Thursday, July 31, 2008

I can't wait for saturday afternoon. It means my presentation would be over and so would my final theory test, and finally I can enjoy the last week before semester starts.

I realise I am going to miss IBN. And all the people who made the stay a fun one. I am so very grateful that I got nice mentors and a whole office of nice colleagues. And I am going to miss the cute cute mice. Ah man. This has been a nice experience.

I realise I miss my friends. I don't know. I miss playing. Working has made me somewhat a responsible person, and I miss being playful.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Why do I have an insatiable urge to blog and blog about the littlest things? I must be more of an exhibitionist that I thought. Sometimes I just like putting words on this page here you know. Just for words' sake. Words look pretty.

Oh, guess who I bumped into yesterday!!! YAU PUI MAN. Who I haven't seen in about three years, give or take. I love bumping into random people I haven't met in ages. It was at Buona Vista MRT on the way home at 6 pm. She was the one who cried out my name first (since I'm forever the more oblivious person) and I went like, PUI MAN! What are you doing here?!?!

She looks the same. (Haha, what did I expect? >.<) And dressed nicely. But she seemed less of an explosive person. My memory of PuiMan has always been associated with wackiness and her crazy brand of laughter and her fanfiction. Her stacks of fanfiction. She could write like seriously, stacks of them. I remember her reading some off to me on the train home from rg. She insisted on my not reminiscing anyway, cause according to her, only old people do it. I suppose I'm a natural old soul. I reminisce far too much. Or if I'm not reminiscing, I'd imagine how I'd be reminiscing about something 10 years down the road.

I should be preparing for my presentation. Public speaking = bane of existence. Together with chemistry. But I think chemistry ain't that bad even. And since this attachment experience, I've come to like programming thanks to MATLAB and Kumar's and Archana's patient guidance, so programming is definitely no longer a bane. But public speaking - GAH. Always and forever will be a thorn in the side. The day I actually enjoy speaking to an audience, I'll plant a tree in memorial.

Monday, July 28, 2008

The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

"...Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling."

the perfect education is an elusive thing, I tell you.

"Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world."

yay for failures. they are important things.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

It doesn't take much to make me happy, I think. Little things like mochi ice creams and pancakes and seeing cute cats make me happy. And finding power sockets in public places makes me very very happy. >.< haha. I go: "YAY! A place to plug my laptop!" And I add one more venue to my growing list of outside-places-to-be-sedentary-and-study.

I am at a good emotional place in my life right now. When I think about it, there isn't really anything to be extra happy about... But somehow I am. It could be the usual deceptive it's-a-new-school-semester-and-let's-jiayou! feelings, but this time, I don't know, it feels even better. Like a ray of hope is shining ahead, and I am heading towards it. Call it gut-feeling or intuition. And so. I feel good. I have work and I have worries. But I still feel good. yoshi. :)

Also. Been finally giving Hey!Say!JUMP a chance and watching their pvs and I feel like a paedophile now, :P ehek. But mostly, I look for Yamada, who I have fallen for since Tantei Gakuen Q because he was so kawaii. And kakkoi. Oh no, I am nuts. Sometimes I truly worry about how much of a weirdo I am. But most times I'm too much into my weirdo world to notice.

Looking forward to the weekend with eunice, mumu and jiawen! Our downtown east holiday, heretofore known as escape2008, okay? :)

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Next friday is a-coming closer and closer and a corner of my mind is already starting to freak out about my research presentation. It's only like 5 minutes long, but I have an incredible phobia of public speaking and envision nightmare situations where I start blubbering incoherently or blanking out or something like that. Gah. It's true what they say: there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

I am absolutely loving kamika's blog. She's such a random nutsy person who writes great funny stuff about JE and everything under the sun. And I have a feeling if I actually knew her in person, we'd be awesome buddies. She posted something about Neil Patrick Harris too! NPH is such an entertainer. And I think I really, really should go and continue watching How I Met Your Mother again. I want to see Barney antics again! Or Supes episode 16. Or Code Blue. Or Maou. Or Pride. Or My Boss, My Hero.

@_@ I realise I have a backlog of tv shows I want to watch but have yet to! nyah!!! I can't believe I'm actually working so much that I can't get to watch my shows. This is amazing.

Afidah keeps saying I should become a press secretary ever since I wrote supposedly great and diplomatic answers for her interview questions. And I cannot, I think, receive compliments about my writing. Because it will make me go into crisis mode again about what I'm actually pursuing (science, not languages). This is like the don't-know-what-time-th situation where someone has said to me, 'You have a gift for being lucid in your writing!" and by god, yes, if someone can find me a job where I can write and crap, my favourite pasttime, then tell me! I will willingly crap for you.

Seriously, man. This drives me nuts, it does. Or maybe. I can be a medical writer. I don't know.

