in between the mugging

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
- C.S Lewis

WHEE

hi guys!! that's me on the first beach ive seen in the UK. its at canterbury... hee. its a pebble beach. no sand. anyway. i havent talked to any of u for the longest time!! damn sad. fuzz and i are going to france this winter if all works out.. yup.. oh and im going to the gym and doing yoga regularly. haha.. proud of me or not, my fellow ex-jocks?? crap. im very incoherent. chim i wish you could come down london. its like quite near the west coast rite? (ok its not).. and shup u got the mike but i never see u online liao, think im going online the wrong time.. take care y'all.

feels like such a long time (:

stop this day and night with me and
you shall possess the origin of all poems,
you shall possess the good of the earth
and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
you shall no longer take things at second
or third hand, nor look through the eyes
of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books, you shall not look through my
eyes either, nor take things from me,
you shall listen to all sides and filter
them from your self. - Walt Whitman

have a good week guys. (i changed it back to pink)

i have acquired a new baby

called Mike.

hah! so now u guys can skype me, and poor jo wont have to carry out one way conversations with me :)

road trip #1

hello!

fuzzy, the dream of poca and pokey is slowly coming true. ask fuzzy or me what the pocapokey dream is someday. but the point is, ROAD TRIP. it sounds so restless right. This is us on the car we rented. I think we look like a bunch of disaffected youth:

it began with a tingly anticpatory 4 hour ride in the soft dusk and dark night to the hotel we stayed in. then we went on this hike up this humongous dome thing and at the beginning of the hike it actually snowed, which was a magical moment, resulting in this picture where we look very cold:

But the summit was worth the hike, and i felt like the queen of the hill looking at the vast valley around us amidst the whipping wind:

Queen of the Valley!

I thought it couldn't get any better, but we went on to Glacier Point, where I felt so insignificant next to jing1 zhen3 tou2 (golden pillow that has a mystical quality over people), the Half Dome:

Then proceeded to feel like a nymph at a pond. We clambered over a million rocks at the site of a waterfall that had frozen or dried up cos of the impending winter, and arrived at a little pool of water. I had to be hauled up a rock longer than me very unglamly cos muscular chim is now flabby humji chim i'm afraid. it was damn fun though, climbing rocks:

this is but a fraction of the rocks.

finally, at the end of the first day at yosemite national park, the world was suddenly bathed in gold and sepia tones as the sun set, and the trees and valley were so gorgeous that as blissful as i was, i couldn't help but ache as you guys weren't there with me. guess i'm forging memories with new people, just as you fuzzy are enjoying the company of those hot roomies of yours hehehe. i can't describe how happy i was, even with the stupid history exam at the back of my head, even with the fatigue in my bones. i was just filled with a glorious warmth, and i wanted you all to feel it too =( i wonder if the people with me felt it too.

ok somehow i can't add more photos so this is it i guess. chim is happy even though chim screwed up history. jo and shu ping, please learn from me and DON'T BE LAST MINUTE all the time. it ruins your body clock. and fuzzy... your housemate is delectable. can i visit you?

this city now doth.. wear the beauty of the morning

i really like it here.. i like living in a house full of great people, amongst which are people i can really click with. ( so far, at least) i love my course, i like waking up and looking at the sky brighten to blue from my bed, in my attic room :) two nights ago me and 2 other housemates (mike and laura) got lost for 2 hours walking around town at night, all the shops are closed at 5, would you believe. (me: what! shops only close at 9 or 11) (them: we want to go to singapore!) having chippy and trying to get back to uni. when we got home it was freezing, so mike lighted up all the stoves (which i have yet to use.. i'm having an affair with the microwave riight now) and we kinda put our hands over them and we had yorkshire tea. up to my room for a chat and to look up what the 5th teenage mutant ninja turtle's name was (turns out there are only FOUR of them. oh, the agony) i can't say if i'll be happy here yet, because it's still early days. but considering i had no expectations about this place, it's shaping up pretty good

hey guys..
because (1) i've never posted a picture before
(2) i just got hold of some pics
(3) im too tired to write much else
(4) you can find a thousand words in a picture ( ha)
here you go..

this is one of my project groups ( 2 guys short though). we are rather familiar with each other, can you tell? after a billion projects together, it is really no wonder. sigh.

deja vu as i grapple with statistics again, only that its not nicely summarized and my textbook is super thick. sat myself down in the reading room just now from 9pm to 2am trying to make sense of it. ( in between checking out my eyecandies hehe) stats.. phooey!

chim- i love how u always (try to) support my bitchiness haha! =)

fuzz- pictures! your place sounds very pretty

jo- hope u're painting london red! haha.

