have had their day
and now the tulips have come out to play
and the grass has never felt this great
as frisbees fly overhead
and the smell of barbecues
pulls me away from my books
} while (the sun is shining);
do
{
snuggle under my plump duvet
peek out at the falling raindrops
breathe in the fresh eau de summer
even in this faded English city
the sun never sets
undaunted by rainclouds
they don't get a chance
not in summer
just as my notes
don't stand a chance of being read
not in summer
as they flutter in the breeze
} while (summer rains are a pouring);
if (autumn should come) then
{perhaps it'll be time to take a break from this summer spell}
else
{i'll just enjoy this summer loving!}
}
}

Just felt the need to do something completely useless after spending the last 5 hours fruitfully studying. Analogue Electronics is now no longer foreign, but rather a distant relative, thrice removed.

Your High School(s): SMK (P) Sri Aman

1. nickname in high school? : Charl, Charly, Shallot, and every other possible permutation of my name. Girls in my high school were not very creative.

2. best subject? : Add Math or English Lit (Miles apart!)

5. worst subject? : Moral. Don't give me that knowing look!

6. a teacher you owe life lessons to? : Mrs Menon. You either hate her or love her. As for her Literature girls... we just worshipped the ground she walked on!

7. a teacher you wanna kick in the ass? : I actually adore most of my teachers. I'm a suck up!

8. Form 1: 1 Erat! Formed the "We hate Roslina Bagawi Club" with Maggie. (Oh! now I recall a teacher that I DID want to kick in the ass). Actually went through the rituals of donning the maroon prefects vest and tight skirt. Tormentous end of year watching both my best friends become bitter enemies.

9. Form 2 : 2 Damai! Class with 14 prefects, and forever at loggerheads with 2 Cekap. Form 2 was a rather strange year, embedded in a part of my brain I can never get rid off. Both my closest friends still steeped in pure venomous loathing of each other. Watched them attend counselling sessions which was as useful as crap. Trying to prevent another close friend from suicide attempts. Finding out that one of your close friends lives in a complete fantasy world (national swimmer? boyfriend died in a car accident? goes horse riding for recreation? oh, come on!). Getting caught by the Prefect teacher advisor for skipping classes and playing poker (and I STILL had my prefect badge then!). Form 2 was just emotionally exhausting. Scarred for life.

10. Form 3 year : 3 Fasih! Breathe of fresh air after form 2. Completely new and incredible group of friends who played the silliest games (even when we're 50 I think we'll still be playing the song game and our own version of monopoly! Jalan Ali Abdul Rahman... what the heck?), formed the Chaka-chaka club, made up weird songs about diarrhoea and fried kuay teow, co-founded the Single Women's Club with Maggie and Anu (which we banned Jilly and Ying eternally from), stepped into the Interact world and found God through CB and confirmation classes.

11. Form 4 year : 4 Sains Cekap! Notorious for containing the most POWER social groups in one small and swelteringly hot container classroom! Formed some very firm friendships. And those were the days when BBians suddenly become very much entangled in our lives - from which we probably learnt the best of life's lessons. A Sri Amanian should NEVER date a BBian! Volcano waiting to kill an entire village, that is! Took on the post of Interact VP. Many many ups and downs and tears and laughter and sweat and relief - but we achieved the incredible! So many other ridiculous memories we still laugh over at mamak sessions. Winning the zone Choral Speaking competition which I conducted leading to observations of my butt by afore-mentioned despicable BBians (well not that despicable, I still love some of you!). The much hyped hacking of our Interact website which was littered with pornography and a personal vendetta directed towards me. Forming the dynamic duo... turning out possibly the most ludicrous bitches Sri Aman ever saw. BRATs! And all my sisters in Christ in CB who kept me uplifted every single day. Wow... that was one hell of a year!

12. Form 5year : 5 Sains Bakti. Sat alone because I am really antisocial. Worked out for me because I got 2 desks to myself which had a rotation of visitors every other lesson! Busy, busy, busy year. Interact, Rangers gathering (I was the squeaky MC... I will admit that now!), CB problems and of course taking on the crazy attempt of 11 papers for SPM!

13. your best friends? : Stopped believing in best friends after form 1.

