Shards of Memory

In short, why did I choose to move from one tropical country to an even more tropical country? That is the question. But I'm finally home after a 3.5-hour-long flight on a cramped airplane complete with crying babies and snoring adults, so that's something. Also, I'm sitting 2 feet away from an industrial-strength electric fan (which, although it does ward off the worst of the heat and humidity, does nothing for my low-grade headache). I can only thank whatever deity exists that I'll be leaving for the U.S. tomorrow. I shall soon be basking in lovely late spring temperatures of around 18-24 degrees Celsius, if the weather forecasts are correct, which they never are but I'll be happy with anything below 28 and above freezing.

Whose bright idea was it to make "ravel" and "unravel" mean the same thing? Honestly.

*goes back to staring at the GRE 3,500 Word List*

My exams are over! And to commemorate my new-found freedom, I have a new layout - yet another exceptional piece of work by gawariel_design. I'm currently at Munchie Monkey (for all you non-NUS people, this is an on-campus restaurant) with Cassy, who has a review session at 2 pm. So the two of us are just killing time while eating chocolate cake (Cassy's treat). Oh, and I'll be going home this Thursday already. Yay.

Obviously, I have nothing to write about. I've exhausted most of the anime I've been watching, and the ones that are left are being subbed sporadically. Even the new chapters of the manga I'm reading have gone AWOL. I recently reformatted my computer so it's noticeably faster now, but I'm not interested in doing anything with it. Oh, the irony.

Anyway, I think Cassy's about to leave. Maybe I'll blog again when I get home.

EDIT: My Christmas wishlist is ready, if anyone's interested. It won't show up on your friends page because it's dated out of order. Less f-list spammage that way :P

Warning: I just finished my Psychology final a couple of hours ago, so this entry is probably filled with Psych facts that you never wanted to know. Read at your own risk.

My exams are finally over! Studying over the summer is really a distasteful experience, regardless of the environment. I'm too used to waking up after lunch (not that I don't do that here) and then spending the remainder of the day bonding with my PS2 or playing the piano or reading fanfics (or watching _chimoms mooch off the contents of my refrigerator :P). But at least it's finally over, and I'll be home in roughly a week. Not that I regret coming here (well, not that much). But if nothing else, this experience taught me that I definitely prefer wasting my summers with inactivity (or non-productive activities), especially since I'll have to start working in a couple of years; in all likelihood, I'll have no more summer vacations by that time :(

I had the weirdest dream a few nights ago. I dreamt that I was getting married o_o I remember that most, if not all, of Batch '05 was at the wedding, all dressed up in gowns and suits. I don't remember what I was wearing, or how I knew I was getting married; I only remember that I was standing beside the groom. The last thing I remember was talking to merkuryo before I woke up; he was asking if he could leave before the reception. He was about to tell me why when I woke up. And, upon waking, I was so flabbergasted at realizing that I had actually dreamed about marriage, of all things, that the identity of my groom-to-be (even just typing the word makes me nauseated XP) just slipped away. I just lay there trying to remember his face or name or something for almost half an hour before I gave up and went back to sleep. It's a good thing that I still don't subscribe to the Freudian school of thought that dreams are an outlet for our unconscious urges and conflicts; Freud could find sexual or violent themes in everything, from a lamp-post to a tunnel to a flattened frog. He was obviously a very repressed individual, not to mention a misogynist. I personally believe that dreams are just the brain's attempts to make sense of the random neural transmissions that occur during REM sleep, which explains why dreams are usually very weird. Freud was undoubtedly invaluable to the science of psychology, but many of his ideas are too.. perverted for me to take him seriously. Honestly, what kind of person labels stages of development as the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, and the genital stage? He even believed that children who are going through the phallic stage will either be sexually attracted to their mothers (in the case of boys) or hate their mothers because they (the children) were born without a penis (in the case of girls); he called the former the Oedipus complex and the latter the Electra complex. Yes, Freud actually thought that all women suffer from "penis envy" and that his female patients who reported instances of sexual abuse were only expressing their unconscious desire to be sexually abused. It's so tragic that someone so intelligent could be so idiotic. Funnily enough, one of Freud's students who vehemently disagreed with his teachings was a woman whose surname was Horney (yet another tragedy).

