this song, Missing You -- it's love at first listen! 

I know it's been GD every other post or so, but it's only cause he's so super busy releasing his songs right now, and Big Bang is having their greatest year yet and so I'm only helplessly enthralled -- I'm hoping my obsession calms down to sane levels soon.

where is the love...

Go with me, so I don't have to go alone.

A week into placement!

And omg, the angst. This PCF-SLP project is becoming somewhat overwhelming. There is so much work. I literally feel my headaches build-up when we sit and discuss which kids we can work on, what stuff to get for assessment and therapy, the consent form issues and checking on data from parent and teacher questionnaires and collaborating with the psych department and their projects (!!!). Like I anticipated, it leaves less space for working on my clinical skills, which is so incredibly worrisome, I tell you. How will I survive hospital next year.

Thank god for having three other wonderful peeps with me. We keep each other sane. And we can actually laugh over our stress.

For Children's Day  celebrations yesterday, the kindy kids were dancing to Gangnam style -- 

it was soooo funny and adorable! if only we weren't barred from snapping photos.

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And because I missed them: 

If there's one concert I would love to go to, it's Arashi's. I may fangirl a gazillion other things, but there's this overall Arashi-awesomeness-vibe that I want to feel live. Arashi, to my mind, is about love, friendship, and just being happy in the here and now. And they're just so genuine, wholesome and family-friendly, you know (mostly). If I had kids, I wouldn't mind them listening to Arashi.

And this is an ancient (i.e. 7 years ago! haha) video transcript from an Arashi show where they discuss Domyouji and Tsukushi, and attempt to act out bits of Hana Yori Dango (thanks to MatsuJun's drama script at hand), and behave like overall dorks/oji-sans.

This vid puts all versions of Hanadan together! Of course, for me, the Japanese version wins, hands down. Although, I have a soft spot for Meteor Garden (the Taiwanese version) for being the one that opened the door to a whole new fandom for me.



And now, I need to stop fangirling.

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A true slave is a happy one.

here we go again

LAST PLACEMENT.

I'm one of the lucky/unlucky few (now a quartet, as we add R to our trio of frazzled ST students) who are part of the group trying out an SLP service for PCF Kindergarteners in Ulu Pandan. In other words, we are providing speech and language therapy for free to mainstream preschoolers who might need it, and in doing so, the faculty is also trying to pressure MOE, muaha. This is both exciting and nerve-wracking!!! Because there is no structure to this at all, and we feel like we're creating a start-up. There are absolutely nil ST facilities or materials on-site and we're going to have to dig through our department library for assessment and intervention tools on Monday. And while it's all exciting and new, we are also worried about how we're eventually going to be assessed for our clinical credits with this much lack of system and structure. I do need to graduate, please.

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And on our last day of exams, one of my favourite people photos ever:

I really adore this bunch of amazing and genuine people. How we'll miss being a class. But no matter! We have vowed to start an NUS SLP Club that will rival SHAS in numbers and enthusiasm, 

and keep in touch forever.

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And this is here because GD and Sungha Jung are on the same stage! :D

I wonder if Sungha Jung was fanboying like crazy inside. Also, BIG BANG is currently in Singapore!!! (not that I'm in any way going to their concerts or attempting to sneak peeks). But I am feeling a bit more of the love, nonethless.

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Also, we watched this last night and it was SCARY.

I don't usually find Western horror movies very scary but this was frrreeeaeaakkkyyy. The leading girl was very good and it also stars Papa Winchester (a.k.a. Jeffrey Dean Morgan)! :D And half the time, I kept wanting to shout out, "Call Sam and Dean! They can help you!"

I looked up Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) and I found a video of the President of the International Aphasia Movement speaking in a sing-song voice.

I cannot speak but I can sing. Now you tell me, does music have power?

It's fantastic!

