the long road home.

man, what a week in los angeles! dav, josh and i went to malibu, outlet stores, universal studios, the walk of fame, the taping of the jay leno show (second row seats, shook hands with jay leno, saw james franco in person, and appeared on national tv!), went to disneyland, went for mass and celebrated hanukkah with josh's family right after, watched the nutcracker... and then had one much-needed lazy day on monday.

dav and i were supposed to take the train out from la to eugene, leaving on monday and arriving on tuesday (it's at least a 27 hour ride), but the train was fully-booked. that was disappointing. =( anyhow, we bought flight tickets from la to portland with a stopover in seattle for monday afternoon... and then found out on sunday night that our flights were cancelled because the airport in seattle was snowed in! we spent hours trying to get an alternative route home, but it was close to impossible to get an airlines rep on the phone because the lines were jammed by the hundreds of others who were in the same boat. when we finally did get through on monday, we were told that the soonest flight out of la that had available seats was on the 26th! and the soonest train was leaving on the 27th, arriving on the 28th. i really, really wanted to spend christmas in eugene, but since we didn't really have a choice we decided to go with the flight on the 26th... but we felt really bad about imposing on josh's family (whom we were staying with), because we had already been there for 6 nights and were going to be extending our stay another 4 days. >.< they told us we were more than welcome to stay, but we were seriously considering looking for a hostel or something to stay in til we could leave.

and then... on tuesday afternoon i decided to try calling the airlines again, because i figured it wouldn't hurt. after getting the busy signal several gazillion times more, i got the same answer - the soonest we could get to portland was on the 26th. i hung up, then realized that i didn't ask about flights into eugene, which was where we wanted to be anyway. so i called back, got through on the first try, and found out that two people had JUST cancelled their tickets for the 4.35 pm flight later that day. it was about 1.15 pm then. i decided to go ahead and jump on the tickets before anyone else did, although it was going to be tight getting to the airport on time and i had no idea if we were going to be able to find our way from portland to eugene that night. we rushed to pack, looked up amtrak tickets online and found out that all the buses and trains were fully booked, said goodbye to josh's house and off we went.

on the way to the airport i called amtrak to find out our chances of getting a ticket to eugene that night, and after being on hold for about 20 minutes i talked to an agent, who told me that he could get me on the last train of the day, which left at 9.10 pm. we were scheduled to land in portland at 7 pm so i thought that worked perfectly. we would be getting into eugene at 11.45 pm, and i wasn't sure if the buses would be running, so i called sean and he said he'd be willing to pick us up from the station, which was really sweet of him. =) so now we were all set to be in eugene by midnight, if everything went according to plan. you've all heard of murphy's law right?

we ended up getting to the airport at about 4 pm, no thanks to the la traffic. as if that wasn't cutting it close enough, the service at the la airport was horrendous - it took us about an hour to get checked in and through security! thankfully, the flight had been delayed by an hour, so we made the flight... but then i was worried about getting to the amtrak station on time. there wasn't time to do anything about it at the la airport, so i decided i'd deal with it when (and if!) we landed in portland that evening. thankfully, we made it... landed in a snow-covered portland at 8 pm. i called amtrak while waiting for our luggage and figuring out how to get to the amtrak station from the airport - after holding for about half an hour i found out that our train had been delayed by an hour and a half! that meant we'd be getting in to eugene at about 1.15 am, which we thought was too late for sean to come get us... so we let him off the hook and decided to find our own way back to the ucf house from the station. somehow. we were supposed to take the light rail to the rose quarter, and then catch a bus to the amtrak station; we got the light rail, but the buses weren't running because of the snow. so we had to lug our luggage through the ice and snow, made it to the station on time, and found out the train had been delayed even more. so we walked around looking for food, but ended up having to settle for chips and coffee from a vending machine.

the train finally left at about 11.15pm, and we passed the time watching finding nemo on my laptop and sleeping. arrived in eugene at 2.30am, and decided to walk from the amtrak station to the ucf house. it took us an hour, but thankfully there wasn't any ice or snow on the ground. needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got home. dav had a peanut butter sandwich, i had soy milk, and then we went to bed at about 4am.

but you know what? it was worth it because the next morning i could wake up early to skype with my family on a stable connection after they got home from midnight mass, and because i got to have a christmas eve dinner with sean, esh and sean's family and then go for midnight mass all together after. it was also worth it because i got to have a christmas lunch with my housemates, complete with murukku, pineapple tarts and coconut candy from home (thank you mommy, daddy and anthea!), go for a walk with dav around campus, watch "the waitress", have a nap, cook curry and bak choy for dinner, and then watch sepet before calling it a day.

merry christmas everyone!

ps: yes, i cheated by backdating this post. =P

break!

i slept in on saturday, then curled up on the couch with twilight for a few hours. i finished it in one sitting and felt like i had consumed a gallon of ice cream haha. the cool thing about it for me though, is that it is situated in washington state, just north of oregon, so i could identify and was familiar with the landscape and weather described in the book. usually i read about faraway places that i can only imagine or wish i'd visit one day. so yeah, after gorging myself on 400+ pages of mindlessness, i went for a run, dropped my key without realizing it, had a shower, went back to the track to look for it, found it, went over to sean's parents' for dinner, and then called it a day.

on sunday i went to church, had brunch, had a looong nap, then organized my room somewhat. i watched the office online, had dinner with my housemates to celebrate ney ney's baptism, packed, and headed to bed.

monday i woke up to a white eugene. i had a shower, started laundry, headed to the post office in sub-zero temperatures (but i was warm in my warm thick coat and bearpaws!) snapping pictures on the way there and back, had breakfast, packed some last minute things, and headed for the bus. i planned on reading and doing stuff on my laptop on what was supposed to be a three-hour trip to portland, but about halfway through i really, really needed to pee so i couldn't concentrate on either. and there was an accident along the way, so the bus had to make a detour and the trip ended up taking more than four hours. but it was a pleasant trip. jamie picked me up at the station, and we had to drive really slowly to her house because of the ice on the roads, to it took another hour or so. but we got there, had dinner, and then watched three movies in a row: the notebook, forgetting sarah marshall, and just friends. then we went to sleep. =)

this morning i woke up, had a shower, had pancakes and eggs for breakfast, put up pictures on facebook, and after this i have to go re-pack and head to the airport to catch my flight to los angeles.

i'm excited. =D

the sandcastle.