Okay, now I'm just spewing random Psych tidbits that come to mind. Here's another one: Anorexia nervosa is the leading cause of death among all psychological disorders, including clinical depression and schizophrenia; anorexics usually die of heart failure (or stroke) or suicide. So we should all stop thinking that those skinny models and actresses and porn stars are the epitome of feminine beauty :P And although I still want to lose weight (I want to be underweight again, actually), I'm not even close to being anorexic. Strangely enough, my mother was actually worried that I'd develop anorexia, since I apparently fit the psychological profile of most anorexics - something about insecurity, low self-esteem, and perfectionism. Well, she is a psychiatrist, so she should know what she's talking about, but no one with functional eyes would think that I'm anorexic. That I want to be on the anorexic side of normal has nothing to do with it :P

I think I've finally exhausted my desire to blather on about Psych stuff. I must have been studying too much. I don't particularly want to think about the fact that my 3rd year of university will be starting in little more than a month. And I don't know whether I should be excited about my next semester: I won't be living in the dorm anymore. Oliver and I will be sharing an apartment somewhere (he's still looking), and while I'm sure he'll be a good flatmate, I'm still worried about all the hassle living off-campus will entail - commuting, paying for utilities, living far away from school, etc. Oh well, there's nothing I can do about that now. I'm better off not thinking about it. And what better way to get your mind off something than to pursue useless activities? I think I'll try playing Warcraft again :D

Yes, I actually have one. Some of the Singaporeans and I went to a club last night (technically, this morning). We met some acquaintances on the way, a Singaporean girl named Audrey and an Indonesian guy named Albert (they're a couple, by the way). They took us to a club called Tonic, which was having some sort of event for college students, so we got to go in for free. Having been in a club before, I wasn't surprised to see a whole mob of people dancing and grinding and whatnot, but I think some of the Singaporeans were.. overwhelmed, to say the least. Their discomfort probably showed on their faces, because Audrey suddenly asked if we wanted to leave. We went outside to talk since the music inside was too loud. Some of us noticed that Audrey did not look happy (she looked pissed, actually) so we decided to stay in the club and give it a chance. No amount of wheedling or dragging, however, could convince any of us to dance, so we just ordered drinks from the bar and stood around near the dance floor. Most of them got a beer, one girl got a glass of vodka, and I had Bailey's. Basically, we just stood there drinking for around an hour. Audrey and Albert eventually gave up on us and went to dance on their own, but after a while they suddenly decided to go home. I wouldn't blame them if they thought we were a bunch of wet blankets, but that shouldn't have stopped them from having fun. I had a good time even if I didn't actually do anything; the Bailey's was yummy :D

Today, we decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. There was a market in front of the cinema, so we went early and explored the place. It was basically a wet market with some restaurants and delis. We watched the movie at 4:30 pm (although it didn't actually start until around 4:45). It wasn't spectacular, probably because I had high expectations, but it was decent. I liked Dead Man's Chest better despite the cliffhanger; it was a lot more funny and a lot less sappy. For some reason, Orlando Bloom looked better in his outfit at the end of the movie; maybe it has something to do with what happened to him (oops, spoiler :P).

The others are going to Toronto Island tomorrow morning, but I declined to join them. I think I've fulfilled my socialization quota for the next month or so. And they're leaving at 9 am. Enough said. Oh, and I have a midterm on Monday, but most of them have tests too and they're not letting that stop them for some unfathomable reason.