I remember Eve during PBL telling us about MIT and saying how seriously, when we read about stuff like this, it makes us feel really skeptical. Hah, really, we just teach the client to tap rhythms and say words along with it??? And then they can speak? Stuttering treatments are equally amazing. Honestly, I feel that MIT seems a little like Smooth Speech which people use to treat stuttering.

Or like simple voice therapy where we do fun stuff like lip and tongue trills, or the Accent method where we chant around (honestly, I have no idea how the Accent method works!) -- simple stuff like this, they work miraculously. Somehow.

And it made me think how we always assume big problems need big solutions, but sometimes, the best things come in small, unexpected packages. God is Subtle, yes?

I haven't loved a Jdrama couple in a loooong time, but finally I get my fix: the unforgettable duo from Rich Man Poor Woman!



SPOILERS

Didn't I say before these two are crazy and adorable. I just finished watching the finale episode and it has surely one of the most hilarious airport love scenes ever.

Hyuga finally gets off his ass to chase after her but when Natsui sees him she runs, with luggage and all. haha omg, who does that!!!

Of course, after Natsui calls Hyuga a BAKA (first time ever in his life probably), 

the OTP materialises!

I need more happy Jdramas like this.

another one! because I like the song, and we have more of Hyuga/Natsui.

The Power of Vulnerability.

In order to make connection, we must allow ourselves to be seen.

Love this. It's one of those paradoxical things in life: to be strong, you have to first be weak.

Her follow-up talk:

In the words of Running Man's Kang Gary,

The one who does not repay the bad with the good, is not from the noble.

- Sayidina Ali r. a.

This made me think of recent events, and how I got frustrated. Certainly, it is not surprising nor is it wrong, for someone who gets hurt to retaliate. But don't you just wish, they could be bigger than themselves and act nobly instead?

But I suppose, nobility is not commonplace.

This was one of my favourite songs from my younger days!

If we make it the finishing song at our end year class party, ohgosh, 

it will be nostalgia + awesome feelings of coming full circle.

We were strangers on a crazy adventure,

Never dreaming how our dreams would come true,

Now here we stand unafraid of the future.

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and I just wanna add this bit of Bartok, haha! man, I loved the Anastasia movie.

I'd give her a HA! and a HAIYAH! and a WOOWAH! and I'd kick her, sir.

Who is this adorable little girl!

Her face sums up my thoughts right now though: that one can be both happy and sad, because you succeed at some things (therefore, happiness!) but fail at others (therefore, disappointment!) all in a day. What's important is keeping perspective, no? So you don't ever swing too much in either direction (too high and happy or too sad and depressed), but maintain moderation in all things, as was exemplified by Nabi s.a.w..

Life is the pursuit of balance!

Equanimity =  a state of stability or composure - neither elated nor depressed - arising from a deep awareness and acceptance of the present moment. (Wikipedia)

On an unrelated point: I wish I could express love, care or concern to people without it appearing weird. Like I'd like to just go and ask, Are you okay? except that I feel the person will think me kaypoh! Oh dear. Especially with facebook and stuff, people put unhealthy statuses for public consumption and seriously, some people make me worry. Or tumblr! That place has even scarier emo stuffs. We should just physically start knocking on each other's doors and ask if anyone feels not-so-good, needs help, needs someone to talk to. 

OMGGD!!! how are you this amazing chameleon.

 

Whatever You wish me to do, help me do it.

Why are heroes always made from tears and blood? Even in reality, and not just the fiction I love, we know that greatness often comes from the small, the poor, the despised, or the weak.

And then yesterday, I was reminded: of course! God is with the broken-hearted. (:

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A heady experience, for an only child accustomed to single-thread happiness, and not to the moment of creation that occurs when the warp is interlocked with the weft. When the singer is matched with the sounding-board; the dream with the poet. When the sun and the fountain first meet one another.

- Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett

I've been reading reviews, trying to relive my first read.

I like this Running Man Episode! It features Han Ga In, who starred in the famous The Moon That Embraces The Sun. (JW, an episode rec for you!)