ughhhhhhhhh

here's just a wise word of advice to you my frens,
BITCH WITH CAUTION.
look left, look right ( just like when you cross the road!), look front, look back, and if need be, look up, look down before you bitch. especially if the bitching is not particularly warranted, just an impulsive mean-spirited shooting-off-your-mouth thing.
note: this is coming after a traumatic episode and i am most penitent. =(

hello from ha-li-fax

i won't be getting the internet for quite some time.. can't afford it for now. (that time i was online, jo, i was sponging off someone's wireless. haha. but it didn't last for v long) so don't expect pictures or anything as yet... just to say i'm here and not in some other place where i'm not supposed to be. the train ride was like going on a farm safari.. saw lambs? goats? i dunno. and cows. loads of them. like in the new zealand cow milk powder ad.ok la i exaggerate. just occasional glimpses.but its sprawling fields of green over here :) which is a gd change. this week has and will continue to be really busy.. i go to bed feeling completely knackered. (hoho. i'm using knackered.) but its a good feeling. till next time when i pop by the computer lab.. take care you guys

ps/ jo i take back the change the template.. this is too sombre! i thought you could fiddle with it and make err your own. haha. aiyah make us all administrators!

good things come in threes

here's the third post in a row cos well, good things come in threes! anyway:
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
this weekend was supposed to be cheongsuah weekend to make up for next weekend's road trip to yosemite, but of course stupid procrastination and the horrible mantra that keeps on playing in my head, telling me that i'm not supposed to be studying all the time and i must enjoy my time here. i don't think i'm supposed to be enjoying myself this much either! where's my happy medium? now the happiness from a good weekend has a bitter edge because of two papers due tomorrow and a ton of reading to actually do those papers and much-needed preparation for two midterms coming up. ARGH. I seem to have lost the momentum and that essential entheos for my work =(
on reflection however, i wouldn't give up watching The Shining at 1am with other humji people for anything either. I need more than 24 hours a day...
please whip me in spirit and make sure i MUG mondaytuesdaywednesdaythursday. Actually there's com service on thursday oh i'm so screwed i conclude.
Back to the bloody value of poetry and emily dickinson.

gr

jo you got drunk?! i hope it's with the right person k. don't be too wild or at least be wild with friends you can trust cos now you don't have chim to protect you in london. remember our poor predecessor!

darn

hi all i just wrote comments to everyone in reply to jo's latest post and then realised it could have been a blog post in itself, so read it to make my effort not in vain. chim is dearly wishing for some familiar female bonding with you all again. it's just not the same without the cheekygirls together. at least i know you know i'm weird and shameless and retarded. here's the visitor i was telling shu ping about, ryan, rather quiet and humanz-y american but a cutie nonetheless:

what do you guys think of fleeting friendships? the people i'm closest to, the ones whom i'll make an effort to see if i should learn that i'm going to die the next day, are the ones who've been with me longest leh. somehow i don' think my disappearance will make much of a difference to people i've met in the past few months. that's the way life works? you need time? but life's so short and each stage of our bloody lives is getting shorter and shorter, so much so that i've no idea who i've really connected with in that short space of time i knew that person. I'm thinking about all this cos i've been reflecting on the american system where you go to classes with many different people cos no fixed classroom system like singapore. And i'm so grateful for our system cos it's so much more personal i feel. but more cocoon-like, and so maybe we don't bother breaking out of our individual spheres in our lives, and our incestuous circles perpetuate. but should we bother connecting with people dissimilar to ourselves? is it even possible? birds of a feather flock together... rambling now cos of lack of sleep. apologies my babes.

nothing much

hey u guys... surprisingly im not very homesick, maybe cos im finnnally adjusting to life? :) i called my dad after a hiatus of not contacting him (bad jo! learning from the fuzz) and he immediately started scolding me hahaha: "but i did email u wat!" "that was to ask for money!" and the conversation with my brother: "why, daddy scolded you ah? hahahahaha" also msged my mother who is godknowswhere in europe now, i hope she's having a gd time.

anyway, i realised it's impt not to take studies for granted here... as in, it isn't as slack as it looks, so better not let your guard down. haha im repeating this to myself daily. activities wise im joining yoga, gym, hopefully the student paper (which is freaking tabloidish but also has serious commentaries) and definitely gonna do volunteering. the plan is to study on weekdays and play on weekends!! so far ive been to bath and salisbury and stonehenge. next week, it's canterbury. i dont know whats at canterbury but hahaha it should be interesting still.

i havent been chionging at all, but i did get drunk last night so well, i dont know if that counts. im a gd girl mostly la :) oh and its fun cos you really do get picked up a lot more over here. heheheheheheheh. enough abt that.

shup: i think u shld join the sports hall actually, if u want my two cents worth... :) its great to enjoy a sport that youre good at, so u shld go for it if possible.

