I am so weird

I am only into the first sentence of Glare's article and I already catch myself asking, rhetorically, 'Why on earth am I attempting translation with my current standard of japanese?' And to think that my drive for Bunka has been expiring lately. Goodness, there is the I3 final exam tomorrow. I did horribly for the mid term and here I am blogging about it instead of studying for it! There goes.

What a paradox. This tiredness I have for Bunka is absolutely contrary to my desire to finish up the translation, move over to livejournal, start my first post with it, and join the Deluhi community, among others. I fear that this may be the start, though God forbid, to the metamorphoses into a fangurl. The kind that in all honesty I have always disliked - those with the inflated dream of 'mastering' japanese when all they really want to say is 'kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii', 'sugooooooooooooooooi, 'aiishiiiteeiiiruuu' and working in japan (read: PS Company only).

Or maybe my lack of enthusiasm for serious japanese studying could be due to this weird sense of organization I have that leans dangerously towards an OCD. Here goes: I generally try to tailor my schedule toward two extremes, either a very packed one or one that is totally slack. I find that I thrive on the adrenaline of a packed schedule, and the haste actually releases tremendous amounts of endorphins that in turn trigger a flustered demeanour. But, when it is time to relax, I want to do nothing but that either. Hence, I find it hard to maintain a holiday diet of slacking and reading, key word being 'and'. Yet, I somehow cannot resist squeezing some reading time, for my own books, during those working/schooling days! Hence, I am strangely looking forward to cramming next week onwards with:

1.Teaching (goodness my official working hours are from 7:30am to 5:00pm, and I am well aware that the hours in print always undercut what really happens)
2. Translating and setting up a livejournal account
3. Reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (I already want to read Moby Dick after this)
4. Finishing up I4 (yes, what a paradox! I somehow have this compulsion to finish up the intermediate series before I leave for...)
5. Korea and hence the need to settle my exchange matters.

Woohoo!

In preparation for moving

Let's get straight to the point: I will be moving to Livejournal, soon.

I have gotten sick and tired of the techincal issues that plague realrandomramble here at blogspot, and the feedback that I've received from current livejournal users seems to promise that things over at the latter are more smooth-sailing.

Another aspect that makes livejournal stand out from the likes of wordpress, blogspot and all would be its communities. Jie has been having loads of fun with the communities there, Deluhists being one of them, and I know I'm missing out!

There is a reason behind my procrastination, a good one at that!, which would unveil itself when I finally move.

Till then, I still cannot decide on the name for my livejournal account. I was contemplating keeping realrandomramble, but I did toy with other ideas as well.

Any suggestions?

This Blog was Meant for so much more

I should be utilizing this blog a lot more that what I am currently doing.

This should be an easily accessible place for me to practise my writing skills, for who is to stop me from writing about anything I want? Each post could be something wholly different from its precedent and antecedent. In one post I can be the quiet girl who sits a top a hill, overlooking the ongoings of a busy farm, and in another I am the gossip girl who needs to gripe about somebody. And I could always come back to the posts later to edit them.

So, why not?

Brutal Honesty

There are some people who wield bluntness as a tool to stroke their self-esteem. More often than not, these people possess rock-bottom self-esteem to begin with, and the only way for them to boost their ego is by lashing out at everybody and anybody, but especially so at those who believe in themselves with a confidence that these people can only envy from a side. Hence, blutness becomes their flimsy shield and blunt - quite literally - sword, which they then lash impulsively in all directions against everybody in the most uncalled for, unnecessary, unjustified ways.

Then, there are some who use bluntness as a good sculptor would wield his sharp carving tools. I'd like to call this tool brutal honesty, a medicine which may cause a wound to sear at a higher intensity of pain than bluntness, but only to heal and mend a lack.

I have met many of such people, from both groups. I acknowledge that the first group have helped me, somehow, in learning to not care, or at the least, care less. But it is the second group for which I am very grateful. I hope you guys know who you are, and to name a few, Daddy, Mommy, Jie, John. I really appreciate the fact that praise is only given when it is truly deserved, but encouragement is in ready supply at all times. In your brutal honesty, you have been very kind to me.