Monday, July 21, 2008


That's from Pearls Before Swine. I got it off uwasako's LJ here. Isn't it the most adorable thing. And Rat, despite myself, is just an adorable meanie to me. We all need hugs, eh. And I don't think it has to be a physical hug. Sometimes, all you need is go up to that someone, and wail. And let the person pat your head, and then you'll feel that much better. Or virtual hugs through smses from friends far away. Like sometimes for me, I just walk around the house, calling out to my sister, and then she'll say, "Whaaaaaaaat." And I pout and say nothing. And then call out to her again and the same thing happens repeatedly. It's therapeutic.

Oh yes, I also thought I couldn't love JK Rowling any more than I already did, but her speech at Harvard's Commencement Ceremony blew me away. If you haven't read it, go here. I was helplessly swiping at tears as I read it. It just moved me deeply, and certain things resonated so much with my own feelings. If it were my own graduation, I think I'd be uncontrollably sobbing or something.

Time has passed superbly fast as always, and guess what, it's three weeks to the start of a new academic year. And strangely, or maybe not so strange cause I feel like this everytime, I am looking forward to starting lectures again. Partly cause work is ultimately less fun than learning, so I want to get back to books. And uni life offers infintely more freedom than an 8 t0 6 work schedule. Although, on the down side, money will stop coming in. You know, I was thinking how truly paradoxical it is that the modern world strives for technological advancements that speeds up processes in order that we save time, but in the end, we find ourselves increasingly short of time. It is a sad, vicious cycle.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

I don't know where my brain was today. I must be seriously lacking rest, which is why I shouldn't be online but sleeping instead. But I am stubborn like that. I sort of blundered through the later half of today. Coupled with the fact that I was fasting, I became rather cranky and extra blur. Such that I spoiled Afidah's stack of film because I switched on the white light in the dark room before sealing the box. So the top bit of each film is black. :( KARUT. And on the way home, I was dozing off really badly in the train. Really lah, so embarassing! Usually, I think I sleep rather decently and manage to sit straight but I was so damn sleepy this time. I was like leaning almost 45 degrees into the next person's personal space. Then at Simei, I groggily woke up and thought it was Tampines and rushed off the train. BODOH. Actually, I realised just before I stepped out the train doors, but I thought I'd already embarrassed myself enough and pretended my house was at Simei. Nyaha.

And here I ramble a little about the concept of fandom.

I've been thinking about fan-speak lately. You know, fan jargon the likes of which if you've never fangirl-ed, you'll never know? Words like fanon, fic, canon, AU, PWP, slash, het, BNF, meme, keyboard smash, OTP and all the weird acronyms for pairings depending on which fandom you're talking about - LoVe, HPGW, H/D, Wincest (gah,scary >.<) etc. Nowadays, the name squish for pairings is becoming highly popular, at least in JE fandom: Yamaki, Kamepi, Tegopi, Tomapi, Ryopi, Piyui, Pin and Tegomassuki. Like WTH man. It amuses me greatly.

I think someone should do a study on fandom. Like study how these groups of girls crop up and establish such big communities online that share fan stuff and interact and develop the fan world. I am fascinated. Truly.

Reference:

fandom = whatever book, show, movie, story, actor, personality etc that people are obsessed about.

canon = reality i.e. what actually happens in the real book/show/movie/etc

fanon = NOT canon; creation of fans; e.g. in Harry Potter fandom, for some reason, Draco Malfoy is highly perceived as some gorgeous, rich, misunderstood, witty and highly redeemable dude of Veela ancestry. HAHA. This is very very far from JK Rowling 's version of Draco.

fic = abbreviation for fanfiction, which if you don't know, (I am shocked!), are literary works written by fans about their fandom to satisfy their insatiable thirst for more canon.

AU = alternate universe; meaning that the fan disregards actual canon entirely when doing fanwork. e.g. Harry Potter is a prince of 16th century England and Hermione a princess with whom he is forced to wed. Personally, I think good AU works are hard to come by. Because seriously, who wants to read about Hermione worrying about arranged marriages and fitting into corsets, and nothing about magic?!

PWP = Plot what plot; this is basically fanfiction in which the fan writes crappy pointless stuff like smut or trashy humour.

slash = same-sex situations; nowadays, this is the dominating sexual preference among fans. go figure. -_-

het = male/female pairings; slowly approaching extinction in fandom, in my opinion. scary, I tell you.