Although it isn't as crazy, exciting, or fast-paced as other episodes, it's really interesting! They made out the whole thing like a drama from the beginning, and it really almost felt like a drama -- they had to figure out who among them were first loves in childhood, based on clues hidden in obscure corners, as usual. The mystery left them constantly guessing, and confused. And then, it had a really really cute revelation bit. :D oh man, it was so cute.

I also think Haha might be my favourite member right now. Drama-mama Haroro.

Some updates:

* Thesis submission is over! Submission closed at exactly 5.00 pm. I almost got a heart attack when I couldn't even click the folder on ivle just to check on my plagiarism report.

I've found errors already, mostly formatting ones, but also mistakes with regard to participant age and numbers... yikes, yikes, yikes! Lucky hard copies are only due Monday so at least can alter for those. D:

* My PBL group thinks I'm bossy! :OOO But I hope they don't hate me or anything, ahah. If they tell me I'm bossy to my face, I don't suppose they resent it that much?

* I'm in love with a Jdrama too, yay! Rich Man, Poor Woman has a lovable, eccentric couple I'm totally rooting for, played by Oguri Shun (I've missed seeing him on screen!) and Ishihara Satomi. 

He's a hot-tempered computer genius and she's a naive fresh graduate with an eidetic memory, who he hires. And both of them are mentally unhinged in their own ways, it is so funny to watch them be insane around each other! The drama actually has some serious themes, but the two of them really make this an absolutely fun watch. 

One of those bits where she behaves like a crazy woman:

* I am forgetting that just because thesis is over, it doesn't mean I'm finished with this course yet. Still got hurdles to overcome!

* Last but not least, in the spirit of this whatsapp screencapping, one of my faves that I saved:

Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thought this an excellent description of what I'd always thought about friendship, the true kinds at least. What a delicate balance it is.

“Only trust someone who can see these three things in you: The sorrow behind your smile, the love behind your anger, and the reason behind your silence.”

Why am I emo when I need to finish my thesis.

Raya celebration meets Gangnam style -- hilarious! Malaysians do seem to have much more fun celebrating hari raya.

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Manipulation Level 5000!!!!

I've been bugging my sister to watch Gaksital (even bribing her with free sushi meals).  Susi, if you're reading this, here's a relatively non-spoiler-heavy clip to whet your appetite.

It shows one of many instances where Kang To exercises his awesome manipulation skills and uses his villain disguise to save the girl. Kang To is known to all Joseon as a terrible traitor who serves the Japanese Imperial Government but at the same time, he's the Gaksital who fights for the rights of Koreans. Could there really be a more intriguing disguise??? It's really just awesome to watch how he plays the villain-hero persona at the same time. Joo Won should get an Oscar.

Here he warns the girl that she and her freedom-fighter-daddy are in danger of being caught by the police while all the time pretending that he's the baddie who's always right on her tail. Also, funny bits by the rest of the cast!

It's so nail-bitingly exciting every week I'm like this @.@, so please, people, get a clue.

The following clips are SPOILER-filled but are here because they are my favourite parts of all of the drama so far, I think. It's the episode that really made me clutch my cheeks and think, "HOW IS THIS DRAMA SO AMAZING."

My old live-blogging comments when watching these parts:

Kang To is GENIUS. He uses his old bastard persona as an EXCELLENT DISGUISE. And makes Shunji totally second guess himself in the best way possible. KANG TO YOU ARE GENIUS AND THE MOST TORTURED HERO EVER.

He's the one in handcuffs and then screams for Goiso and Goiso comes skidding in, only to realize that Kang To in handcuffs, not his boss Shunji, was the one who shouted for him and he was all WHAT THE FFFF. HAHAHAHA.

KANG TO IS BEYOND AWESOME. WILL HE BECOME MY FAVOURITE K-HERO EVER?????? He totally takes charge -- he makes me believe in the whole just DO IT CONFIDENTLY AND EVERYONE WILL BELIEVE YOU'RE RIGHT.