Love,

Tessa

Pulau Sibu

I had a splendid time at Pulau Sibu. Splendid mainly because of the great company I had :)

Such that, if I were to nitpick and squeeze out a complain about the 3 days there, I can only say that the au natural conditions of an island with powder soft sand and a densely packed secondary forest wrecked its wrath on my concrete jungle skin.

I am pockmarked, bursting at the seams with puss, my skin a darker shade from sun exposure, and redder from contact with some objective that my oily-combination sensitive skin did not sit well with.

I have to resist the urge to tuck my face behind any object I am holding at the said moment every time I walk past someone.

That being said, I am fuelled by the adrenaline which was garnered over the 3 days of excitement at being out of Singapore - for a holiday at that - and many physical activities which I did for the first time in my life! I have this sudden urge to go out, everywhere, be it the shopping mall, sungei buloh again and what not.

But, somehow, going out has a directly proportional relationship with my daily expenditure. If I want my next overseas trip to be as splendid as this one, the spending will not do.

A Shopping Trip

Today marks the start of many new things. One of it being that, for the very first time in my life, I shopped alone.

This pioneering experience took place at Charles & Keith. To be honest, I never paid much attention to Charles & Keith, let alone think of making my first solo purchase there. In fact, I would not have actually entered the shop if not for the thoughtful vouchers from Charmaine, Matthew, Sharon and Jarett when Charmaine realized I needed new shoes. My ignorance of the said brand turned out to be a blessing too, when, after googling it (because I did not even know where to find it), it turned out that the outlet at ION was having massive price cuts for a wide selection of shoes, bags and sunglasses.

I sojourned to ION alone after Jie left for class, hoping to pick out a pair of sneakers in a jiffy and head over to starbucks for a coffee as I complete my homework. I did not expect shopping alone to be such a difficult balance, quite literally, of aesthetic and price judgment with a constant heightened surveillance of my surroundings.

Being alone meant that there was no one to help me watch my bag, and back. It sure did not help that barely a few minutes after I walked in, a customer dashed to the counter to make a frantic plea for her lost Iphone. I momentarily suspected that the trio of thai trannies, who had sauntered in earlier and left after trying a ton of items but not buying any, were somehow involved in it. That incident got me all paranoid and I proceeded to try on the shoes all while balancing my heavy bag on one shoulder and holding on to my current shoes with the other hand. All while using my one free hand, which was weighed down my the bag, to take the heels off high shelves and untie laces. Even after I got the shoes on, one of which required navigating through a seriously intricate web of black lace, it was then time to jostle amongst the crowd which had formed in front of the store's limited mirrors. Then came the tricky balance of walking in 4 inch heels (which I have not worn in ages), while carrying the bag and the shoes, in order to gauge the comfort. I continued this art of tipping, bending, squeezing, trying, looking, walking, amidst some help from the rather attentive service staff, before finally settling on a pair of white gladiator sandals.

(I was about to post a picture of my feet in the shoes. But I refrained, reason being the horribly thick cankles encased within them, courtesy of a movement-restraining exam period and the awesome penang buffet last night, I shall upload a better photograph when I deem my ankles fit!)

Anyway, Jie and I had an awesome time at Bobbi Brown and F.I.S.H. after that! I cannot help but smile in pleasant anticipation that today was a sneak peak at what's to come in June. I'm sure we'll have a blast then!

I am back, but I might be leaving soon.

Exams are over.

I have probably said that phrase many times, in many ways. I remember almost shrieking it out loud a friend, a day late actually, since her exams ended one day after mine. But I also recall saying it softly with a stinging resign as I came to a full realization that now comes the agonizing waiting part.

That being said, I must get back to blogging regularly. But Blogspot is not exactly the most conducive platform for this.

What Matters the Most!

Is to make lemonade!

Where is my thumbdrive?

Somebody please tell me, please return it to me.

How could this happen?

How could I have been so careless?

So I came back empty handed from the HSS FAL and office today and Hwee Hsia, Lynn, J, Chee Seng and Wai Ji for lunch. As great as my company was, I was still harbouring that horrible sense of dread and self-flagellating guilt, such that I hopped onto the cheap thrill bandwagon - think, a bowl of dry yong tau foo smothered with ladles of sauce. Goodness, typing this now just makes me feel even more stupid. Comforting myself over the loss of an expensive thumbdrive with a portion of Canteen B quality food (think: we're only there because we don't have time to go elsewhere).