"play with me," he half-commanded, half-pleaded. his dad glanced at the clock on the wall. "okay," he said, offering his hand to his son. the boy pulled his father towards the sandbox, letting go of his dad's hand to clamber into the sandbox. his dad perched awkwardly on the ledge.

together they shoveled sand into a sandcastle mould, the boy gibbering away, his dad nodding in apparent understanding. the boy was on his knees in the sand, oblivious to the fact that he was getting damp sand all over his clothes and into his shoes. he added sand to the mould steadily, not seeming to mind when he missed and ended up throwing the sand back into the sandbox instead. his dad put in sand every once in a while, just enough to keep his little boss happy while staying subordinate.

when the mould filled up, they patted the sand down to make sure it was compact and then added more sand, repeating the process until the top was level. then with a jubilant "one, two THREE!" they turned the mould over. the dad eased the mould off the sandcastle while the boy hit the top of the mould with his shovel to make sure all the sand got out.

it was a perfect sandcastle: its ridges were perfectly defined, the sides were smooth, and it stood straight up, not crumbling to one side like the sandcastles in this sandbox usually did. the boy smiled at his dad. "well, ezra," his dad said. "that was fun, but i have to get going now." the boy's smile drooped a little, but he gave his dad a hug and a kiss before he left.

"wow, ezra," i said, walking up to him. "that's some sandcastle. it looks amazing!" and i meant it. i wasn't doling out the obligatory praise that smudges of paint on paper and unidentifiable blobs of playdoh usually got. he didn't look at me, but half-smiled at the sandcastle.

a girl climbed into the sandbox, her foot narrowly missing the sandcastle. "be careful, jori!" i exclaimed, rushing to put a protective hand between her flailing limbs and the magnificent monument. "we don't want to hurt the sandcastle ezra worked so hard to build with his dad."

the boy didn't seem to notice my efforts, but continued to contemplate the sandcastle with satisfaction, waving his shovel in the air gently and unconcernedly. i wondered what he was thinking. maybe he was remembering that he had built the sandcastle with his dad. or maybe he was just admiring it's sharp corners and clean nooks. i hoped he would be okay when it got destroyed, as it was bound to be eventually. pity though, it's such a beautiful -

"thwack, thwack, thwack!" ezra completely demolished the sandcastle with his shovel, leveling the ground for good measure. then he smiled at me, dropped his shovel, and climbed out of the sandbox.

que sera, sera.

wow i haven't blogged in a while. and don't worry, this isn't gonna be a long one... i just decided to put something up because i finished "the joy luck club" last night, and i needed to do something while my brain wound down.

i'm officially all done with my classes for the term... but two finals, one paper and two or three more appl-ick-ations (i'm thinking two, but i'm also thinking two's kinda reckless) before i can celebrate.

it was funny that the only "last class" that i felt sad about was my ballet class. since i was gonna be ballet-deprived for a few weeks (i'm taking it again next term!) i decided to try stuff i didn't think i could do well enough to do... and ended up doing three almost-perfect double pirouettes, which i think is my new lifetime record for one class.

i got my official gre results, and did worse on the writing than i thought i did. better on the verbal than i expected though, percentile-wise. hopefully they balance out. i had a grad school application all put together to meet the deadline (yesterday/today - the 5th), and got an email from the professor on the 3rd saying she wasn't accepting doctoral candidates for next year's intake. then again, i was already thinking of not applying, so maybe that worked out for the best.

i've been neglecting people, and am very thankful for their understanding. i'm doing my best. but sometimes i still wonder if i'm doing it right... if someone else in my position would be able to perform a better juggling act.

i'll end with the song i didn't get to dance to, because i was cooking nasi lemak, rendang, kurma, bak choy and bubur cha cha for 20 people =):

"when i was just a little girl,
i asked my mother, what will i be?
will i be pretty? will i be rich?
here's what she said to me:

que sera, sera,
whatever will be, will be
the future's not ours to see
que sera,sera."

que sera sera, doris day.

my class performed to the version by pink martini, not the original, and if you can you should listen to it. i love it.
haunting.

still.

be.

what it is doesn't change what it was, but that doesn't change what it is.

what will it be?

dancer.

i was blog-surfing (because i'm sitting for the gre tomorrow), and came across part of the lyrics to "human", by the killers on val's blog, so i decided to listen to the song online and look through the lyrics (because i'm sitting for the gre tomorrow). i was intrigued by the line "are we human or are we dancer", and i really wanted to know what it meant, so i looked that up too (because i'm sitting for the gre tomorrow). then i came across this blog (http://hesawhore.blogspot.com/2008/09/are-we-human-or-are-we-dancer.html) and found the comments in reply to the post pretty amusing (maybe because i'm sitting for the gre tomorrow).

so. if you have anything pressing to do, here's one way get your priorities mixed up. =)

seriously tho, i've been working at it for a while now. =( i think i'm as prepared as i'll ever be, so i just wanna get it over with! of course, then there's a whole bunch of other stuff to sort out... gah. i foresee more blog-surfing and song-researching in the near future.

at mass today.

"I ask you to love me with same love with which I love you. But for me you cannot do this, for I love you without being loved. Whatever love you have for me you owe me, so you love me not gratuitously but out of duty, while I love you not out of duty but gratuitously. So you cannot give me the kind of love I ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for me--that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for me."

- The Dialogue, St Catherine of Siena

happy anniversary mommy and daddy! =)

what if?

how do you put your heart and soul into working towards something, while at the same time keeping in mind that it is not the be all and end all?

how can you want something more than anything but still tell yourself you'll be okay without?

and how do you come to terms with the fact that you've invested such a big part of your life into something you might not have wanted in the first place, but that you now can't help but want by virtue of your investment?

i'm scared.

if at first you don't succeed...

my first attempt at soft-boiled eggs.

mm mmm... soft-boiled eggs and hot milo. my current favorite breakfast. =)

ps.

i wonder what sasha and malia understand and feel.

firsts and seconds, hours and days.

i have so many different things to blog about and most of them are unrelated so i have no idea how i'm going to get it all down without writing too much or being too incoherent! i'll try, and i'll go in chronological order so there'll be some rhyme and reason to my rambling.

last week i talked to two different people, one about how isolated he felt from everybody else, and how people who he thought were his friends weren't being there for him. he said i was the first person in a couple of months to have taken the time to talk to him and to ask how he was doing. the other person i talked to asked me if she was a bad person for not missing her family. she spent most of her childhood living with her aunt and then her grandparents before going back to stay with her parents as a teenager. she said her parents were hurt and asked her why she didn't miss them, and she asked me what it was like to miss my own family. i haven't completely processed both conversations yet, but they gave me a lot to think about.