14. cafeteria food sucked? : I was too busy to spend time in the canteen.

15. most hilarious school rule? : I wouldn't know. I adore rules!

16. wore uniforms? : Yeah! My ever comfortable blue pinafore and baju kurung. And the maroon straight jacket for 2 years... I actually thought the prefects uniform looked good! Or else, I just looked good in it!

17. how was the prom? : Hah! snort! Sri Aman having a prom while Maharani was still pengetua (principal)? Fat chance. (As for RJ's prom, I still have my misgivings about it... but I got flowers, so I should shut up)

18. who was prom king and queen? : Some unimportant people. Unimportant because the ones I voted for didn't win!

19. any achievements? : You're kidding! Check out my CV...

20. were you popular? : In some notoriously bitchily strange ways...

21. best song that reminds you of high school? : Maju Penuntut Sri Aman, and R.Kelly's I believe I can fly... (not his version but Choo's version: I believe I can fry... char kway teow and yao char gwai...)

22. unforgettable high school crush?? ROFL!!! Everyone knows my most tragic high school romances, affairs, heart-crushing moments and what nots... they make for such entertaining stories now. Like I used to tell Maggie after every stupid incident "I was young then!" (even if 'then' referred to '2 months ago')

23. most embarrassing moment? : I embarrass myself ALL the time, it's become a norm.

24. memory you'd like to forget about high school? : Form 2... ALL of it!

25. best memory? : I don't know... personally, I enjoyed college more!

26. any regrets? : I shouldn't have gained a reputation for being heartless and mean

27. would you like your "future child" to attend your high school? : Yeah! I say a school like Sri Aman would do a kid some good!

28. were the bathrooms clean? : Yeah... once every second rising of a blue moon

Maybe mother was right
Another autumn comes by again
So fast
What happened last autumn?
I don't know
And raindrops
Look pretty from your window
But the lightning's killed me
Did it kill you too?
And I think I shouldn't
Shouldn't write these poems anymore
Shouldn't wonder why you never call
Shouldn't think of the loss
mine or yours?
And perhaps I should
Enjoy my bit of sunshine
And stop bringing
My own rainclouds with me

Hadn't been reading blogs in awhile, so caught up with the usual regulars.

The Rafflesians have been blogging about Move and Groove. And I'm sitting here as the London sun sets and thinking how I should never say never.

Like how when I first set foot in RJ, I said I'd never fit in here.
The day I signed up for Odac, I told myself I'd never be an active member.
And certains 'never's I told a certain geek
And when I left RJ, I said I'll miss the people, but I never thought I'd end up feeling sad over the thought of a building with just so many memories now being put to rest.

Do you know what I see when I think of RJ moving?
I see the sun setting over the track and the lights blink on, one by one in the specs gal. I see birds flying overhead to nest for the night as the echoes of Odacian voices and a basketball fade away and runners finish their last lap. I see the Odac room covered in a greyish hue, and the bean bag sits silently in its corner, the gel bottles have dried up and the immortalised words on the blackboard are wiped off. I see the few lingering councillors clear miscellaneous rubbish off the Council room patio, and behind it the ropes have come down from the rock wall and the gate is locked. And I see a bunch of 20 hungry, tired, sweaty (and probably stinky) Odacians leaving the Odac table in a delightful mess - which I'll never get to clear up - as they head to Ghim Moh for Johnson duck rice and a train noisily passes by for the last time...

Maybe it's time to pack away some memories in unlabelled cardboard boxes tied in sweet pink ribbons and let them set sail with the wind. Please stop haunting me...

Isn't my little sister just the sweetest! She wrote me a Friendster testimonial, albeit with lots of spelling mistakes and the most atrocious grammar. It's things like these that set us apart like chalk and cheese and it's almost an irony that we're carbon copies looks-wise.

The panic should be building up now. Yes, NOW! Less than 2 weeks to my first paper (analogue electronics which is as foreign to me as say, African studies!)

At the same time several people are turning 21 (and 19 in Lu's case). Just for their sakes, here are some shout outs that are due:

10th May : HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY MAGGIE!!!
Cheers to the dangerous scalpel wielding half of the dynamic duo!