BNF = big name fan; e.g. the notorious Cassandra Claire who wrote the Draco Trilogy; they are kind of the 'elite' of the fans whom all other fans 'cling' to; usually BNFs are great writers who produce fantastic reviews, fanfiction or fanart.

meme = I still am not sure what a meme is! HAHA. I thought I knew what it was. I think it might be like a survey done by a fan for fans? not sure.

keyboard smash = fan-squee in keyboard fashion; it's basically being so excited about something that you type incoherently this: lkhfnsydagfbnuasydgfabsuynfksaniuf vyqowygp qhJDKW;,KLMHASGNASDFJCBHN; actually, I think this might not be exclusive to fandoms. Eunice does it quite a lot.

OTP = one true pairing; a fan's favourite pairing

LoVe = Logan Echolls and Veronica Mars; this is one of my favourite name squishes!

HPGW = Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley; sometimes it's so funny to see a slew of capital letters in a fanfic summary, like this: HPGW HGDM RLSB SSMM etc. go figure -_-. But I think this sort of abbreviation has phased out, in place of adorable name squishes?

H/D = Harry/Draco; this is the default manner to write pairings before they come up with more creative ways.

Wincest = Dean/Sam Winchester from Supernatural; called so because they're brothers! incest, yo! >.< Rest assured, I keep absolutely clear of this scary pairing (and in fact of every kind of slash). Homosexuality of any kind still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand, I'm very sorry.

And a list (not exhaustive one) of JE pairings:

Yamaki = Yamapi + Maki (my OTP <3!)

Tomapi = Ikuta Toma + Yamapi

Kamepi = Kamenashi + Yamapi

Ryopi = Ryo + Yamapi

Piyui = Yamapi + Aragaki Yui

Tegopi = Tegoshi + Yamapi

Pin = Yamapi + Jin

Tegomassuki = Tegoshi + Masuda + Maki

Wahahaha. Yamapi is in almost everything. :P Someone did say he's somewhat like the little black dress of slash-dom. My my. Such crazy fans.

There are many other fandoms, each with their own exclusive language. Like Star Trek fans are called Trekkies and Battlestar Galactica fans called... something else? I can't quite remember now. And this is only like a glimpse into the crazy place that is fandom. And I know only the bare minimum to survive as I read LJ communities. So interesting, I tell you.
This is so incredibly funny! >.< King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Been having a long day today. The entire morning working on western blot in the lab. The thing about working is that you have no time to let your mind wander... and so... I have nothing much interesting to say.

oh, I am soo psyched for The Dark Knight! Hopefully we can go watch tomorrow. yippeeness. I've got my batman shirt ready for wear. Haha.

My mind is seriously drawing blanks right now, man. -_- I think I need sleep.

But you know what. I think I'm happier now. :)

And I am still stuck on Tantei Gakuen's theme songs.

Monday, July 14, 2008

WARNING: MAD RAVE AHEAD.

Ahah. Okay. I loooooove Tantei Gakuen Q.



At first, considering the main characters are only 15-years-old or so, I was kind of doubtful about all the great reviews the JEP Cast people were talking about. But then I watched it, and persisted, and ohmegad, it is awesome. And makes me go like >.< and it is just an uber good story, with fantastic child actors. It's about a bunch of genius kids training to become detectives, with heavy complicated backstories intertwined between them. More than anything, Kyuu and Ryuu's relationship reminded me of DT Draco and Harry's relationship, and maybe this is why I majorly loved it. Goshgoshgosh. ADORABLE. I love the friendship between them, and how only Kyuu would insist on believing Ryuu when everyone else thought he was evil (think: Draco Sinister! gah!!!). And the finale mystery arc was cool and Kyuu is so crazily smart and Ryuu is so gorgeously broody - MAN, what's not to love??? And Megu - HAHA. She was alluding to the whole possible "future" love triangle between her and Ryuu and Kyuu, and it's just so amusing! Think DT Hermione/Draco/Harry.

Friendship stories almost always leave a better impression on me than love stories. Maybe cause we have an overload of the latter and to find good love stories, one has to sieve through a whole load of crap. But sweet stories about friendship - wibble wibble wibble! I melt easily.

And the opening and closing songs rock. rock very much. oh, I heart this show. <3 <3 <3

The opening song is called 'Answer' by FLOW.


Ah dang! I can't find the closing vid. But the song's Stand By Me by The Brilliant Green.



Sometimes, I think I should get money from all this advertising. haha, okay, goodnight.
This shall be a random photo entry.

The time we brought Ahmad and Hefni to Hei Sushi.









The time when we were going to meet up with Yeatian and wasted time at TCC watching random crappy stuff on my laptop. I tried showing Eunice JE-related stuff too. Also, look at my very pretty, layered hazelnut latte.




Went out with Eunice and Yujie to Island Creamery over the weekend. Played a whole slew of random games and Zigity (some warped vesion of UNO, except not really), where Yujie established her suckiness at said game. She lost all three rounds, hands down. Also, much raving on Eunice's part on supposed best Wimbledon Final ever between Federer and Nadal. She brought entire ST article to force people to read.