on friday i went for the halloween dance thrown by the international student association. esh, bryan, sean and i dressed up as bumblebees, with sean as our drag queen bee. =) it was fun watching the thriller dance and finding puke on the dance floor, but there were two other things that affected me more. one was that it was my first second with my friends here in eugene, especially sean and bryan. almost every other (major) experience i've had here so far has been a first... and i suppose it being my first second also makes it a first, but it was incredible to think that a year ago i had my first halloween, first met romandy, had my first ethnocentric friday and first danced to soulja boy en masse, among other things. the other thing was bryan pointing out that this was going to be our last halloween at the u of o. i haven't completely digested both of these reflections either.

on saturday, we had a cocktail party at bryan's, which i really enjoyed too. i can't remember the last time i wore a dress two nights in a row! there was lots to laugh and talk about, and i like that there was a balance of gravity and lightheartedness that night. on sunday i went to watch the last ever staging of telling that sean was a part of, which is a play put on by veterans about their experiences. it was my second time watching the play, but i was even more affected this time than the last. i don't know why, but this time it struck me even more that this was what sean was getting himself into... and i felt both proud of and worried for him. i can only imagine what it must have felt like for family members and significant others of people who have enlisted. and for the people who have enlisted themselves.

on monday we had our first full rainy day here. it poured, and it was very cold. i made it for my first class, and then i had to rush to register for the graduate record examination (which is basically the sat for grad school) in the one hour i had between classes. there was some complication with my registration and it took longer than i expected so i decided to skip ballet, since getting this done was more important than getting to use my ballet shoes again. despite me starting to work on my grad school applications what seems like very early on, i have somehow managed to land myself into a very stressful time crunch which i can only blame my pushparatnam genes for. anyhow. i got myself all worked up about grad school stuff and started looking up information and ended up running late for econs. i was halfway out the door when i realized that a) i had forgotten my laptop charger so i had to run back upstairs, b) it was raining very heavily, and c) i really, really did not want to go for class. so i went back upstairs, watched a bit of desperate housewives online, and had a nap. i don't think i had skipped a class intentionally before this, but as sean pointed out rather depressingly, i skipped class for school-related matters, which makes me feel both better and worse at the same time. i'm really glad i did it though. oh, and i'm sitting for the gre next friday - i feel unprepared, but as prepared as i ever think i'll be. we'll see how that goes.

the highlight of today was the announcement of the election results. although i am not an american, i'm psyched to have been here to witness the election of obama as president. i wish i could've watched cable tv the whole evening to have seen the unfolding of the events every step of the way, but i had class and by the time i got out obama had already won. still, i got something out of tonight's class that almost made up for it. i'm happy for obama, but at the same time, i have a lot of respect for mccain and i admire the elegance he showed in his concession speech. i also recognize how this is a mark of how far america has come, and rather significantly in a time of sobriety for the country. it will be interesting to see how things go from here in the states... and also back home in malaysia. it's exciting to see how much more involved my generation has become.

now for bed.

twinkle toes.

i remembered my ballet shoes both times this week! =D

"chaines, chaines, chasse, pas be bourree
glissade, jete, jete, pique
pas de bourree, en tournant, pas be bourree, en tournant,
chasse, pas de bourre, glissade, pas de chat..."

yes, i'm in econs again. but my professor hasn't started lecturing yet. and i'm sweaty. not related.

green grass.

you know, i don't know why i get so unsatisfied with my life every so often. actually, you don't know. or if you do, please tell me.

i have so many things going for me, and really, life is good... but then i hear about what people did last weekend, what they're planning to do over winter break, the places they're planning to go, the new people in their lives, the old people in their lives, how they're doing in school and goodness knows what else (maybe goodness doesn't know either) and for some reason i simply cannot fathom, i feel like i'm missing out.

the weirdest thing is, whatever they're doing is not necessarily what i want to do, and if i had the choice i might not have even chosen what they chose, but i still feel somewhat resentful. i don't get it.

i feel like one of the kids at moss street who try to push another kid off a bike so he/she (usually a he) can ride it. watching them i just know that once the kid gets the bike, he/she will cycle around for all of two minutes before looking for something else to covet.

man, i really am a two-year-old at heart.

b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana!

apparently that was said by groucho marx, who i never knew was a real person.

that is all.

fun stuff.

i just got my last data analysis assignment back and i scored 19/20. i was below the class mean of 19.2. lol.

i can't wait for my request for fantasia to come through at the library! i'm excited.
anthea come watch with me! we can do econs while watching. =)

my production-possibility frontier.

i've been neglecting my blog, haven't i? =( it's not like i haven't had anything to blog about... like last sunday, i had a really good day. i woke up bright and early (although it was still dark outside) to skype with my family, then attended mass. after that i actually finished my applied data analysis (which is as much fun as it sounds) weekly assignment, which i never finish on sundays! the earliest i've ever finished it is tuesday morning (it's due tuesday at 3pm), and the latest was 2.50pm. that was not a fun day. anyway, i went for lunch with a bunch of friends at about 1, which was a lot of fun. i'm determined to make that a weekly event, yes? =) then i went to the library to do my readings for my autism class, went home to finish my accounting and econs homework, went to the rec center, showered, cooked and had dinner, and then watched mulan with my housemates - without my laptop or textbook in front of me! then i was more than ready for bed, but then found out that i had a short paper due on thursday, so i decided to get it over with. cranked something semi-coherent out, and only then did i call it a day.

that was such a productive day, but what made it great was that i also managed to do non-nerdy stuff with different groups of people. =) i've been getting better at that, really! like on monday, i even went for bubble tea with sean, bryan and a couple of other girls. i got bullied of course, but it was nice to be able to put everything else aside for a while and just hang out on a non-weekend.

today has been an off day for me... something's not quite right, but i don't know what. maybe i'm just tired. i woke up at 8 and walked to a professor's office in the freezing cold (!) because it said on the psych website that she had office hours from 8-9, but apparently that was a mistake and she wasn't there. i had a midterm for accounting at 10, and i had such a hard time getting myself to study for it. i mean, i don't think i really needed to study, simply because i have been attending classes and paying (some) attention and keeping up with my assignments. oh, and also because the stuff we're learning is what i learned four years ago. in malay. but still, i felt obligated to do something. so i flipped through the textbook a little bit while watching rachael ray and i think i did fine. i munched. i forgot to bring my ballet shoes to class. again. so i had to do pirouettes in socks which annoyed me to no end. then i walked to another professor's office and realized i forgot to bring the stuff i was planning to drop off. and now i'm in econs.

like right now. my professor's lecturing as i type. it's a good thing i have four days to prepare for my midterm. it's also helpful that my econs chapters are so much shorter and easier to get through than data analysis. that's doesn't say very much tho.

okay, okay! i'll pay attention now.

too good?

