OHMYGOD. There are too many math freaks in this world! I cannot compete with math freaks. I will die.

I love this poem we did in secondary school.

I AM

by John Clare

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows.
My friends forsake me like a memory lost,
I am the self-consumer of my woes -
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied, stifled throes -
And yet I am, and live- like vapors tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
Even the dearest, that I love the best,
Are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes, where man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept -
There to abide with my Creator God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below - above the vaulted sky.

Went for the global education seminar on the UN millenium development goals today. And I decided to join ONE singapore (whose goal is to make poverty history, in case you didn't know), despite not really knowing how strongly I can contribute. I don't know... Eunice and me kept talking about the efficacy of all such movements, especially on an individual level, but at least, we do something anyway, you know?

And just so I remember, and just so you know as well, the UN Millenium Development Goals (by 2025) are:

1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2) Make primary education universal.
3) Achieve gender equality and empower women.
4) Reduce child mortality
5) Improve maternal health
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7) Ensure environmental sustainability
8) Develop a global partnership for development

I keep wanting to dedicate time to doing good works but... it's always easier said than done. As it is, I'm dying under the pile of work I have to do. And I'm always so bogged down that I can barely keep promises. I think I'm inadvertently making people hate me along the way.

Ah sigh.

After a whole day of talks and powerpoint slides, Eunice and me had BK for dinner and talked about random stuff: Religion, as per our usual, and how pharmacy is horrid and my lab sessions are killing me and how much we want a holiday. And oh yes, I finally passed Eunice her birthday present.

Speaking of which, my brother's spending his birthday in some forest in Taiwan. Poor boy.

34 more days! To a brief escape. :) I wait, I hope.

I was watching Isaac on E! today. And he brought a flirtologist on the show. Apparently, there's such a thing. So, he was asking her for tips (despite him being gay and all, or rather because. anyway.) and she was saying how, in essence, it is the girl that makes the first move.

Like if a girl sees a cute guy across a room, she has to look at him in the eye and smile. Look away momentarily perhaps, but look him in the eye again, and smile.

LIKE WHAT THE HELL.

That little bit of eyeing and smiling is the invitation that has to be put forth first. Then the guy would know you were okay with him coming over if he was interested.

NYEEEAAAAH.

That's it then.

I'm doomed.

HAHA.

Nak main mata?!?!?!?! Me?!?!?! That would be the day.

Also, stupid people need to stop saying things like "If you were to look for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard - in Pakistan." Don't these people know that such unfounded accusations have massive repercussions??? Haven't we learnt enough from the past? This time, it's just a Newsweek article. But the next thing you know, Bush is scrawling Pakistan down on his list. SIGH.

In math lab right now.

I really really wish my life revolves around more than my modules. But it just does! And I can barely do anything about it.

Got the lowest of the low marks for my math homework assignment. And what did I do? Laugh. I'm not sure if this is good or not. It's good cause it did not drive me to self-injury but it's bad cause maybe I'm really starting to not care or something.

CANNOT. I cannot NOT care.

I was thinking yesterday, amidst rushing between serving drinks in the kitchen and blasting DNA sequences in the bedroom: what would happen if I simply stopped caring? The first thing that came to mind: BLISS. To just let go! And not try so hard. I could take life less seriously. Be more light-hearted maybe.

But then. I think I can never make myself do that. Too much of a coward, partly. (Change is scary.) And partly, I just don't know how! How do you not care. I am never happy until I can be as good as I am able to be. Which explains why I'm usually dissatisfied. Because I think I know I'm underperforming or something.

You can DO this. You can, you can, you can. Repeat that mantra. Andrew Matthews says that your physical reality gravitates to your dominant thoughts.

I can't help but want to bitch bout school. -__- I've been sitting at raffles place macs, mostly by my lonesome, working on our politics of heritage presentation, for near five hours.

What life is this! I missed out on jalan raya again! EEEESSSH.

School is making me even more antisocial.

And then, after this, I still need to work on bioinformatics project. I need to start blasting those DNA sequences.

I keep trying to recall how I pictured 20-year-old me when I was 7. I think I imagined something more.

Hotmail is also being a bitch. It won't let me attach our project ppt! for god's sake.