Oh, woe is me (it should be "I", but I guess poetic license applies here). I can't believe I'm going to miss PLAY! A Video Game Symphony in Singapore. An orchestra and a choir will be playing tracks from various RPGs and other video games, including Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, and Super Mario Brothers. I already missed an earlier RPG soundtrack concert and now I'm going to miss this one too!! :( And to make things worse, the NUS Choir was even invited to perform!! I would have been able to watch for free!! *sob* For angst's sake, let's just ignore the fact that even if I wasn't in Toronto right now, I still wouldn't be in Singapore during the concert (which is on June 15 and 16). Life suuuuuucks :( I wish I hadn't found out. Now I shall be depressed for all of 5 minutes (or until I'm distracted by something, whichever comes first).

In other news, Toronto has been okay so far. The temperature is slowly starting to rise from sub-20s to mid-20s, which is a lot more comfortable for us tropical folk. My classes have been pretty easy so far; I'm taking an introductory psychology class and an astronomy class. They've both been kinda amusing, especially astronomy. I never thought I'd find people who are even more math-phobic than I am. Apparently, this astronomy class was meant for non-science students who have no background in math and physics (I don't suppose Pisay counts). Even so, I was still surprised at how afraid of math my classmates are. During the first lecture, our teacher was clarifying some stuff about the syllabus, and she was aware that most of the class was worried about the math. So she listed down some basic things we'd have to know, which are:

1) how to do simple calculations (e.g. 1/10 = 0.1) without a calculator
2) scientific notation (e.g. 3.0 x 10^8)
3) proportionality (both direct and inverse)
4) how to interpret simple graphs (e.g. straight lines, bell curves)

Nothing to be scared of, right? Apparently not. After she'd gone through the list, our teacher found most of her students staring at her with a mixture of shock and dread. And that's not all. During our second lecture, we were discussing energy flux, which sounds really deep and profound but really isn't, trust me; all we had to know was that flux is directly proportional to temperature raised to the fourth power (i.e. T^4). She gave us some sample problems for practice (e.g. if the temperature of Star A is 5000 K and the temperature of Star B is 10000 K, Star B has (10000/5000)^4 = 2^4 = 16 times more flux than Star A). She then went on to reassure us that since we weren't allowed to use calculators during the test, she'd only give us small numbers like 2^4, 3^4, and 4^4. When she asked if we'd be okay with 5^4, the class's answer was a very violent and vehement NO. Now, I'm not complaining about any of this. In fact, it makes things very easy for me, especially since I only have to pass my subjects (they're not going to affect my grades back in NUS). I just find it funny that my brother was apparently not exaggerating when he said that North Americans (in general) are a bit slow in the academic sense.

If anyone has the urge to refute my seemingly unjust judgment of North Americans, please don't. Just remember that my opinions don't matter in the grander scheme of things; if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong and it doesn't matter what I think. And to any North Americans reading this, you probably don't even know who I am, so my opinions shouldn't matter to you. The point of this post wasn't to endear myself to anyone :P

Today was an unusual day. I actually woke up at 9 am without an alarm despite going to bed at around 3 am! *gasp* Not that it did me any good. My brother didn’t come home until 2 pm, so I could do nothing but read Prince of Tennis fanfics (I ♥ the Golden Pair :D) until then.

We just got back from Brooklyn (my brother lives in Manhattan). We went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden because my brother wanted to take pictures of the sakura (cherry blossom) trees. I was looking forward to seeing real sakura after seeing it on anime for so long (I’ve always wanted to visit the sakura grove in Ueno Park because of the manga/anime X/1999), and I wasn’t disappointed. The sakura grove at the botanic garden was amazing. With every gust of wind, sakura petals would float to the ground like pale pink snowflakes. The ground was a beautiful carpet of pink petals and bright green grass. And it felt wonderful to just lie down and stare up at the blossom-laden branches and the perfectly blue sky. The sakura trees weren’t the only attractions, though; one part of the garden had a multitude of tulips in every size and color imaginable. There was also a small creek with a weeping willow tree right beside it (think Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas). And then there was the bonsai exhibit. I never knew that bonsai trees were so difficult to create and maintain; I always thought people just used trees that were naturally small, but apparently they use normal trees and meticulously prune them to keep them dwarf-sized. For those who watch Prince of Tennis, I can now understand why Tezuka (in the TeniPuri family) is so protective of and obsessive about his bonsai.