"how my days they spin me 'round
and how today it sets me down
and how my days they spin me 'round
and how today it sets me down

alongside you."

- and then you, greg laswell.

somehow... despite the distance, despite the time.
despite the differences, despite you.
despite me.

last night.

man, i am not watching shaolin soccer again for a long, looong time.

i'm glad it was with you guys tho. =)

life will never be the same lol.

bang, bang, shoot shoot.

i'm happy it's been sunny over the past few days. not particularly warm, but sunny. =)
i've been listening to the beatles tonight, and i can't put my finger on what exactly i like about them... but they make me happy too.

i wonder if i'll hear people 20-40 years younger than me listen to britney spears and backstreet boys in the future.
and i don't quite know how to feel about that.

"picture yourself in a boat on a river,
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
towering over your head.
look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
and she's gone."

- lucy in the sky with diamonds, the beatles.

on top of spencer's butte.

just keep swimming.

wow. and i thought i was gonna be updating my blog more often this year. i have so many different things that i've been meaning to blog about that i can't remember all of them and i definitely don't wanna dump it all into one post... so i'll just skim the surface for now. it's been intense since i last blogged!

first of all, i'm glad i had the two weeks in eugene before school started. i thought about it and realized that i've never had that "laze-hang out-nothing to worry about" experience in eugene before this... last year i got here and had to settle in before jumping straight into my 18-credit+work+research fall term. then winter break was i guess the closest thing to the two weeks, but when i wasn't traveling i wasn't in the best of spirits. winter term was similar to fall term, and then spring break was awesomely awesome with the snafuir, but it wasn't a do nothing kinda trip (which i'm not complaining about). spring term was similar to winter term was similar to fall term, and then i was off to california and then home. =) so yeah, it was nice to go out for meals, lay out in the sun(!), fall asleep in the sun, go hiking, and just be able to relax and spend time with people without thinking about what i needed to get done after.

and now about my term so far. it's been busy. i know i'll probably be able to handle the 18 credits like i did all last year, but knowing that i have grad school research and grad school applications and the gre and my honors thesis to worry about on top of school kinda scares me. should take it a little easier? maybe. actually, most probably. but something's telling me that i just need to get into some kinda groove. that, and the deadline for dropping classes and getting a full tuition refund has passed.

that being said though, the term hasn't been all bad so far. i know people in my classes! and i'm taking a ballet class, which has been a lot of fun. it's so weird to have my body do things that i didn't consciously remember, but remembered once i did it, if that makes sense. and it's been funny to fall all over the place while trying to balance on one leg on tiptoe or attempting pirouettes. but other people are falling around too so i don't feel so bad hehe. work has been fun... it's nice to know the routines and how to handle situations. the kids are adorable, as always. i've proposed a research area to the grad student i'm working with for my honors thesis and she seems to think it's a good, untapped area, so yay. i've managed to secure a spot for my special ed field study, also at moss street. i will most probably be working with a boy with autism which is great because i'm taking a class specifically about autism this term, and it'll be great to get the hands on experience.

i think the best thing about being back in eugene and school so far is that this time i feel more prepared to be here. i am more here than i was before. i feel more in control, more content. i feel surer of what to expect and what i want. i am more aware of what i should and need to do. i have learnt more about me in relation to other people, and about other people in relation to me. i care less about some things and more about others. i feel as if i think for myself more. it's good.

and that was the surface haha.

"i'm high but i'm grounded
i'm sane but i'm overwhelmed
i'm lost but i'm hopeful baby

what it all comes down to
is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine
i've got one hand in my pocket
and the other one is giving a high five."

- hand in my pocket, alanis morissette.

getting smart?

the day before yesterday i was feeling out of it, but then i went to a party and learned a new drinking game and had lots to laugh about so i was glad i didn't spend the night alone. i'm happy with how un-antisocial i've managed to be since getting back to eugene... hopefully i'll be able to maintain this into the school year.

yesterday i played baseball for the first time ever! and i managed to make contact with the ball, woot. we didn't use the real things, but i was still pretty impressed with me. =) the welcome picnic was fun.

today i ate way too much and way too often. it was like chinese new year. i think i've eaten out more over the past week or so than i did over the last school year! not completely a bad thing, i think. and this evening i watched "get smart" at the dollar fifty theater, which only costs fifty cents on mondays if you have a group of three or more. it was worth the fifty cents.

i really miss you tonight. but i've become somewhat skeptical, you know? with all that's happened over the past month or so. do i miss you you or is all i'm really holding on to the memory of what used to be?

"the sun is down and the wind is calm
as it gently fades away
i wonder then and i think of you
and how nothing ever stays"

- nothing lasts for long, the samples.

rainbows.

agh! it's sneezing on us! already! hopefully this is like a test run so the weather won't go all out on us just yet.

in mass today a family went up for communion. the dad was carrying a toddler and the mom was carrying an infant. the parents stood side by side and took communion together, and then the priest blessed the two children.

it was such a beautiful, happy picture. =)

poker face.

when i first started at moss street, i had to participate in a short training session. one of the activities we had to do was pick a card at random (all the face cards had been removed from the pack), and put the card on our foreheads so that we couldn't see what card it was but everyone else could. we were told that ten was most desirable, and ace was the least so. we had to walk around the room and interact with everyone according to the card on their forehead - if they had a high card we were supposed to talk to them and smile at them as if it was someone we really liked and looked up to; if they had a low card we were supposed to treat them like someone we would rather not meet, or someone we would treat with contempt. we were given about five minutes to mingle.

at the end of the five minutes, we were told to stand where we thought we fell on the scale, with aces on the far left of the room, and tens on the far right. we were all pretty accurate - it didn't take us too long to figure out where we stood and how other people felt about us. five minutes. the leader of the session used this activity to emphasize how we should be aware about having favorites among the children we work with. as young as they are, they can tell if we are treating them like an ace or a ten. i work with one-and-a-half- to three-year-olds.

i have learnt that this exercise applies to the adult world too.
i have learnt that sometimes you are so obsessed about being a ten to someone you consider a ten but who only considers you a five, that you fail to realize there is someone you consider a nine who considers you a nine too.
i have learnt that just because you have a designated ten of hearts in your mind or heart, it doesn't mean you cannot have a ten of spades too. and i have learnt that not everyone thinks or feels that way.

once a ten, not always a ten.
there are many reasons why it happens, and it may or may not be (at least in part) your own (un)doing. maybe you're not a ten.
such is life.

