sotto voce

i’ve been staring at the empty screen for an hour. it just seems that i’m incapable of producing any work today. that’s what happened when you’ve written way too many papers for your own good. now i feel as if whatever kind of paper i write will just be a replication of something i wrote before.

should stop caring and just frucking write this goddamn paper lah… 

for some reason i feel like there’s this translucent plastic cover blanketing my mind, that i can’t access everything properly and i can’t form any coherent argument / sentences.
in B’s words: "you’ve become a schmooo.."

sigh… i think i simply just have too much B-ness in my life right now.
i become such a mellow, easy-going, relaxed person – close to being a completely lazy fucker. but it’s spring alright, and what’s better than spending beautiful spring days lazying around?

thanks sulez for tagging me. normally i’ll pretend not knowing anything about it, but in the spirit of a new sel, i shall comply…

 6 weird things about me:

1. in the morning, i brush my teeth in the shower. for some reason, i feel that doing so cuts my showering / prepping-up time. i’m sure there’s logical fallacy somewhere, but whatever.

2. when i cook something new, i’ll pore over the recipe obsessively, memorize every single step, and then i’ll abandon the recipe and do the cooking my own way. it’s been successful mostly, although probably the food could’ve tasted better had i followed the recipes.

3. i hardly ever call my friends to do stuff together, it’s always them who call me. i only noticed this recently, and decided that it’s a bad habit i should get rid off. for some reason i feel very uncomfortable asking people to do stuff with me. plus i don’t like being rejected / feel like i’m not independent enough to do things myself.

4. i arrange my clothes according to their colors. for practical purposes, of course.

5. i cut my own hair (and as a matter of fact, i just took away 2 inches off) and don’t really care about the neatness of my work. it feels silly to me, to be so particular about something that will grow back. 

6. unless i’m really really tired and will pass out the second my head touches the pillow, i need music to help me sleep.

i don’t think i’ll tag anyone.. since i don’t really know who else reads my blog besides carrotz and sulez. hahahaha… 

it’s one of those days when coherence just escapes you completely, no matter which way you turn. words just become coincidental confluences of letters that make sense sometimes, make sense to other people, but not you.
it’s one of those days when you think you’ll speak in verse better than in sentence.
but it’s one of those days when what you think doesn’t matter.

i wish speechless could express everything that i feel, but it doesn’t.
i have words, sentences, phrases, poems, stories, anecdotes, and a plethora of verbal imageries to convey what’s inside, but these things just lie dormant within – as if there needs to be a motor to propel them out, or a suction pump to suck them out.
meanwhile i just get more and more bloated by the accumulation of unexpressed, unuttered, unsaid thoughts.
all i manage to say is a stream of incoherent mumbles and a long, frustrated "AARGH"

it’s one of those days when you just feel totally disconnected from civilization.

one common misconception among people about environmental conservation is that it’s prohibitively costly. hence, it’s often neglected for the sake of growth – as if the two are diametrically in opposition to each other.
if only people will start thinking of cost benefit analysis in terms of longer period of time, i’m sure they’ll realize that it’s actually cheaper to put in place certain environmental protection policies now, to avoid the hefty cost of having to clean up the muck later in the future.

"Rapid economic growth has had a damaging impact on China’s environment.

Its cities, countryside, waterways and coastlines are among the most polluted in the world.

The Ministry of Land and Resources said agricultural land in China fell to 121.8 million hectares (30 million acres) by the end of October 2006 – a loss of 306,800 hectares since the start of the year.

Heavy metals alone contaminate 12m tonnes of grain each year, causing annual losses of 20bn yuan ($2.6bn), China’s Xinhua news agency quoted the ministry as saying."

 From BBC.

i don’t know what’s gotten into me. maybe the fact that we’ve been talking about family stuff a lot: his family, my family, our relationships with our respective family, the hypothetical response our respective mother will have when introduced to the other party, etc etc.

but to cut long story short, i made the stupid mistake of telling my mom a little about B, just so she doesn’t think i’m turning into a lesbian or mourning in loneliness over the lost love (yeah right..).
but straight away she fired up these questions:
1. where’s he from? he’s american
2. american???! is he religious? no. but i think his parents are
3. oh no!! does he respect women?  absolutely.
4. huh, really?! what’s his major? music

and she kept on saying how i shouldn’t "go crazy" (literal translation), which i interpreted to be: don’t you fucking be his sex slave. either she’s been watching way too much hollywood movie or she’s secretly been watching porn with those angmoh guys and asian girls.
and she was definitely half-livid when she knew he’s a music major (what if he can’t get a job ? join a rock metal band ? involved in drugs?etc etc. etc).