Anyway, I decided to venture for a 40cents a piece item (double whammy indeed. My cheap thrill was really cheap) and would have settled for the fried wonton (oh goodness. Double irony!) if not for the huge ball of fried mass that caught my eye. So yes, I went for that huge mass of deep fried goodness, the last item after scooping a hard boiled egg into my bowl, only to discover that the former was indeed an egg too, wrapped in a thick coating of fried batter.

Kena Jacked.

Having made that dreaded phone call a couple of weeks ago to transfer my I3 class to a post-exam date, all I was resigned to do today was sit at the dimly lit Starbucks opposite Delfi Orchard and watch enviously as trickles of students clutching an all too familiar textbook made the all too familiar crossing past the precarious junction and into the building (I noted once again that most of these students were female, with hair dyed in varying shades of brown or blonde or both, and possessing at least one item related to Arashi, NEWS, Kattun and occasionally, Gazette).

I attempted to drown myself in The Yellow Wave as I sipped from a large mug of half-kick caffe mocha that got rapidly cold and unpalatable when it started to rain and I moved to the small indoor seating area. Where did the other half of the kick go to?

Somehow channeled into the kick I gave myself for letting an opportune moment to pursue one of my favourite hobbies pass by.

Halpz.

How often do I blog from school? Usually only when I fall into a lull, the latter of which are typically induced by periods of not knowing what to do (read: lazy? or in some cases, when I am simply too fatigued to do any more reading or writing essays).

And now, the lull has been induced by yet another 'almost an all nighter' incident. This time it ended an hour earlier though, at 4:30? am I think, but my eyes were weak then, it might have been another time....

Lynn is here...i am leaving :(

The Signs are Here!

A chance memory slip today rendered me noteless in today's HL328 class. But I do remember printing the secondary source though, its just that I could not find it. So I ended up sitting next to Ismath in order to share the notes with her. And I happened to see how much of a furious note taker she was. Compared to my skimpy etchings in my notebook. Blame this on my weakening attention span these days. And blame that on my lack of exercise. I cannot stop harping on this paradox that the more I run, the more drive I have.

I. Need. To. Run.

Totally unrelated photographs of a potentially fatherless family of cats I met on my way home.

Confession

One of the stupidest mistakes I ever made was to pass on the chance of running for Student Council Exco back in junior college.

I did stand a high chance.

And I passed it up for the stupidest reason ever.

What is an unemotional being?

The Food Dilemna

I often display completely irrational decision making skills when it comes to food. I would choose a hawker centre over a food court anytime, but rather endure the long months of necessary saving to dine at a restaurant then wait for a month's worth of collected shillings for a night at a cafe.

It seems that I like to swing to either side of the spectrum. And thinking about it, I do have some rational nonsense for my irrationality.

What for pay up to $3 more for food at a food court when you can access a hawker centre? There is something incredibly alluring about the raw and gritty feel of eating wok fried goodness of greasy plates amidst the cacophony and tight squeezes of a noontime crowd that I would not trade for a gust of air conditioning. Blame my typical Singaporean mentality for this!

And, I do think that it is worth the wait to save up for a good meal at a reputable restaurant, then to spend about half the price for a meal at a cafe which probably tastes only a 1/4 as good. Which reminds me, does anybody want to go to Hiroki88@ Dempsey ? Might take me a year to save up, but I do think it'll be worth it!

Sticky Screen

I spent so many hours with my eyes pasted to the screen today.

First it was sorting out exchange stuff in the morning, then the trip in the afternoon, then now again, putting the final touches in place at night.

I actually vowed, after the headache starting to creep in late afternoon, that I would not turn on the computer tomorrow. Not even to check my email.

I wonder if I could really keep to that.

A Really Random Post

In this post, you will find information, randomly placed.