"engkau pergi, aku takkan pergi,
kau menjauh, aku takkan jauh,
sebenarnya diriku masih mengharapkanmu."

- menjaga hati, yovie & nuno.

and it's not easy.

blisters.

gosh my feet hurt from my new shoes... note to self: don't wear shoes you haven't broken in yet when you have to give a campus tour! but it was a good first day of iso. =)

sometimes it's hard to blog when you know what you wanna put up would probably have a negative effect on some people who come by. i mean, we all think thoughts that we suppress, even if it's what we really feel, because we think it'll do more harm than good. i always say if there's something you don't want some people to see, the last place you should put it is on your blog. but then again my blog is somewhat cathartic for me, and it's nice to let out what's going on in my mind. and let's face it, sometimes what we suppress is what we really, really, really wanna say. but then we might regret it afterwards. you know?

that was some ramble that didn't actually go anywhere, huh? hehe.

whirlwind.

wow, so it's been a crazy few days since i got back to eugene from malaysia. i feel almost as if it's been too much, too soon... i need to slow down a little to take it all in! i haven't even gotten over my jetlag yet.

one of the reasons why i've been so busy over the past two days is because i've been attending the international student orientation training. it's been fun... i've met a couple of new people, and reunited with a few old friends. iso starts tomorrow, and i'll have a group of 25 to 30 students to lead along with bryan, esh, stephanie and alice. i'm looking forward to it! =)

as much as i wanna spend as much time as i can with my friends, and to keep up with the plans that they have, it's been hard especially since i've had to readjust my internal clock, reacclimatize, unpack, get used to a completely new set of housemates, and integrate into the new group dynamics that have arisen since i left. and i miss home. it's not easy. and so when i decide not to join them for some things i hope they know i'm not doing it to push them away or because i'm distancing myself from them. it's hard to travel halfway round the world and get right with it straightaway. i just need time. don't bust my balls lol.

today was a good day. i slept in and actually felt awake when i woke up (although i was sleepy again a couple of hours later!). jeanelle, a girl from singapore, just moved into the house today. her parents were with her, which is understandable considering she's only 17! since i was planning on taking a walk round campus anyway i decided to ask if they wanted to come, and they did. i showed them round, and then they needed to go open a bank account and buy some stuff so they asked if i wanted to come along. i thought i could help out, so i did, and we went to bank of america, target, mcmenamin's for dinner and prince puckler's for dessert. =)

they are a really loving family, and they remind me of my own family back in malaysia... even though going around with them took up most of my day, i'm glad i did because i remember how bewildered i was when i first got here and how i had barely any idea of how to even begin settling down. i remember other people giving me advice and showing me around, and i'm happy that i could pass the kindness on. i'd more than willingly do it again.

28 hours.

just a quick one to let everyone know i have arrived in eugene safe and sound. =)

it's 4.15am and i have to be up by 7 so we can leave amy's house at 8 so i can drop my stuff off at the ucf house and then be at the iso training session at 9. that should be fun.

no fan tonight!

misadventures.

i didn't get as much sleep on the flights home as i'd hoped i would!on my first flight home from kl to taipei i had a window seat but the wall of the cabin was so far away from my seat that i couldn't lean on the wall without my pillow falling through the gap. =(

and then my flight from taipei to san francisco was delayed by about an hour because of the rain (guess it was a good thing i didn't take the earlier flight from san francisco to portland!). while waiting in the terminal there was this girl who was talking to the guy she was with and laughing really loudly. and when i got on the plane, whaddaya know, she was sitting in the aisle seat of my row. i had the window seat so there was a seat between us, and the guy wasn't with her so i was still optimistic about getting some sleep. but then when everyone had boarded the plane she called the guy over! and the talking and laughing resumed. a lady in front of us actually switched to another seat because she got so annoyed!

when they served our first meal, i asked for a glass of wine and the girl thought it would be funny to ask the air steward if she could have the rest of the bottle (there was about a third left) even though she wasn't planning to drink it. she laughed then turned to me, said "happy birthday!" and put it down on my table. which might've been funny except that it fell and spilt all over my jeans! she didn't even apologize, and it's RED WINE so now i have a purple patch on my jean leg that i have to walk around in until i get to eugene. and i'm not too sure if the stain'll come out! >.< she hogged the armrest too. meh. >.<

anyhow, landing in sfo soon, and then i'm off to portland, and then eugene!

looking back.

i'm back on american soil. or as sean would say, i'm not OCONUS anymore and as i would say, i'm ADELLE (OCONUS apparently stands for outside the continental united states, by the way). the month i spent home was amazing... i'm really glad i got to go back to malaysia. my favorite part of the trip by far was spending time with family and friends. tied in second place are malaysian food and traveling to malacca, langkawi and ipoh. and in third place are clubbing (more specifically the music and dancing) and visiting my old secondary (high) school and college, subang utama and help.

all in all, i think it was a month well-spent. i filled it as best i could, and i'd say i did pretty well. than you to mommy and daddy for giving me the green light to get on the plane, and to anthea for pestering me with many an "akaaa..." and wide-eyed, reproachful stares. thank you to everyone who took time off their busy, busy schedules and put work and friends on hold to make time for me, especially mommy, daddy, anthea and ying (although i had to wake you up more than once! i still appreciate you making the effort. =))

i think one of the biggest things i got out of this trip is, rather ironically, the diminishing of the romanticized notion i had of home. after a few months in eugene with sneezing rain, cold and minimal sunlight ask me again and you'll probably find that the romantic notion has resurrected, but for now, i remember home for what it is. don't get me wrong, i still love home and eugene hasn't overtaken subang in my heart. i doubt it ever will. it's just that for now, the gap is narrowed somewhat.

at this point, i feel that this is a good thing. by letting go of (not forgetting) some of the romantic memories i had of home, i think i'll be able to enjoy my last 9 months or so in eugene more fully. we'll see if the theory holds. =)

when i grow up.

this time last year i had no idea i was gonna be here this time this year, both physically and personally.

i wonder where i'm gonna be this time next year.

i wanna have boobies! lol.

the weepies.

this time last year, i was asleep on a plane. i had gone for dinner with my family the evening before, and stayed up the whole night with some of the people who mattered most to me. my family and my friends had seen me off at the airport with hugs and tears. i wasn't excited or nervous, thanks to my strategy of depriving myself of sleep over the week or so leading up to my departure.

i remember waiting in the hong kong airport with rebecca for our connecting flight. i remember landing in san francisco and realizing that i was supposed to have my i-20 with me - and it was in my luggage that i had checked in. i remember that it was 80 degrees farenheit outside, and i had to convert it to celsius before i knew how cold or warm it was. i remember being picked up at the eugene airport by dick and peggy, my host parents. i remember the room i slept in. and i remember receiving my first phone call.