i ended up raising my voice and i told her straight: just now she was complaining to me about my sister, who’s started keeping distance because she can’t stand being judged, lectured, reprimanded all the time by my mom who’ll never accept the fact that she loves a female. and now, if she f-in wants me to trust her and confide in her, instead of keeping secret, she should freakin cut out her judgmental behavior and start thinking rationally. have i, in my three years career in college, showed the slightest sign of degenerate behavior? granted she didn’t know what i’m up to, still she should at least show me some support and be proud at the fact that i’m successful by any kinds of standard, despite all the things she’s put me through. so why can’t she just be happy at the fact that i’m happy and trust me when i told her that he’s multiple times nicer than wy and that he respects me more than wy will ever do.

i mean, it’s too early for us to have this fight anyway… it’s not as if B and i are gonna get married soon or something. we don’t even refer to each other as bf / gf. we just "hang out a lot", even though idiots can see through the unverbalized definition and know what we are.

and i already know that the fact that he’s a music major will be a problem for her. but i guess i can’t blame her for having that mindset when it comes to artistic professions. still, i was hoping that for once she could be the mom who’ll be happy when i’m happy, without thinking too much about other things and trying so hard to protect me from things i already knew about and telling me not to do things.

i just want her to know that even though he’s not asian, not religious, and has none of those corporate jobs, he respects me, he cares about me, and he makes me happy.

i think they’re awesome, and the story of how they were formed makes me love them even more.

From Wikipedia,

 "Ivy was formed in 1994 when multi-instrumentalists Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger convinced Parisian born Dominique Durand, who had never before sung in a group, to venture into a New York studio and record a four-song tape with them. Dominique, who moved to New York City from Paris in 1990, first met Andy at a party, where he was playing with his previous band. She told him that his band was "not [her] cup of tea". The two became involved in a romantic relationship, which lasts to the present day. Three years later, Andy and Dominique wrote a song, and asked Adam to play bass on demo. Adam persuaded Andy and Dominique to write more together, which eventually resulted in a five-song demo…"

I think it is indeed the appropriate time to say, "AWWWWWWWWWWW…...so sweeeeeet….." 

kaskade apr 13th in toronto.

fuck lah. 

breathe in. breathe out. no matter what, just keep on breathing.

things are going well i must say. a little flustered in the work department, with various sides whipping my bootiful asses, but whatever man,...
they can’t expect me to do this job as if i’m working full time everyday.
and it’s easy for the techs to expect me to provide them with full service training, but same thing, baby, i don’t work (nor get paid) 8-hrs a day to do this.
i have my majors, my classes, my other stuff to think about.

sometimes i feel like i’m not really in college to study. think about it, i do my papers a couple hours before they’re due, i do my homework in class, i do my readings an hour before class or go to classes without having done any readings.
urm…  so why am i in college for??
oh yeah, right, to get that bloody useless BA.

i don’t know what to do with overconcerned people. those who think a surprise visit = self-destructive behavior.
i’m sure it’s done out of goodwill. still i find it amusing and annoying at the same time.
although i’m kinda glad i’m completely over it, because otherwise i’d have this overwhelming curiosity to ask the person what did mr.N tell her exactly about my visit, and his whole opinion about it.
but see,... i’m not at all curious. all i want to do is to shrug my shoulders and say, "m(p)hh".
so.not.important.

how do i know i’m really over mr.N?
coz i really don’t feel anything towards him, the memory of him, his pictures, his messages, his emails, etc. etc.
he’s finally back being a neutral subject and not even a trace of anger or longing manage to get stuck somewhere within me.
i do not need to denigrate him, nor deprecate myself to acknowledge that it’s not meant to be.
not that he’s a bad pork chop, or i’m a choosy buyer.
just say, the fengshui wasn’t right.
hahaha…

life is probably kinda sucky right now, but i’m trying my best to close my eyes once in a while and just find that peace. let the world pass me by for a minute or two, i know i can run fast enough and catch up after my momentary meditation.
and in the end, we’ll all float on alright.

mommy called to check on me today.
not really, she was asking about my sis coz they haven’t talked for some time.
sis is busy and mom isn’t exactly the best person to deal with when you’re busy and tired, since she’s so interrogative at times.

then she asked about the ex and i told her we rarely talked nowadays. probably once a month?
"and you’re fine with that?" she asked

"yeah. DUH. we’re not together anymore what…"

"i don’t understand. how come you’re so glib about it.
when i broke up with my ex last time, it took me forever to get over him.
i had to take a year off from school,
and even then i still couldn’t recover and ended up marrying him (mom’s ex-husband)"

she probably would never admit it, but she definitely wish she hadn’t gotten married and had my sis that early in life, so she could go to grad school first.

but what struck me about her comment was how i could see myself in her shoes.
we’re both very emotional, despite our attempts to be rational.
and we’re both weak like jelly when it comes to heart-matter and relationships.
we’ll abandon rationality to pursue the faintest scent of happiness.
oh, and we’re both extremely rash and short-tempered.