I almost did not want to put this picture here, for fear that you might think that this random allocation style of working is my style of management. But it was too unique a picture to stay hidden in the depths of my D drive for too long. Even closer than the Tessarina condo, which I was hoping so badly I could stay in. So, disclaimer here : I am not haphazard with my work! This is just a picture!
This random picture captures my dessert which I shared with Dad and Jie at the Bedok Hawker Centre. The Green syrup tasted more like Kiwi than, and there was not gula melaka - a must have with chendol - but it was still great! This reminds me of that particular dessert store in Chinatown which sells ice kachang topped by only one flavouring - gula melaka - but still tastes a whole lot more flavourful than those multi-coloured, ice-cream and chocolate rice topped ones you get at foodcourts.
Mango Shaved Ice, from the same stall. Incredibly smooth and tasty ice shavings.

I am so thankful to Jie for introducing me to the wonders of www.mysoju.com .

Once the holiday swings by, I log on, choose a random show from the Korean/Japanese offerings and watch it till I want to stop. I started with 'Dear Friends', it could not get past the 1:00min mark due to the faulty connection, and the lack of an engaging plot which prevented me from hitting F5. Now I'm on to 'The Chaser'.

Can you string together 'serial killer, prostitute, deaths, stabbed'? I guess I have read of a number of serial killers who murder prostitutes by stabbing them. But I might have left out another word though - impotence. Apparently, it is common for these type of serial killers to be impotent men.
Imagine a man, driven to so much shame, anger, pain by his inability to have an erection that he has to seek an alternative phallus. In this case, a chisel. Which he hammers into a woman's head to exhibit the ultimate display of authority to her.

Almost an All-Nighter

There is this love-hate relationship I have with pulling all-nighters. Not that I have actually, the furthest I have gone was to finally shut down my laptop at 5:30am this morning after stringing together a bunch of words and quotations from The Island of Doctor Moreau and pepper them with punctuation, and call it an essay. I submitted that chunk of writing some 11.5 hours later, at 5pm, after a quick, but necessarily fervent prayer for the Good Lord's mercy.

I do not like to turn in late. In fact, I often wish, and try to hit the sack by midnight. Yet, logging off msn while the majority of my friends are still online is somehow unsettling. I cannot help but formulate some equation which goes like: sleeping early = not working as hard :-S Furthermore, hearing the choruses of 'I didn't sleep at all last night' ringing everywhere after one of those '3 essays and presentation and text' week after waking up from the comparatively long 6 hours or so I had only serves to send trains of 'omg what if I could have spent those extra hours editing' through my head.

So, why the exception this morning? I'd like to think that it was a genuine case of writer's block. I remember reading sections of the novel over and over again, writing out various ideas, typing sentence after sentence which had no relation together, and it was only at 1am that I managed to force some sense of cohesion to my thoughts. I droned out word by word, my typing frequently interrupted by rearranging paragraphs and editing my thesis statement, till I hit the 3:30am mark. Jie went off to sleep first. Amazingly, it felt as if I was writing the essay at 3:30pm. I was wide awake, typing and hitting backspace, editing, doing whatever I could for an essay which was due that very same day. I was never in such a situation before, and beneath the panic that was gripping me as the minute hand ticked by, I felt this sense of excitement. As I hit 4am, I stopped for a moment to wonder if I should actually sleep at all. But I had to shelve that thought as quickly as it appeared when I realized I was only at the 600 word mark. 5am beckoned and the sleepiness kicked in. It was way too late to turn back then, I had to soldier on. There was this strange allure to pulling an all-nighter for my essay. I had finally experienced this quintessentially university phenomenon.

Amazingly, the earlier experienced onset of tiredness dissipated when I actually hit the sack. I had trouble going to sleep, and no trouble getting up on time for school. But, it was in school that I was reduced to a 'zombie' state. I finally understood what it meant, to feel that sense of mild dizziness and reduced senses despite normal functioning of the limbs. That was scary enough. It was a state of mind paralysis I never want to experience again.

So, no more all nighters for me!

I have come to realize that of the many times when I go 'oh, but I did my best already' as I sigh forlorn at bad outcomes, a large percentage were actually the result of anything but 'my best already'.

Why, self, did this revelation come so late?

Crossing

I initially reckoned that the fact that I was scheduled to present assignment 2 on week 6 was a blessing indeed. How much more I could have done with that extra week! However, that simply meant I would have to report to school at 9am on the Wednesday after the Chinese New Year week though Wednesday, with classes beginning only at 2:30pm, is usually my dedicated 'sleep in' day. Nothing much to gripe about though, since Dad, having taken a look at the bulky accesory package of tripod stand and camera declared 'you NEED a lift' and offered to give me one.