fuzz: hey i think you shld alr be in uk by now hehehe. hope u get internet connection up and running soon. and youve outdone yourself with that lovely quote on baggage. really cool stuff.

chim: wahhhh... whats this?? too busy to appear on skype is it? must defintely skype one day soon. glad u found someone u can talk to on a deeper level! when we're alone in a foreign land friends really are all u can count on.

the sianness of it all

hola!
im blogging at 3.51 am cos im still making fuzz's present and writing her note. eeps.
came back from supper a little while ago.
even fuzz is asking me to blog.
but i have nothing much to say.
can u tell from the way im typing?
sigh.
life's a bitch here. i read a quote recently, something like- it takes courage to live and die but getting by is nothing much. i think im just getting by my days here. one semester has almost flown by and im just bored sick here. if its not projects and reports, then its quizzes. my finals are coming up in exactly a month's time and my hall peeps have started mugging.
met some like-minded people recently, but they all have their own unique baggage, which ive no intention of getting involved in. cryptic, yes.
two friends from other halls have asked me if i want to move over- ie they'll pull strings for me. but i'll have to play tennis for one hall ( sports hall with lots of cuties!) and run for another. tempted cos my hall's b o r i n g. but that's for next year and i dont know for sure cos they asked me casually.
tennis is one of the few bright sparks in my life. it feels very good to see shots soar nicely over the net, and to be on par with some guy players. ignited my love for it again, and i wish i had joined the tennis team here.
i wonder if im expecting too much out of life, and making it sound worse than it is. it just is sian and the sianness of it all is aggravating.
i need some excitement in life!
i think i should go copy the tutorial due tmr. ( oh, the irony)
good night, world- says the one looking out at you through sian eyes.

packing

"luggage. heaven or hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. the ones who recognised that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed past times will float free through the exit signs, arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. the ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it all with you. the joke is that you have to carry it yourself"


chim you owe me money. i have only one suitcase :) and roommate who pretended to be nikhil but is of not said exotic name was using ur laptop when i tried to skype you

jo: may the wind not be such a bitch. up north too... and pls change our template... too pink la. and our text is unjustified!! ur the tech wiz amongst us ;)

shups: your timetable sucks you know that!and pls update.. i think we wanna know what's going on with you too... not that i'm a shining example.. haha. see you tmr :)


and happy ramadhan everybody, though this greeting only applies to me. haha.

kindred spirit?

i just have to blog about this even though i've a midterm and a quiz tomorrow and somehow i'm still in slack mode. i can't seem to treat every assignment and quiz and midterm with the seriousness that most people here do, and this may haunt me later.

but anyway, i had an amazing dinner with rebecca, this girl in my history class who has been since one fateful day very friendly to me. to put it simply, she's the kind of person that jesley's quote refers to, one who is "mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved... the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing; but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." i don't know if it's in line with blogging etiquette to lift such quotes from other people's blogs, but it struck me so, and when i was searching my life for this kind of intensity, along came rebecca who shimmers with such reflective sponteneity. she seems genuinely curious, from the long conversation i finally had with her. finally cos our interaction has always been limited to short post-class chats. and when i sit down and dig deep within the both of us so much pours out, so much that i would never tell anyone normally. maybe she's right and the distance that separates our lives is so great that we feel free telling each other what we really think without fear of repercussions. but no matter what liberated us, it was so refreshing to find someone from an entirely new culture whom i was able to relate to and feel so comfortable with. i feel that the barrier between myself and the rest of humanity that exists because we're all so painfully unique has been partially bridged, thanks to an incidental breakthrough of differences that seems almost preordained.

history always unearths gems for me. both on a personal level like above, and intellectually too. intellectually cos my section instructor is this Lebanese chainsmoking guy trained in political science and who claims to be the most opinionated person around. he's made us question foundations that we accept easily such as the concept of modernity, neutrality, and one day after class he attacked me when i tried to ask him a question. he just interrupted me and said "yihui, you have a problem. you believe that everything must have foundations and value lies in objectivity." then he lectured me and demanded to know my opinion about opinions as we walked out of campus. a very tough 20 min walk which concluded with him saying that his goal and meaning of his time here was to just do his job and hopefully be the slackest prof ever and be free to do what he likes including taking drugs. i think he thought i was horrified and believed him cos of course he then qualified that he was joking. but my point is that he's crazy! i've never met an academic like him before. he makes us question everything in his angry way, in a bid to make us independent thinkers. i'm typing all this crap down because i feel that this will be the most valuable class i'll take at college, and my future history classes will have to be something special to beat this class in influencing the kind of person/thinker i'm going to end up being.

ok and that's all for now on the update on the chim that is evolving in the us of a. i hope you guys can tell that i'm enjoying myself. and i wrote down all three of your addresses on three separate envelopes, which means i'll be writing notes to you all soon and won't be lazy anymore.