in a few days last year, i would meet sean jin, my international student orientation leader who arrived late because he had just been sworn in to the navy. i remember his bagpack and him bringing us through the knight library. i remember him trying to help me figure out why i could not get access to the internet from my dorm room yet. later in the week, i would meet bryan (who's still not my friend), adrian and beth at the welcome picnic. i would also go for my first football game at autzen. i remember being invited over to adrian's house for a party and not asking for his phone number, then getting kinda lost but making my way there eventually. i remember playing i never and having lotsa fingers left over. oh, and i remember playing truth or dare jenga! and playing the penis game with yu lin. which sounds a lot more vulgar than it really is lol.

one year ago. six days to go. and the world spins madly on.

ducks in alton baker park, taken at the iso welcome picnic 2007.

too earlyyy...

it is now 6am. i thought we were leaving for mass at 6, but turns out we're only going at 6.15, which means (a) i could've slept for 15 more minutes, and (b) i now have to keep myself awake for the next 15 minutes.

while getting dressed i was suddenly very strongly reminded of waking up at an unearthly hour every weekday to get ready for morning school... the flashback lasted about 5 seconds because i went right back to zombie-mode after, but it was cool.

it is about 26 degrees celsius this morning and i felt cold earlier! that's baaaad. very bad.

one week.

sink or swim.

has it really been more than a week since i last put up a post? time has just been simply speeding by, and already in less than 10 days i'll be back in eugene.

tanjung rhu.

(anthea)ahahahahahahaahahhahahii'mwakaahahaahahaha.


sweat! =.="(/anthea)

i've done a lot since i last blogged... i've celebrated birthdays. i've been to baskin robbins. i've been clubbing. i went down to malacca again and wandered around with anthea, absorbing the history behind the places i went to. i've been to a chiropractor. i've had lunch with mommy. i've hung out with my cousins in kiara, playing badminton and table tennis and taboo and then watching the merdeka fireworks. i've had dim sum and yong tau foo. i've driven! i've played scrabble with my family. i've been to subang parade, where my parents used to take me on really hot days so i could get some relief from the air conditioning there. and i've been to langkawi.

pantai pasir hitam.

langkawi, langkawi. it was... interesting. the first morning i was there i honestly wished i was home. and when it was time to go home i was glad i was going home, because i missed being home. that's really unusual for me because i usually get really excited about trips like these. i guess what i thought i'd get out of the trip was different from what i did get out of it.

waterfall at telaga tujuh.

but does that make it a bad trip? i don't think so. i had fun anyway, especially at the waterfalls and island hopping. i met new people, and for the first time in a long time i didn't hold back because of the knowledge that i probably would have to say goodbye really soon. i got to spend time with val. oh and i taught my fellow malaysians king's cup! aren't you proud of me, american friends? =) i got to see stars on the beach and watch a gorgeous sunset.

val and delle.

more importantly, i had to face what i've been trying to ignore since i got back. it hurt, and it still does. i still haven't come to terms with it and i still don't fully understand it. my heart and my head aren't in sync, and it's usually easier than this for my head to win. i will get over it eventually, but i'm not ready yet. not yet, not yet. not you.

i still want to fight, but when you fight change you've already lost. it's like arthur said at dayang bunting - if you're sinking in water you'll drown if you struggle, but if you relax you'll come back up to the surface naturally. i retorted with "yeah, after you die!".

thinking about it now, i guess all i can do is get tired of struggling, decide to relax, and hope to come up alive.

tanjung rhu.

let it be.

"hold your own
know your name
and go your own way

and everything will be fine."
- details in the fabric, jason mraz feat. james morrison.

i'm happy for you. =)

my struggle.

i've recently come across some rather unflattering pictures of myself. i guess it would be more accurate to say that i don't like the way i look in those pictures. they bring up a lot of insecurities... especially since i've put on weight since leaving for the states.

but then, when i think about it, those pictures were taken of me. me in real life, in the middle of actions i usually do... and the pictures capture what i look like to other people, and essentially what i look like, period. i think a lot of the time people don't like pictures of themselves because it doesn't match the image they have of themselves. but really, that's you. erasing your "ugly" pictures from your digital cameras doesn't make you look any better.

it disturbs me, then, that i don't like how i look. i know i'm not ugly. and although it's easy to blame the weight for why i don't like how i look, i've don't think i've ever been comfortable with how i look, even when i weighed way less. there were always flaws and blemishes and distortions that kept me unhappy.

so. i have come to the decision to truly accept how i look for what it is. i don't eat (too) unhealthily, i exercise, i put some effort into grooming myself and some care into how i dress... and really, that's all i can do. i just have to trust that the people that matter to me can see past superficialities and love me - flab, zits and all.

and i have to do the same.

digesting.

it scares me sometimes how fast i can get dissatisfied with life, and how i can feel fulfilled one moment and empty the next.

i wish everyone here was on holiday, or at least not as busy with whatever they have to do... but then i have to understand that they have their lives and routines and friends and i can't expect them to drop everything just because i'm no longer halfway round the world. and it's not like i gave them time in advance to plan for me being home. =P

i also wish more people were home.

i have found some things i wish hadn't changed, and some things i wish had.

i have come to appreciate some people in a different way, and i think a better way, than i did before. i have also seen more about some people that i don't necessarily like.

i'm afraid i'm not making as much of the precious time i have here as i should. i don't know how much of that is of my own doing, and how much is due to external factors beyond my control.

i have done some pretty cool stuff though - on friday ying and i went to batu caves and the forest research institute of malaysia where we jungle trekked for close to two hours, and we had no idea where we were for about three quarters of the time lol. it was a lot of fun, and i got to spend the day with ying so it was awesome. =) on saturday i went down to malacca, my parents' hometown. there i had good, good food, spent some time with my not-baby-anymore cousins, and met my maternal grandmother. i spoke to her in mandarin! =D my cousins have grown... they're not as cute as when they were toddlers, and they required more patience than they did last time, but they're still fun to be with.

i feel as if i've learnt a lot about my extended family over the weekend... the older you get the more you understand i guess.

oh, and i happened to come across some pictures of eugene this evening... and i was rather surprised to find myself missing it! guess i like ethnocentric nights and sneezing rain more than i thought. =P

so, i have three weeks left. only?

"so take the photographs and still-frames in your mind,
hang it on a shelf in good health and good time."