The journey to school was largely uneventful apart from Dad's occasional one-liners. I eventually lapsed into a similar silence too, and started to car-watch, noticing a really rundown boneshaker throttling along with an old man behind the wheel, a permed red pouffant hair aunty in her mercedes benz, till the traffic came to a major and sudden stop.



I was all ready to dismiss it with 'must have been some drunkard driving home after last minute CNY binging' or 'bet someone did not get a good night sleep after all that festivitity' till the offending cause of the multi-car slowdown came walking towards our car.

I could not believe how the offender, despite having made tons of cars and trucks and several heavy vehicles slam their brakes, could continute to stroll across all 3 lanes, ignorant of the resounding symphony of car horns and flashing brake lights. It took a whole of 5 minutes for the offender to get across to the Chevron marking before Dad could resume normal speed and continued the drive to school.

Maybe it was the shock of seeing how the offender did not match my initial profile image, but I did not manage to whisk out my camera phone in time to snap a picture. Either way, I really should have, because there was something very visually intriguing about him/her (preciesely! the gender was unclear). Nevermind, I managed to procure a picture of the internet which bore a remarkable resemblance to the offender.

And here it is:

It was a dog......

My goodness!

Oh my goodness indeed. It has been so long since I touched this blog, and I feel like jumping platform to tumblr.

Water stop!

Option 1 : The past 4 days have been crazy...

Option 2: It must have been the hectic craziness of the past 4 days leading up to today's presentation, that I remained completely numb during the 2 pop quizzes thrown at me yesterday and today...

Option 3: I had to take care of 2 babies over the past 4 days. It was crazy. One couldn't speak, the other was just plain slow.

Option 4: I'm so glad the presentation is over, and that it went well.

4 options to being this blog post, with all 4 being wholly formulaic types.

I used the word 'crazy' in 3 of them, and '4' in all 4 of them. Ok, at least I got the latter accurate. As for 'crazy', maybe there could be a better word.

Just that I cannot think of it now.

From School

I almost decided not to blog from the school computer, for I was afraid of spying eyes that would only be thwarted by a hunched back and rapid slamming of the keys in 'alt + tab' sequence.

I was right!

We leapt.

So we took the first leap.

The money has been spent. Everything should follow through neatly thereafter, I think. I hope. I pray it would.

I am wondering if I actually spent too much time in the imagined community, such that facing up to reality is too much I can bear.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

And it goes rolling and rolling

and then it comes to a sudden stop as the screech rings out, piercing the windscreen. Sometimes, the screech from the passenger is even louder then the tyre as it burns against the asphlat.

Are they right? Am I such a bad driver that I should never have passed the exam? They being a couple of taxi drivers too?

Or am I right? That maybe if a triangle plate branded driver could actually drive sans the worry of having to swerve and veer to screams and late instructions, and not have to answer to silly questions like 'Have you been practicing your driving?', I could actually drive better.

Or maybe its just both.

My lousy camera

Every promise I make myself to blog about my SBWR and PRP trips is always shredded to smithereens at the sight of square after square of blurred pixels in my FIELD TRIP folder.

The lousy moment capturing device embedded within my phone never does justice to colours, angles, light etc. At the very least, it could render a large chunk of a bright colour rather nicely. like this.

This was taken shortly after the owner of the jacket (not picture above) excused herself to the washroom. Thereafter, the subject made a beeline for the parka, slipped it on, caressed his newly clad arms and smugly repeated 'so smoooooooooth'.

The parka is retailing for $19.90. As the older sister, should I?

Photographs!

I dragged this deep fried chicken head from the corner of the 'mango deep fried chicken in mint sauce'. It was cleverly concealed under a heap of parsley; I lifted it from beneath because it was still attached by a piece of meat? vein? to the neck.

No, I did not eat it.

Left: 1/2 7up 1/2 tiger beer. Courtesy of Mum.

Middle: Warm water flavoured with essence of a very popular soft drink.

Right: Acidic tea.

What a waste.