Note my affogato! The expresso with a scoop of ice cream. It was absolute yumminess.



Oh my, this made us burst out laughing! We were playing pictionary (sorta) and just with those pudgy feet, I could guess that the answer was Teletubbies. >.< The same thing happened with Totoro - I could guess it with just the pointy ears and one side of its body.







And finally, a decent picture. :) Thank god for the family and friends that I have, that make this life crazy fun.

Thursday, July 10, 2008




































 
Behold... My Future
  I will marry Somebody Only I Know.  
  After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in Singapore in our fabulous Apartment.  
  We will have 2 kid(s) together.  
  Our family will zoom around in a Yellow Beemer.
  I will spend my days as a Scientist, and live happily ever after.  
 
whats your future
 



WAHAH. My sister did it at her blog, so I decided to do for me for fun. So amusing. The guy part was down to two people and it was almost Yamapi, man. I was so happy. Haha. And uh, I've never seen a yellow BMW! :P But it'd be nice to have a yellow one.

And of all the places I selected, it's still Singapore. BORING! I even put Switzerland and Madinah. But dang.

Okay, lunchtime! Going Ghim Moh again.

(Freak, why is there a big empty space in this entry?!)

Sunday, July 06, 2008

I had a very very long, very interesting and amusing saturday. :D

My family (12 of us) plus two chinese dudes got stuck in Mustafa Centre's glass elevators for fifty freaking minutes, and there was barely any ventilation such that we were sweating like pigs and the glass was FOGGING UP. By the way, this happened at 1 a.m.. >.< The lift jerked like twice before stalling halfway. At first I thought it would be a quickie fix, but help took so damn long to come. And seriously, for a moment, I thought we could have suffocated from the lack of air. Said called the cops even. It seems laughable now, but at that time, haha, I don't know, it was... hectic! And my dad insisted we kept pressing the bell so they would show some urgency because they were taking FOREVER to come. No one attempted to attend to us. Talk about apathy. And I forced open the lift doors and then Said put his mango juice bottle to keep them open. So that finally we could get some fresh AIR. And only when we did that did the glass stop fogging. No joke, man. I'm not sure if we could have had enough air if they took longer. @_@ And now, my dad is insisting in lodging formal complaints and everything. Cause my poor aunt was in total shock and started puking later.


Anyway, am watching NEWS' Concert Tour: Never Ending Wonderful Story DVD! That Jiawen so very kindly donated yesterday. (thank you x 1000!) And now it's the clip of Ryo-chan's flying kiss to someone in the audience (which is the funniest thing! - an audience member gets picked at random and has the option to ask any of the members to do anything.) It's like my sister's favourite clip or something, haha. And omgness, I was so incredibly tickled when in the opening, Tegoshi introduced himself with the hand action that Domoto Tsuyoshi taught him way back last time!!! >.< "Tegoshi desu!" Apparently, it's become his trademark move.


waaahahaha.

And I just remembered something funny from yesterday's meet-up! jiawen, mumu, eunice and me were at coffeebean wasting time. And we played the drawing game - you know, the game where we draw our versions of whatever subject and then compare. We drew porcupines first and we were thinking of what else to draw... then Munirah suddenly went: "Let's draw Lucy!" And the rest of us were like, "Who??????" @_@ And Munirah said disbelievingly at us, "Lucy the giraffe!" As though Lucy the giraffe was our bosom buddy and to have forgotten her was sin. I asked both jiawen and eunice if they knew Lucy and they were both as confused as I was. It was so funny! It turned out that Lucy was the name of the giraffe at the Singapore Zoo and Mumu remembered her name from the last time we went together, and was somehow shocked that we didn't. It's cute isn't it, to realise what different people consider important. She even remembered the name of the other giraffe - Growie (or stg). haha.

Code Blue first epi is out! Watched it already. So far, Yamapi's character is only so-so. Not warmed up to him yet.

Also have been catching up on Supernatural. :) I miss Dean. Except episode 16 won't load, so am annoyed.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

SLEEEEEPY. -_-

This morning, just when we finally finished the x-ray filming for western blot (a method for detecting proteins, fyi), there was an emergency evacuation for all ibn staff. For a second I was like @_@. But then when we finally got out into the open, it turned out to be some airconditioning problem and the safety people feared we would suffocate from the stuffiness. -_- Honestly, I think none of us noticed it. It felt the same as always. Such things are disruptive! like if you were running some time-based experiment or something or incubating your cells with trypsin, which when left too long, KILLS THE CELLS - I would have been truly irritated.

I am so so so psyched for The Dark Knight, because apparently Heath Ledger's performance might go down in history as the best Joker ever.

Did I say I was sleepy? I am sleepy. -_-