cos every color goes where you do

today has been insanely fantabulous!

from the crazily fun and funny rehearsal (you could go mad laughing at how our two guys dance), to the exhilarating rock-wall climbing (thanks to cher's too-good-to-turn-down invitation), to the ultra-hilarious taboo session (what is the word that's related to an award and has a "scar" in it?), to a silly friend who got her elbow stuck in between the railing of a bus seat (which i couldn't help but laugh), and finally to a silly friend who thought she lost her phone and found it in her bag eventually (what's new, koheleen?)

i really adore my honours classmates, because every color goes where they do. (:

my new haircut is T R A G I C (Part 2)

i haven't been so diffident about myself for a long while.

thanks to my awful haircut, i spent one whole night and one whole morning hiding in bed dwelling on the atrocity of my impulsive move yesterday. i took naps intermittently, hoping that i would wake up from a bad dream. i had four pieces of chocolate for lunch, hoping that the endorphins would inject some energy in me. i tried combing my hair one hundred times, hoping that they would grow longer. but none of these worked better than making a second visit to the salon.

and so i spent another three hours, redo-ing my hair. and finally i'm back on track, after a long detour.

my new haircut is T R A G I C (Part 1)

and now, i am angry with the hairdresser for recommending me to get a change, and angrier that i even let myself be convinced. with a wedding to attend this sunday and chinese new year around the corner, the last thing i need is a bad haircut that would not grow back in time.

to act against my better judgment was a complete failure of internal rationality. the moment she snipped off locks and locks of my previously straightened hair, i already foreboded the outcome. but still i didn't interrupt.

and still i left the salon, pretending that i was satisfied. ):

diary of a mad student

my life is coming to an end.

my life as a student, that is. eighteen years of education, from abcs to algebra to acids and alkaline to ariel and finally to active listening and advocacy, it is bewildering how i got here so fast. i stood still on the same spot, yet time brought me along like an escalator.

i am exceedingly excited that my last semester may turn out to be my busiest semester ever, with the final year paper and production to keep me occupied. school work, homework, field work, coursework, and more work to fill up my day. twenty-four hours would not be suffice, it is no wonder why britney speares kept going about how everybody wanted a piece of her. but everything is going neat and tidy, everything will be in place, everything will be under control - the time i allocate to each activity, the number of friends i catch up with, the margins on my essay, the number of calories i consume, the amount of space on my harddisk, and even the speck of dust on my desk.

being a student comes with many prerogatives. it's not just the student concessions that you get when you watch a play, enter the museum or buy a meal at macdonalds. but it's being able to chat till the wee hours of the morning, wake up at 12noon and still be in time for class; its about having the flexibility and luxury of time to go for teas and meet up with people anytime you please; it's about having a choice of who you want to see, who you want to work with, and who you want to talk to; it's being able to make mistakes and get away with it with a small price; it's about feeling young, acting young and being young.

and i know this is my last chance to savour the last moment of a student's life.

come monday, my vacation ends and i'm hitting the books again.

come monday, school shall take away the wintry cold of my holiday, and paint it with the warmth and color of a blooming spring.

come monday, i shall mitosize into two - one to go to class and take notes on my behalf, and the other to stay at home and stare at the ceiling above my bed.

and i will be happy, yes?

i'm in need of a temporary high

like the one i had this evening.

all it takes is one black sheep

there has to be a more effective way of evangelising.

it's not easy to win people over. sometimes, it may take years of friendship or relationship, before the other party begins to open up and become more receptive. but the key to winning people over is definitely not to pass a stranger a pamphlet, and tell him (or her) that he is a sinner and is going to hell if he doesn't believe in the Lord. such comments are more likely to infuriate the listener, than to stir up sufficient fear in him to instantly convert.

all it takes is one negative experience for people to seal the door and form a bad impression that would stick around for a long time (or even forever).

just like everything else in the world - if you want a harvest, you have to constantly and conscientiously sow the seeds. some things are good to share, but be sincere and patient, not aggressive and pushy. and never forget, always, always show respect for individual preferences.

the importance of being EFFECTIVELY bilingual

i'm having such a nightmare trying to translate my interview guide to mandarin. typing hanyu pinyin is like doing a trial-and-error problem sum - in order to type a simple word like "how" in chinese, i had to type zhen mo, zhe mo, zen mo, zen me before i hit the bull's eye.

and i never quite realised the unreliability of online translators until today. try typing "physical care" into the translator and you would probably get the chinese equivalent of "physics caring". homonyms just don't work well on the translator because it cannot differentiate words as a noun and as a verb.

oh, not to forget: if finding an euphemism for words like "death" and "dying" (without sounding too cheesy or over-sensitive) isn't hard enough, try doing it in chinese.

then finally imagine having a total of twenty-odd questions with terms like "active resuscitation" and "end-of-life conversations" to translate.

the horror awaits me. ):

ps: so if you are effectively bilingual, has some time to spare and enjoy doing things out of altruism, please drop me a message and i would be eternally grateful for your help.

pps: and your name would appear on my acknowledgment page!

resolutions, baby they come and go

what's a new year without a new set of unrealistic resolutions?

1. finish reading all the novels that i had ever bought
   
2. don't get conned/coerced into making expensive and useless purchases (e.g. facial package)
3. eat four servings of fruits and vegetables everyday
4. achieve my target savings rate of 20-25% (for my grad trip & year-end vacation)
   
5. learn to speak a new language (bahasa melayu would be useful for my work, but japanese/korean would make drama-watching more pleasurable for me)
   
6. reduce attrition from the list of people i still keep in touch with
7. fit into all the clothes which have become too tight for me ):
8. overcome my phobia of creepy crawlies, repeated patterns, and contamination
9. accomplish 35% of my resolutions (up from the 28.6% for 2008)
   

with clear directions to where i'm heading, i'm good to go now!

1st post of the year, 500th post of the blog

the final moments of my 2008 were well spent.

went to ttsh in the morning to work out the procedures for my thesis, followed by a two-hour book spree in town, went home to do some readings, had a simple dinner with my family at home, and spent the last one hour with two of my most beloved friends (although one of them refused to countdown).

i think that neatly summed up the past year for me as well. even though it was packed with a lot of work, i was blessed with very good friends, a supportive family, many fruitful harvests, and joy aplenty. this is not to say that i didn't face any setbacks, but i choose to remember only the best things that happened.

nobody knows what the new year may bring, but i hope yours will be overflowing with an abundance of love, success and happiness.

cheers to a new beginning, toast to our friendship and praise to the Lord. (: