of ships and shoes and sealing-wax...

... and cabbages and kings! lol. for those of you who don't know where on earth i pulled that one out from, it's from "the walrus and the carpenter", which's what tweedledum and tweedledee recited to alice in "alice thru the looking glass", by lewis carroll. if you haven't read the book, go read it! one of my all time favorites. this's the verse my title's from, and the one after that :

"'the time has come,' the walrus said,
'to talk of many things:
of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax -
of cabbages - and kings -
and why the sea is boiling hot -
and whether pigs have wings.'

'but wait a bit,' the oysters cried,
'before we have our chat;
for some of us are out of breath,
and all of us are fat!'
'no hurry!' said the carpenter.
they thanked him much for that."

haha... turns out this's one of peggy's favorite books too! she has a copy of this one and alice in wonderland although she's about to be a great-grandmother... yeah GREAT. her grandaughter's expecting a baby in november! i knew she had grandchildren, but i had no idea they were so old. i mean, i didn't she and dick were all that old too - until i found out yesterday that he's 79 and she's 75. but man, with the lifestyles thay lead and how they look... i would've thought they were in their 60s at most. it's amazing. they do volunteer work, he goes for bible studies, they do gardening, she knits and cooks, he still does some accounting work, she helps... so cool right? i like them. =)

oh the reason why i put what i did as my title and started off this post with a totally random excerpt from a totally random book is cos this post has kind of a random theme to it... i'm just gonna write about whatever comes to mind - nothing in particular. so that accounts for the first verse. the reason why i chose to include the second verse is cos i've been feeling very much like a fat oyster since i got here lol. well actually i haven't been eating as unhealthily or as much as i thought i would, really, cos peggy and dick are pretty healthy people (yay!), but i mean it more in the context of me feeling all lethargic for the past few days - don't think i'm totally over the jetlag yet. had a really early night on monday - slept at like 9, and then i was woken up at 8 by a knock on the door. actually a few knocks. then peggy came in and handed me the cordless and said there was a call for me, and it turned out to be dav! =D my first phone call. after talking to him i had a nice hot shower, washed my hair and everything, and felt really awake, so i thought that was the end of the jetlag, but right about 12pm it was right back again. oh well, nothing like a legit excuse for being lazy i guess =)

i've been pretty occupied with sorting out bank accounts, laptops and handphones.. i think i've gotten the banks figured out (think i'll end up with like, 5 different accounts!), pretty decided on the handphone issue too, but i'm not gonna do anything about that one until i get on campus and see if i really need one. i don't have friends here to call or text =( yet. and as for laptops... i've had about 5 different brands and goodness knows how many models suggested to me, all with different specs and prices. still feeling pretty hopeless but... i think for now i'm leaning more towards the macbook. with the lower hard drive space (thank kit, jiat and eric for the help! you guys rock. sometimes. =)). but i'm gonna talk to one or two more people before making my final decision, and hope tohave my jawapan muktamad by tomorrow or friday, latest. so if any of you have any serious objections to me geting a mac, SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PISS. and don't tell me after i get one. cos it's too late and i don't wanna know.

serious stuff aside, peggy and dick had this russian student over of dinner yesterday - his name's ivan, he stayed with them last year, and he's working toward a phd in physical chemistry (all together now: "oooo.." or "why on earth would anyone do that?!", depending on who you are). he's pretty nice... can't speak english too well, but enough to communicate. after dinner, we played dominoes! or rather this variant of it called "chicken foot", which wasn't too bad. then we started on a jigsaw puzzle that ivan gave them, with 2000 pieces! 2000! and it has a whole load of sky that's pretty much the same color so the majority of the pieces look exactly the same lol. we worked on it for a bit, but we're nowhere near finishing. think i'll be done with my degree before it gets put together =P haha if for some reason peggy or dick manage to get in contact with you and ask you if i like jigsaw puzzles say yes kay, cos on the first or second day i was here peggy asked if i liked puzzles and i thought she meant it more in a riddle/rubix cube way so i said yes. then i figured that she meant jigsaws which i'm not really a fan of but they were both happy that i said i liked jigsaws so i couldn't disappoint them by saying i misunderstood now could i? >.<

oh and something you probably wouldn't believe is... i've started knitting! really! peggy gave me a knitting lesson today and i've begun work on a nice blue-green scarf. that i plan to use. if i can by the time i'm thru with it. lol. i knit! something i thought i would never say. but it's coming along pretty well, so if all goes as planned i'll put up a picture of it when i'm done, kay? oh and the other thing i wanna put a picture up of is this oregon t-shirt they gave me at a bank! i'm supposed to wear it for the game this saturday... uo colors are yellow and green, so i went with green cos i don't look nice in yellow. nope. oh and i have my uo id! so i'm getting closer to being a fully-fledged student of the uo lah =)

speaking of pictures, i was gonna put some up today, but then i realized that the usb cord i need to transfer pics from my cam to the com is somewhere in the depths of my suitcase and would require a major excavation to get out. and i don't wanna mess up my bags cos i have to pack everything again tonight since i'm moving on campus tomorrow morning. soo... patience! i promise to do it as soon as i can! which means when i get my laptop and an internet connection on campus. so pray it all gets sorted out soon!

after this i predict internet contact is gonna decrease for a bit cos i'm gonna be pretty busy with moving and orientation, so i'm not sure when i'll be back. this has been a long post so it should keep you tied down til then la. before i sign off i'll give you the last verse of "the walrus and the carpenter", just so you know how it ends (which you probably dont really need or want to know since you don't know how it starts. but anyway.) :

"'o oysters,' said the carpenter,
'you've had a pleasant run!
shall we be trotting home again?'
but answer came there none -
and this was scarcely odd because
they'd eated every one."

poor oysters. =(