- good riddance, green day.

balik kampung.

i am home. =)

it feels as if i'd never left. when i touched down in klia, it felt as if i had just come back from a short holiday... and suddenly eugene, palo alto, and the u of o seemed so far away. like a very realistic dream. the weather hasn't gotten to me like i thought it would, i've just clicked right back with everyone i've met, and i haven't had any trouble at all falling asleep in my bed. that could be the jetlag though.

i went for mass on friday (the day i landed), and it was so weird to suddenly know so many people in one place and to know that so many people knew me! it made me feel very vulnerable, actually, because i'd gotten used to my relative anonymity in the states and i felt as if everyone was watching me lol. it was also probably because an aunty i met said "life has been good horh... it shows!" when she saw me. ah well.

i've met up with both sides of my extended family, as well as given the gang mini heart attacks. i've been to the market and watched wall.e (which i thought was so cute!). i've had a haircut, a facial, and spent a day at the spa with anthea. i've bumped into a few of my old teachers. i've woken up to the sound of pouring rain. i've been for mamak, and had chee cheong fun, roti pisang, nasi kandar, neslo ais, milo ais, barli ais, teh ais, tausa pau, putu bambu, peanut pancake, kue neng gou, zhang, popiah, durian, ramly burger (mel: ha? haa. haaa... lol), bak kut teh, gandum and capati. i haven't even been to a hawker center yet! oh but i've also been for an evening run around the neighborhood and i went round twice! before i left one round was about my max, so that was pretty cool. =)

i've been having a great time, but of course it hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies. there have been romantic notions that haven't been met, and there have been low points that hurt although i thought i'd prepared myself for the possibility of them happening. there are sensitivities i haven't missed. but hey, they're all part of package.

the highlight of my trip so far is definitely when i surprised ying, val, ping and mel. their reactions were priceless, and i was very touched. =)

it's good to be back.

touchdown.

i like taking off and landing.

i always have my face pressed right up against the window, and i wish they'd hurry up and turn down the lights inside the plane so my reflection wouldn't get in the way.

i landed in taipei at about 5 this morning, so while we were descending all i could see at first was a deep blue fog above and below. it was as close to being surrounded by "nothingness" as i'd ever been. and then i looked as far back behind the plane as i could, and i could see the blazing red and oranges of the rising sun. it was like a loose representation of the beginning of creation when light was allowed to be.

i looked down, straining to get my first glimpse of land, of taipei, where i will be in the same time zone as home for the first time in close to a year. after a while, the blue i see below me begins to look kinda zig-zaggy... wavy. wavy. the sea. the lines get clearer, more defined as we approach the runway. then i see a line of white in it... breaking waves? doesn't seem likely, because there's just one line in the middle of nowhere. i decide it's probably a big net to catch poor little fishies.

and then, i see land. first the coast, then streetlights, and headlights. then the roads and houses. then the chinese words and arrows painted on the roads.

and then we land. as the plane taxis to a stop, the passengers start unbuckling their seatbelts and retrieve their luggage from the overhead compartments. and then a song starts playing through the speakers.

california dreaming. haha.

retrospect.

and so i have come to the end of my stay in palo alto.

i'm not gonna miss waking up in the middle of the night to thumps and bumps... but i'm gonna miss staying alone when i go back to sharing a kitchen and living room with seven other people.
i'm not gonna to miss waiting for a bus, taking a 20-minute bus ride, walking 20 minutes, getting my (heavy) groceries, lugging them back 20 minutes, waiting for the bus again and then sitting in it for another 20 minutes... but i'm gonna miss the golden sunshine and clear blue skies that kept me company through the ordeal.
i'm not gonna miss not having my friends from eugene and the ucf people nearby... but i'm gonna miss the palo alto library that has given me books and movies that have kept me entertained and educated for hours.
i'm not gonna miss not having the rec center five minutes away where i could play volleyball and badminton... but i'm gonna miss my (nearly) daily run around the neighborhood with many pretty gardens in the setting sun.

and... i have run out of things i'm not gonna miss.

i am also gonna miss bing, just hanging out with the kids and of course luring them into the mysterious but enticing gameroom.
i am also gonna miss the people i have met here who have taught me many things and have offered me more help and favors i had hoped for.
i am also gonna miss my bilingualism class.
i am also gonna miss the farmer's market.
and i am also gonna miss the beautiful buildings on campus that have such a historical feel about them.

i've been so encouraged in pursuing my field of work, my capabilities have received so much affirmation, and i've been treated with respect and as an equal by graduate students. it was the fuel i needed for my final(!) year of college.

it's been a well-spent summer thus far... and it ain't over yet baby.

couch potato.

watching the us men's swimming 4x100 freestyle relay team (that was a mouthful) win the gold medal gave me goosebumps!
and watching the volleyball and beach volleyball matches has made me miss playing so much! >.<

i haven't seen any malaysians in any sport tho. the only glimpse i've gotten of them was in the opening ceremony, when the commentator described malaysia as being located "south of the northern tip of borneo".

kay i have to study for my final now. while watching men's gymnastics.

the knew.

"another turning point a fork stuck in the road
time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go
so make the best of this test and don't ask why
it's not a question but a lesson learned in time."

- good riddance, green day.

i'm on the cusp of yet another transitory stage in my life. i have a feeling this is gonna be a big one. i'm incredibly excited, but at the same time i'm feeling some degree of apprehension. it's a different kind of change i'm facing, different from my adventure in kolkata, arrival in eugene and sojourn in palo alto. it's different because in this case, i'm not going somewhere entirely new where i have no idea what to expect or whom im going to meet. it's different because this time, i'm going back to a place i've been, to people i know and experiences i've had. it's different because when i was going somewhere new there weren't many, if any, expectations from and of myself.

it's scary not just because i don't know what has changed, but also because i don't know what hasn't changed. i don't know what i want to be different and what i don't. and i don't know how much i have or haven't grown.

there are memories on the line. i guess when it comes down to it, i don't fear what i don't know as much as i fear what i don't know about what i knew.

that being said, i'm still excited! three days left in palo alto.

smelling the roses.

and now i am annoyed. why am i so awake at 5am? i went to bed close to midnight... i didn't have a nap, nothing went thump, and i should still be asleep! gah. anyhow... since i'm awake, i might as well post about my day trip that i took last saturday. it's gonna be long, even by my standards. but (and?) there are pictures. you have been warned.