11th May: HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY SOHA!!!
Who would have known that the first person I met at the fresher's reception would end up in the same hall as me, same department as me, and hang out in the same circle of friends as me! You owe us drinks, girl!

13th May: HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY LU!!! (in advance)
It's a pity you're still a minor. All the same: cheers to your last year of teenhood. Use it wisely! And NOT by absorbing all that alcohol!!!

My day's are being torn off swiftly like the pages of a calander. Maybe I should start a countdown too... as seems to be the culture swiftly taking over MSN nicks. 28 days to freedom. Panic rating 7/10. Nervous, Scared, Terrified! Never start really working till your nervousness has scared the hell out of you, and your scared self starts shaking with terror! *cough* that was pathetic...

A small dedication to the boys in my life***:

Between the innocence of babyhood and the dignity of manhood, we find a delightful creature called a boy. Boys come in assorted sizes,weights, and colors, but all boys have the same creed: to enjoy every second of every minute of every day and to protest with noise when the last minute is finished and they are packed off to bed.

Boys are found everywhere; on top of, inside of, climbing on, swinging from or running around or jumping to. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, older brothers and sisters tolerate them, adults ignore them and Heaven protects them. A boy is truth with dirt on its face, beauty with a cut on its finger, wisdom with bubble gum in its hair, and the hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.

When you are busy a boy is an inconsiderate nuisance, a bothersome jangle of noise. When you want to make an impression, his brain turns to jelly or else he becomes a savage sadistic jungle creature bent on destroying the world and him in it

A boy is a composite- he has the appetite of a horse, the digestion of a sword swallower, the energy of a pocket size atomic bomb, the curiosity of a cat, the lungs of a dictator, the imagination of Paul Bunyan, the shyness of a violet, the audacity of a steel trap, the enthusiasm of a fire-cracker, and when he makes something, he has six thumbs on each hand.

He likes ice-cream, saws, knives, the boy across the street, woods, water (in it's natural habitat), large animals, Dad, trains, and fire engines He is not much for Sunday School, company, schools, books without pictures, music lessons, neckties, barber shops, girls, overcoats, adults or bed time. Nobody else is so early to rise or so late to supper.

A boy is a magical creature - you can lock him out of your workshop, but not out of your heart. You can get him out of your study but not out of your mind.

Might as well give up. He is your captor, jailer, boss, and master - a pint sized bundle of noise - but when you come home at night with all the shattered pieces of hopes and dreams - he can mend them like new with the magic words: "Hi Dad" or "Hi Mom, I missed you."

~Adapted from the original by Alan Beck~ Essay submitted by: Harry Updegraff,Jr.

*** I hang around with way too many boys and not enough girls... But I wouldn't have it any other way... how could life be complete without my Odac boys, Bhai, Jere, Ravi, and co. or the Linstead boys and above all my little brother who will always be a little boy... ***

It's thunder-storming in London! Yes it is!

It's times like these that I miss home, and the good ol' rainy ODAC days. I am obviously NOT the rain god... because it doesn't rain enough in London.

Well it does... but it doesn't rain the way I want it to. Torrential buckets just sloshing from blue-grey skies - that's REAL rain. Not the constipated droplets we get throughout winter.

Writing a lab report in 4 hours, 3 hours before the deadline, should not be something to be proud of! To be repeated to self until insanely saturated, 5 times a day.

This term has produced the worst (or best?) procrastination track record I've ever come across! It doesn't help that I've been getting 'A's for all my assignments - it only propels my procrastination to greater heights! Every single essay, coursework or assignment this term has been completed minutes away from the deadline, sustained by caffeine overdose and the company of darkness. I seem to be addicted to putting a noose around my neck and then saving myself just before the weight is dropped and my precious little neck is fatally constricted.

3 more weeks to finals. I should really look into hermit lifestyle options.

Oh my gosh! Is it light outside already???

******

[Kitchen matters]
Had a really good dinner of French onion soup with garlic bread and grilled Chicken with Mango chutney, solely prepared by our novice cook, Lionel. My boyfriend is turning out to be a better cook than me... and this is only his 2nd try! I'm going to be demoted soon according to the standard's of Amar's QAA! Must buck up after exams are over.

The more free time you have the less the chances are of you spending it on working! Ever tried that?