it ran through my mind as she was telling me her story, "perhaps she had a similar pork chop analogy and at that time, she thought she couldn’t get a better pork chop"
i remember her telling me once that she got married because she wanted to get out of her parents’ house. so marriage was almost like a salvation for her, or that was how she thought it would be.
of course reality proved to be otherwise.

this is where i realize how much i’ve grown to be more appreciative of my mom’s demand from my sister and i. she didn’t want us to be as provincial as she was in her youth. and she did just that.
when i told her i didn’t want to study in singapore, she forced me to.
i almost hated her for it, and i’m sure at some point i really hated her for it. but if not for the scholarship, i wouldn’t have been where i am right now, and i would’ve had a totally different world view.

i would’ve considered marriage as a must-have in life and worried when i remain single at thirty. and i probably would’ve gotten stuck in a bad relationship because i don’t know how many different varieties of pork chops there are, how many stores there are all over the world that sells top-quality pork chops, and how i’m loaded enough to purchase whichever pork chop i want.

why i can’t go into law:

 i can’t stand pretentious language.

 From Slate:

But why should a dose of Red No. 40 turn Betty Crocker into Hester Prynne? Ask a gourmand and you’re likely to hear three specious answers. First, Epicurean: Artificial color tastes bad. Second, Hippocratic: It’s bad for your health. And third, Platonic: It makes food unnatural.

I believe that we just have this apprehension towards the word ‘artificial’. It makes us think about a bunch of evil scientists wearing white lab coats, goggles, and latex gloves, mixing chemicals that are so noxious they can’t even breathe the fume.

It’s ironic, because the word artificial came from the same word in Old French (meaning ‘made by man’) and in Latin (meaning ‘of or belonging to art’). Are we saying that we’re so distrustful of one another, that we are suspicious of anything the human hand produces?

Sometimes I think we just have way too much faith in the goodness of mother nature, and unfairly associating man-made stuff as being inferior.

maybe it’s because i’m such a nature girl that weather has a ridiculously profound effect on my disposition.
like today’s weather, which will put any scottish weather to shame.
it’s wet, soggy, gloomy, and depressing over all.
so despite my utmost effort in lightening up the day by wearing pastel-colored sweater, it still turns out to be one gloomy and depressing day.

or perhaps it’s just another part of my PMS package.

***

i finally settled my thesis stuff today. i met up for the first time with the gov prof today (ME) and he’s agreed to become my co-advisor, along with my other two envisci profs. i also told the chair (PR) about my intention to do this joint-thesis, and totally shot my crazy idea of doing pubic public policy analysis using scientific method ("it’ll be too scientific and incoheret for any of our dept readers to comprehend"). instead he recommended me to write two-part thesis, which is equivalent to – and this is in his words – writing two theses in parallel.

excuse me, are you trying to kill me or something?
i’ve seen enough suicidal faces of thesis-writing seniors these few weeks to hazard the amount of suffering i’ll have to go through next year when i’m writing my thesis. singular.
theses are the perfect tool to dig my grave, i believe.

although now i’m having second thought about writing this whole coral reef thesis thing. sure it will be darn impressive, but a part of me wants to write about something fun, something i can have fun with, and something i can impress people (read: friends and strangers, not future employers or future grad sch admission officers) with because the topic is just so out-of-this world and so quintessetially sel.

but since i haven’t been able to come up with a ‘wow’ topic, i can only continue pondering. 

***

my lame joke of the day:

on how technical my hydrology class is:
"i still can’t believe how dry hydrology is."

i know you want to laugh. don’t repress, it’s not good for your soul. 

super PMS-y.

but bear with me.

so in my work, there are a couple of divisions: the consultants, the techs, and the AV techs.

the consultant work is damn bo-liao. sit there in the lab, fill up paper for the printers, wait for ppl to ask them for help. no-brainer kind of work.

the techs are quite good. they go around fixing broken stuff. but then there are the "special" classroom techs who manage the night calls for stupid absent-minded unsavvy profs. which means that sometimes they jsut have to sit there throughout the night and wait for calls.

i belong to the third category, the super ‘zhun’ ones. when we work, we W.O.R.K. we lug heavy stuff across campus, deal with bitchy departmental secretaries and demanding presenters, we deal with last-minute requests, we face sudden technical difficulties, we have to come in EARLY in the morning (6am sometimes) and shoot late into the night (past midnight sometims). YES we are THAT good.
and hear, hear… we are also the only division that earns MONEY. 

so isn’t it fair to ask that we get paid MORE than the rest?
or else, how am i supposed to convince my crew that they shd stay in my group – (besides the minor fact that they actually learn useful skill like videography, final cut pro and other nifty stuff).
but of course life isn’t fair (else it won’t be life), and we get paid the same rate as everyone else.