After spending a couple of hours at the botanic garden, my brother got hungry so we walked to a pizzeria called Grimaldi’s, which supposedly has the best pizza in New York. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it was really really really good; my brother and I finished an 18-inch pizza by ourselves (I had 3 slices, he had 5). And we still had enough room for ice cream afterwards. My brother wanted to walk back to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, but I looked sufficiently reluctant so he changed his mind and we took the subway instead. I would have been willing to walk if it wasn’t so darn cold. I suppose the ice cream didn’t help with that :P

Funnily enough, the first thing I thought of after being enthralled by the sakura grove was, “This would make a great LJ entry.” Sound familiar? I think this officially makes me an internet addict.

It's 3:07 am, I'm still awake, and I have to wake up in 4 hours for an 8 am class. I am SO going to kill myself later. But I saw this mood theme and I just HAD TO TAKE IT o_o Brownie points to those who can identify it, because that probably means you've watched one of the best TV shows ever :D I still can't believe it was canceled. Stupid television networks. Anyway, that's basically it. I just spent 3 hours figuring out how to use a Plus account, uploading 134 pictures one by one onto my Ripway account, typing 134 URLs one by one into the custom mood theme page (which I had to do twice because it didn't work the first time), and then reconfiguring my layout so that it'd work on a Plus account, when instead I should be dead asleep dreaming about who knows what. My priorities are so screwed up. At least I finished my homework but not my term paper :P

Must. Sleep. Now.

Long time no blog. Real life caught up to me real fast as soon as I got back to Singapore; midterms galore were all I had to look forward to. As expected, my little vacation was much too short and I almost didn't want to leave. As they say, home is where the PS2 is :P And now I won't be going home for another 4 months (instead of 2) because I'll be going to Canada for exchange; I'm trying not to think about the 2 months of PS2-ing and UP-visiting that I'll miss. And all because I just randomly told my dad that Cassy and Gail wanted to go to Toronto this summer because of some exchange thing and I went along to the briefing despite not being interested. And now I'm the only one actually going to Toronto (Gail's going to Waterloo, Cassy to China and South Korea). Honestly, I don't really want to go, but I'm a bit lacking in reasonable excuses (PS2 and UP aside). Besides, it'll probably be a good opportunity for me to stop being so antisocial (I think the term used was "cliquish"). And who knows, maybe I'll meet a good-looking, smart, charming, rich, *insert more desirable qualities here* Canadian guy :P

I feel like such a bum. My "Hell Week" ended today, so of course I spent the last couple of hours playing with my birthday gift:



I wonder if I should name it (like Chimoms' Macbook). For those of you who watch Bleach, I found myself reminded of Rukia's zanpakutou, Sode no Shirayuki. I thought about calling it Yuki (snow in Japanese), but I kept imagining either Yukito from Cardcaptor Sakura (not necessarily a bad thing) or Yuki Eiri from Gravitation (ICK. As much as I like yaoi, this anime is just plain annoying >_<).

Yay, we're going to watch "300" tomorrow. The trailer really got me, especially King Leonidas' lines ("Madness? This is Sparta!"). I hope it's as good as it seems. It kinda reminds me of "Lord of the Rings" (probably because of the troll-like things and the men with piercings), which could be both good and bad; the LotR similarity makes me want to watch it, but it might raise my expectations too much. Not really a good reason to watch a movie but then again, Cassy only wants to watch it because of Gerard Butler (title role in "Phantom of the Opera" and King Leonidas) :P I hope it's not too gory, though. Even the official site is bloody; blood spurts out when you hover over the various icons o_o

I should go eat dinner now. Cecilia and I still have a lab report to do. A Life Science student's work is never done :\