Today is the second day of the long weekend. Bank Holidays aren't dished out generously enough, so don't mind me dancing with joy over a Monday holiday. Maybe my initial plan was to work my ass off and proudly produce a completed coursework, lab report and extensive knowledge on management by Monday, but my plans have screwed up as usual.

Beginning with a very long MSoc comm meeting in my room on Friday evening - 10 people thrashing out the Fresher's Reception, and then scaring Chien Liq silly with the 'Milkshake' video (the most violent reaction we've seen so far). [Half time advertisement - Have you got a wicked sense of humour? Then ebaumsworld is for you.] Followed by a walk to Odeon with the whole gang to see Kill Bill. (Dissapointing! Nothing can beat the style of the Oren Isii fight scenes. And Pai Mai? Honestly! Lame!). Came back at nearly 3 in the morning. Lionel and I put 2 garlic baguettes in the oven, fell asleep and woke up 40 minutes later to find the kitchen in smoke! Luckily the fire alarm didn't go off. No one would be amused at being woken up at 3 in the morning by a fire alarm.

Woke up really late on Saturday. Nah, woke up early enough... just couldn't get out of bed till 1pm. Then helped the DSTA girls carry the picnic stuff over to Hyde Park for Kai Leng's birthday picnic. Played frisbee with the Singaporeans in the cold... brrr... Need a proper coat! I think I'll go look at the pink ones at High Street soon. Did other miscellaneous and unblogworthy stuff and I still haven't started on work yet. I amaze myself at how well I can waste a day!

Wouldn't it be lovely if bluebells were pinkbells? Actually, I quite like them the way they are. The pink ones aren't brilliant enough. I think I might just pick a bunch and put them in a vase in my room. I'm almost done with killing my palm tree anyway.

I can't read my own newspapers anymore. The rape and incest articles are getting sicker by the day. And it's taking every effort in my not so tiny being not to hurl something heavy at the Defence Minister over the NS stupidities. Wasting lives.

My clock needs batteries! So it can stop tricking me into thinking I have another hour to sleep in when in reality I'm already 15 minutes late in getting up!

Going to look at what was described as an 'unusual apartment' by the property agents tomorrow. It sounds like a dream house, and the more Lionel calls it 'the Haunted House', the more endearing it's becoming to me. Should really lower my expectations or be completely bummed out tomorrow.

United Nations?

Last month, a worldwide survey was conducted by
the UN. The only question asked was: "Would you
please give your honest opinion about solutions to
the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure.

In Africa, they didn't know what "food" meant. In
Eastern Europe, they didn't know what "honest"
meant and in Western Europe, they didn't know what
"shortage" meant.

In China, they didn't know what "opinion" meant
while in the Middle East, they didn't know what
"solution" meant.

In South America they didn't know what "please"
meant and in the USA, they didn't know what "the
rest of the world" meant.

(East African Standard - 22 April 2004)

from Sachpal...

[quote] Even what they mention about Capricorn Women is also rather true. Charl ...you seem to posses all the points they mentioned.[unquote]

Really, Pal? Lets see how true it is...

CAPRICORN WOMAN

A tall slim, cool and quiet woman. Once she is mad she can be very fierce. She can work better than some men and she is a very highly confident woman. In her opinion, a woman is not just a flower or decoration at home or in the office and certainly not the weaker sex who needs protection.
//on the right track so far...

She likes to control and hide her weak emotions. She will never try to change anyone, but she will learn to accept them as they are. If she does not like someone, she will not comment or criticize but she will completely ignore that person.
//but you forgot to mention how much i bitch about people i dislike! *cough* ngai *cough*

She hates plastic and artificial flowers because it makes her feel that you are not being sincere. She loves real flowers and their scent. She loves a guy who wears after shave cologne. If you are the type of a guy who wears your jeans for one month before washing or old sneakers you can forget about her.
//i'm not crazy about the after shave... especially not if you bathe in it like rich arckless does and permeate the whole landing in your scent

She loves music and nature. She loves to go for picnics in natural surroundings, so if you don't have so much time for her, you can take her fishing too.
//hmm... i do like fishing, as long as i don't have to deal with the hook...