it’s left to my cheerleading skill and my crew’s self-motivation for us to keep our morale high and continue doing our back-breaking work while left-right our colleagues are slacking during their shifts.

fuckshit lah.
i already feel damn pissed today, knowing that among all the managers i probably have the most work and shittiest too. because when someone screws up, we (read: me / my boss) get real yelling from the most ungrateful people on this planet, not to mention decrease in earning.

i don’t know why i’m doing this, really?
why do i end up – as always – in the most shittiest position ever imagined.
clearly i’m just asking for it, never fail to look for the most difficult things i can get my hands on, just to make my life more "interesting".
previously i can still be positive and tell myself: y’know, it’s alright, i learn from all these things and it’ll make me a better person, a more well-rounded person.

now i’m just waaay more cynical.
i already know i’m well-rounded, to the point that i’m going to look like a giant snowball if i get more well-rounded.
and i also know that whatever adversity i manage to overcome, i’ll only gain personal satisfaction from it. nothing more nothing less.
face it man, employers / recruiters only care about your grade, GPA and GPA. so what if you were a manager of this student group with a ton of responsibilities on your shoulder and you know how to setup a webcast or you know how to deal with difficult people. it might help you in your career, but these skills do not help you get your foot in the door.

that’s why i hate stories like "the pursuit of happyness". it’s such one big fat misleading story disguised under the label of ‘inspirational’
inspirational, my ass.
maybe it was true ten – fifteen years ago.
i know it isn’t true now.
now everything you are is reflected within that 3pointsomething GPA of yours.

pardon me.
i’m just over-worked, under-paid, over-extended, under-appreciated, over-slaved and under-nourished.
but then again: no one to blame but me.
can only say, "LIFE LOR….."

it’s hard to be invisible in a small campus.

remember the stupid cellbio class i’m dropping. so i did bomb the midterm and immediately multiple letters were sent all over campus (to my two advisors, my thesis advisor, and my dean) regarding my performance.
so my profs have been giving me this quizzical look, or i’d like to call it "WTH" look.
and everytime i’ll give them the paiseh look and "hehhehehe..i’m dropping the class" to quench their WTH looks.

ok i just need to get this out of my chest.

FUCKING SHIT> MARTIN WRIGHT IS SPINNING IN TORONTO TONIGHT WTFH WHY MUST I BE IN THIS PATHETIC LITTLE ULU IN_THE-MIDDLE_OF_NOWHERE_TOWN ?????

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAREHFGHDLKHLKH! 

em’s been chastising me for not taking the initiative to call him.
perhaps i haven’t painted the full picture for her, because she still believes that there’s hope and it’s just me who haven’t been honest enough to him about the extent of my feelings.
i told her i’ve given up.
for me… three missed calls and an AIM message are evident enough to demonstrate how much he doesn’t want me in his life anymore.
i mean, i would totally understand.
it’s almost like how i treated wy before. god knows how many times we did the breakup and makeup cycles. i wonder how he didn’t get frustrated all these while.

so don’t tell me i didn’t try.
i did. within the limit of my patience and available time.
if he isn’t man enough to at least give me a call and hear what i have to say,
and if he isn’t courteous enough to at least RETURN the call / reply my message
i can only shrug my shoulder.

em thinks i should text (that’s SMS, btw) him because some people (her and her bf included) hardly ever check their voicemails (HOw’S THAT POSSIBLE??)
and that apparently if you hang up after the voicemail lady says: "Please leave your message…blah blah blah", there won’t be any missed calls registered.
but come on… how much benefit of the doubt am i supposed to give?

this is really frustrating. because really i should be concentrating on other (read: greater) things in life. sure, my happiness is important. but blardee hell, why must the sum of my life’s happiness hinges upon this one factor? why must he have so much significance in my life and in my happiness when i’m no longer even significant in his life? why is it so hard for me to move on? why do i love wallowing so much in this puddle of the past, when i could involve myself in new relationships? why must i blame myself for what happened, when clearly the fault isn’t mine alone to bear?

*** 

don’t laugh at me,
but yesterday night ( more like 4am in the morning) as i walked back towards my house, i laughed as i thought to myself: "man… why am i depressed. i’m actually hot!"
(sel’s failing attempt to get herself out of this pathetic shithole)
you would laugh too if you know the unpleasant history of my social life back in high school.
but yah,...
it’s pretty depressing to see me languishing my youth away, mourning over the loss of someone like him. yes, he’s nice, yes he’s great to talk to, yes he cares about me when he wants to care about me, but it’s over it’s over it’s over.  

i’m blaming my parents for my abnormally-high need for intimacy.