My fries have become ice-cold! >.<

Okay, I shall stop being an annoying whiner and go home.

Why is it that there will always be people intent on burtsing your bubble? :( All bubble bursters should be put into a big black box and never shown the light of day.

Anyway. Finally got a new phone but then stupidly lost all my contacts again. I really thought I had saved it into my SIM card this time. But apparently not. -__- So please please please, if you're my friend and you happen upon this entry, leave your name and number in my guestbook if it's not too much trouble! thank you.

spent ages in the lab today. But spent the first two hours scrambling to finish my math homework while the guys did the assays. I have been having a seriously perpetual headache since morning and it does not dissipate. I think I lack sleep. AGAIN. Experimental biochemistry is a pain in the head, neck, shoulders and eyes.

OHMYGOD.

What did I ever do to become embroiled in a net this complicated.

It's been a happy, happy eid. :)

(Despite the list of foreboding deadlines I have to face.)

It's just been great. And I can't quite pinpoint the reason it's been better than most years. Maybe it's the fact that Ami Akar's family has been going around with us again lately, and I so so miss the talk and the laughs. Like tonight: we were sitting for hours, rehashing old stories and laughing our asses off. My my. I miss this.

okay. Words always fail to express good times sufficiently. So here come photos.

Starting with raya morning at ghufran, overflowing as usual. (I swear, I don't understand why they fail to add more mats every year; they KNOW it's going to be crazily overcrowded.)









This lady was sitting next to me. I sneaked a photo of her - so khusyuk lah.





ohmygosh. Can you feel the love on eid? :)) It's just everywhere.









The family portraits!



Beloved granny and me.


I think this is a cool shot of the boys; they all have unique positions. So natural.


Mandatory sibling shot. My brother is so ridiculous with those shades.


Ex-tutee and me. We were also supposed to partner up at Bubu's wedding as receptionists, but then plans changed. So sayang! Umar grew up nicely lah. :p


Another nice shot of the boys.


Okay. That's all I have time for now. So much work once tomorrow comes, but tonight I'm good.(:

I've been reading this book on happiness by Andrew Matthews. And it talked about how, when you want something badly, the universe will undoubtedly be against you. And it will remain against you, and you will agonize and bitch and moan. But if you still insist you want it and work your ass off for it, and say, "Go to hell, cosmic conspiracy, I want this!" and fight for your dream even when things look 100% bleak, then the universe will look down on you, know that it has fully tested the extent of your ambition and desire, and finally smile and relent. And then you'll have what you so desperately want.

I was watching the finale episode of 'How I Met Your Mother' on StarWorld the other night and Ted totally illustrated with absolute vividness, the above theory. He went so far as to rain dance on top of a building so that it'd rain and Robin could be prevented from going camping with some other guy. Ahah. And it did rain.

Iftar at our house again today.

It's funny how math can make me laugh so. Prof Lawton is just so absent-mindedly hilarious! And he barely ever succeeds explaining anything intelligibly. So far, any concept I've managed to grasp has been a result of my own perusal of the textbook or Bertrand's explanations in tutorial. He'll explain all the useless stuff we obviously get and gloss over the difficult math concepts. Gah! But still, it's hard to hate him because he's so adorably uncle-like and funny.

But Lawton and his antics aside, math is still amusing because there will always come a point in an incomprehensible lecture or class where one utterly gives up and tunes out, and starts seeing all the scary math equations in a humourous light. Like during tutorial, I'll turn to Pi Quet on my left, and say, "Do you get any of this?" He'll say, "No!" And I'll go, "Me neither! HAHAHAHA!" Really, the numbers on the board start to look truly like squiggles. How mathematicians can survive all their lives immersed in a whole other 'language' is out-of-this-world.

Anyway, horrible metabolism test today. The moment I saw the first question, I knew I was doomed. Because I made the mistake of underestimating MCQs - they can be formidable. So I barely scraped through with a passing grade whilst others got decent 16/20s.

Bioinformatics test tomorrow. Umi is being nice and giving me a reprieve from the kitchen just so I can prepare. So, if I do badly, I'll feel ten times worse, cause I can't blame it on the dishes. Damn.