She is not as jealous as Aquarius or Leo women, but do not cross the line. Its better not to see her get mad, especially in public when she feels like losing face. She loves to make up and dress perfectly and very neatly, so never rush her in this matter.
//yeah, yeah... everyone in PJ knows how long I take to get ready for... anything!

She has her own goals in life and does not care if you have a doctorate degree, if she thinks you are not bright then she will not care about you at all. She likes smart people by character not by the certificate shown. If you can not show her this quality, go and take a bus and go to the next stop.
//haha! i like the part about taking a bus to the next stop...

She does not like a dreamer who talks about his dream but never put it in action to make it happens. Don't bother to tell her "everyone is doing it, you should do it too", or "I think you should do it, it's good for you", because she will do what only she wants to do.
//really? but i don't like being in control all the time...

She is a neat and tidy person, so if your apartment is a pigsty, do not take her there. If you go out on a date with her, try to be presentable such as nice and clean clothes, clean nails or else it will be your last date.
//obsessive compulsive...

She is a cool type and will not nag, so easy on your ears. She is a slow but sure type. She will always respect and honor you and will never try to make you lose face. If she loves you, she will help you in anything you do.
//but i thought i nag... Odac says I do...

She likes to help people and expects nothing in return. If she asks you for a favor and does not get one, she will feel very disappointed. She has a high hopes and strong faith and beliefs in her own confidence rather than believing in "Luck".
//uh-huh

If she is your wife, you will have nice and clean home and gourmet cooking. If your parents visit your house, they will be pleased. She is a 3 in 1 - a perfect mother, a perfect housewife, a perfect wife or you could live "happily ever after".
//oh reeeally... actually i believe the nice and clean home bit... not too sure about the gourmet cooking...

Due to a minor cooking accident yesterday, (you don't leave beef goulash to simmer on an electric stove and then go to sleep, my dear!), Lionel and I discovered a miraculous cleaning agent!

Imagine my dismay this morning when I found Ruby's pot covered in a thick layer of burnt goulash, and no amount of scrubbing was going to make it disappear. I tried soaking the pot in hot water. Nothing. I got Lionel to bring down a bottle of vinegar from Amar (apple white wine vinegar?? what the heck! what kind of wussy vinegar is that, Amar? Only 6% acidic!), boiled it in hot water and soaked the pot in it. Didn't do much good besides stinking up the kitchen. Tried asking around my landing for baking soda but surprisingly nobody bakes! Searched my room, but the only thing acidic enough was orange juice... which I still wanted to drink. So eventually I went up to the upper gallery to buy a can of diet coke (no, not because I'm a health freak but because it was the only kind of coke left!).

By that time Lionel had managed to scrub out most of the burnt goulash with elbow grease, but some bits were just clinging on stubbornly. So we covered the remaining stubborn bits with coke and watched it fizz and bubble for awhile. Sometime later, after a hilarious webcam and msn audio conversation with mao-mao and indirectly with Lu, went back out to wash the pot and voila! The stains were so much easier to remove. Thanks to Coca Cola! Just a pH of 2.8!

Now imagine what that does to your insides! Mmmm... cola burn...

Today is belittle myself day...

picking on my bad habits because I'm just not in a studying mood
some bad habits I really should give up

1. Rarely combing my hair (if ever at all!). My hairbrush is for decorative purposes... but it's really pretty and purple and sparkly!
2. Putting too much sugar/honey in my tea/coffee/milo/barley/soya bean milk...
3. Hunching over my desk when I study
4. Lying on my bed while trying to read notes
5. Not exercising

...to be continued when I feel like procrastinating some more...

ps: What was your worst bad habit today? Mocking msn nicks perhaps? Bitching? Not washing up the dishes?
pps: Can't complete this list by myself. Additions are welcome. I'm in a self destructive mood.

Procrastination is so tempting.

So is sleeping while outside my window Princes Gardens is being covered by passing rain clouds, and a light curtain of rain sings me softly to sleep. My duvet is much too cosy and cuddly for my own good. I think I have an obsession for cuddling things - hence the many many huggable pillows in my room. But they aren't enough.

Today marks 4 days and counting... I can soon be charged for notes neglection. The fear of failing hasn't started the adrenaline bubbling yet. Come on, Charlotte! Put away your obsession with the dinner accounts, secretary work and rearranging your room and start mugging! NOW! And don't give me that LOOK!

Latest craze running around MSN - Confucius' alternative sayings. Just a sample here.

The Raffles Move and Groove is on May 9th... and I can't make it! Not fair! I wonder if the Mt. Sinai campus will still be there to visit when I get back?

Woke up to find Mother Nature sniffling and sneezing. [cue loud long hollow "NOOOOO!!!!!"]
It's the beginning of the cold week. It's all very fair here. The sun gets to shine for one week, then the gloom gets its turn to settle in and rain us in for another week. The MSoc committee are all on their knees praying (almost impossibly) for sunshine next Friday, or else there will be some very drenched and cold graduating seniors at the farewell picnic in Hyde Park.

Yesterday I pulled the most expensive rope at the high price of 4.30 pounds! At our great president's call, most of the MSoc comm bought a 4.30 quid ticket to travel all the way down to Canada Water to participate in the UKEC traditional games. And of course true to Murphy's law all the traditional games were cancelled. Except tarik tali (tug of war or literally 'pull rope'). So, to make the most of our ticket we pulled rope. And lost. Which wasn't surprising seeing the number of girls on our team and the absolute lack of girls on the other team. But we held on for an amazing half a minute. Go IC girls!

Have to get my butt out of this chair and get dressed. The first thing on my schedule today reads - Go to High Comm. for Supreme Council Meeting. Must go make some coffee. Falling asleep in front of the High Commissioner might make it on my list for most embarrassing incidents yet!

I think I talk to myself too much. And that is scary.

Eccentricity runs in my family. I'm well aware of that. It's on both sides. And I swear that's the only thing that makes my family interesting. One day I'll write a book about them and all their quirks, which inevitably I have adopted through time. No one who was sane ever made an interesting story anyway.

And I realise I shouldn't really be thinking about things like this in front of my signals notes. They look very disapproving. I'll tell you more when they aren't looking.

Picnic Time!
I wasn't born optimistic enough to believe in perfect days. But today would come quite close. Lying on the grass in the sun at Hyde Park, I just can't help but think that in 2 years of ODAC I never really laid back and stared at the clearest of blue skies through hundreds of outstretched fingers of tree branches spotted with budding leaves while fluffy cotton candy clouds roll by sporadically... and forget all about my signals notes, lying miserably inside my bag (you stay in there and stop haunting me!).
I feel terrible for hating the scorching heat of the sun back home. Here I lap up every minute of it. You don't take sunshine for granted in London. Loads of tuna sandwhiches and hot dog buns with HP bbq sauce and onions, a frisbee and a soccer ball and the whole of Hyde Park just seems to belong to us because the sun is out. From soccer to ultimate frisbee to volley ball to captains ball, an entire afternoon just passes by in a blink of an eye. It should be a crime to work on a day like this.

And I shall commit my first offence for the day starting now.

It's 4am and I can't sleep and it's too hot and I can't understand macromodels and it's always about me, me, me, me...

Wonder if narcissism is an inherent nature or a result of nurture. Trust my mother to have brought me up citing vanity and self admiration as one of more important principles in life. No, really. Ask her how she manages to look 30-ish when she's really over 50 (no, never lie about age, she said) and she'd reply "I'm very vain, that's all".

Why is it so difficult to study when it's light outside and the sun is beckoning you to come out and play? What am I going to do when the dark hours get shorter and shorter? Don't think becoming nocturnal is too bad a way of life, is it?

Random beatly info:

Body Shop's brazil nut body butter is the most yummiliciously divine thing!

A letter to Chris:

Dear Chris,
Why no updates?
Well, erm, I haven't got anything I really want to spill to the whole world about my life right now.
I really should be studying and understanding those straggling chapters on analogue but I'm not really.
I could be tidying up secretary work but there isn't anything left to do.
I should be posting up photos of my Easter holidays, but I look at the close to 2000 photos still left and give up.
I could be out there enjoying the sun, and... well actually that was what I was doing yesterday.
Guess I'm just a little tied up at the moment.
Will post something if anything interesting passes my way.
There! Aren't you proud to have a whole post dedicated to you?

Cheers, Charl

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.

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

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

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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.

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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:
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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...