inspired by the globetrotters i mentioned in my previous post and deciding that i should take advantage of the fact that i'm in california and won't be for long, i hopped on a train and went (not that much further) south, to san jose. according to wikipedia it's known as the "capital of the silicon valley" and is the third largest city in california, and tenth largest in the states. there, now you have two bits of random information you'll probably never need. =P

i left my cottage slightly after 8am, and walked to the nearest caltrain station, which wasn't totally unlike ktm stations back home. the caltrain itself is pretty different tho. for one, it has an upstairs! which i shifted to immediately once i located the nearest stairway up. i had planned to read "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy", which was small enough to fit into my bag and not to heavy content-wise, but i decided simply to stare out the window instead. it looked like it was going to be yet another gorgeous, sunny day, and it was.

on the caltrain.

the relapsed camwhore.

my first destination was the san jose municipal rose garden, which took me about a half-hour walk to get to. i didn't get lost! =D if you know me, you'd know that that is quite a substantial achievement. haha. the rose garden was pretty... i think it would have been even prettier if it was earlier in the summer, because a lot of the roses were late in bloom and kinda wilty, but it was nice. i wandered around for a bit, then settled on a park bench in the shade to rest my feet and read for a bit.







blue was feeling left out.

i have a thing for benches under trees. =)

(yes sean, i know i have to adjust my camera's international student orientation settings, but since my camera skills are pretty much limited to "point and click" i'll ask for a tutorial when i get back to eugene, okay?)

next up was the san jose flea market, and it was really like a pasar malam back home! except not pada waktu malam. they sold almost everything you could think of... from fruits to underwear to boots to cars! it was interesting to be in such a spanish-speaking environment. stall owners were calling out left and right, mothers were talking to their children, husbands were consulting with their wives... it was fascinating to be able to guess what their topics of conversation were simply from being in that context, even though i didn't understand the stream of sounds from their mouths.







after that i hopped on a bus with no idea of where it was headed and where i wanted to go, and got off at the last stop, which i inferred was the last when the bus driver turned off the engine, got out of his seat, looked at me quizzically and went "er...". i appeared to be in a suburban neighborhood, and walked around for a bit getting a feel of the place and checking the houses out. they weren't too fancy, and had a nice familial feel about them. i like the suburbs. =)

i found another bus stop, and waited for the bus, this time with a vague idea of getting off at a light rail transit station and taking the train to another bus stop where i could get on a bus that would get me to a memorial park that i wanted to go to. when i got to the bus stop, i realized that i wasn't too sure of which direction the bus i wanted should be going, so i asked the driver of the first bus that came by and he said it was the right bus. after close half and hour, the bus was empty and he asked me where i wanted to go again. i told him, and he went "oh, you should have gotten off at winchester!" okay, so i asked him about this other place that i knew was further along the bus route, and he said "ah, it should be somewhere over there", and pointed vaguely to his left. "but," he said, "if you can't find it, you can wait for a bus on the other side of the road to get back to where you came from."

i got off the bus, and walked over to other bus stop because i saw it had a map, and realized that the bus driver was going in the opposite direction from where i wanted to go and so now i was twice as far as when i started! so. i sat down to wait for the bus, and when it came round it was the same bus driven by the same driver. he looks at me and asks if i had any luck, and when i explain to him that he was going in the wrong direction he goes, "oh, so you got on on the wrong side!", like he didn't tell me that he was going in the right direction in the first place!

after another half an hour or so, the bus driver lowered the platform thingy so that a man in a wheelchair could get off the bus, and he must have screwed up somehow cos i heard the platform grating against the pavement. two minutes later, the bus driver tells all the passengers to get off and wait for the next bus because this bus couldn't move! by this time it was past 4, and i wasn't sure if the places i wanted to go were open past 5, so i decided to have dinner at this mexican place in downtown san jose and then call it a day. i fell asleep on the train ride home, but for some lucky reason woke up when the train was at (not arriving at) my stop! it took a couple of seconds to register where i was, and then i hurriedly gathered my stuff and rushed off the train, just in time.

downtown san jose.

all in all a well-spent saturday. =)

contentment.

i am happy.

just got back from dinner with the grad student i've been working with and his girlfriend... they bought me a thank you dinner at this malaysian restaurant that i found and it was sooo goood! i mean, i still think malaysian food back in malaysia tastes better, but this was pretty darn close, especially since i hadn't had malaysian food in such a long time. we had nasi lemak and kangkung belacan and beef rendang and pulut with kaya... mmm. the owner of the place was from ipoh, and before i left we had a conversation with english, malay, hokkien and mandarin thrown in... haha. the grad student's girlfriend was standing next to me and she said she was lost within the first sentence. it was nice to be able to share some malaysian culture with the grad student and his girlfriend. they definitely enjoyed the food too!

the whole evening was pretty awesome... i went for a good run before getting ready for dinner, so i was feeling good. then on the way to the restaurant the sun was pretty low in the sky, so everything was golden and cast long, pretty shadows. then on the way back there was a crescent moon in this deep blue sky that wasn't quite dark yet, with an orange glow along the horizon. i could also see a couple of bright stars, and the blinking lights of planes that flew across the cloudless sky...

good food, good company, and picturesque panorama... it's times like these that you just can't help but smile. =)

j, x and z...

are the only 3 letters that i have not started a blog post title with. now just x and z.

it is august.

13 days left in palo alto! 12, not counting today.

twiddle, twiddle...

so i got to bing and waited for the researcher i was supposed to work with... and found out that she wasn't coming in because she had already run enough kids earlier today. and didn't tell me. which means i have the afternoon off.

should i read... or watch tv... or watch a movie... or sleep...? hmm.

of course there's also my paper that's due on monday, and the gre to study for. but those aren't pressing matters (i.e. significant within the next 24 hours) so they can wait.

choices, choices.

things that go thump.

last night i had so much trouble falling asleep! i guess it shouldn't be too surprising considering i had two cups of coffee in the evening (early evening!) and took a long nap after getting back from bing, but still. it was annoying. think i only ended up falling asleep at 2ish. and i kept waking up throughout the night. i know, i know, i kinda asked for it...

but there were other reasons why i couldn't fall asleep... for one, a downside to living alone in a place where i don't know very many people is that i don't feel as safe and secure as i'm used to. it doesn't help that my cottage is right next to a relatively busy road, and so i can always hear cars zooming by, cars parking by the curb that's just in front of the cottage, car doors opening and closing, people talking, people walking... and then because there're a lot of trees and plants around there also sounds of little animals running around, climbing, scratching, crickets chirping...

in the daytime these are all friendly sounds, but they become a lot more ominous at night when there are a lot less cars and a lot more critters. when a car stops outside you wonder why... when you hear a scurrying creature you wonder if it's inside or out. and this effect is amplified when you've just read a chapter of "lord of the flies" where the boys have just had a meeting in the dark to discuss if there is a beast in the jungle on their deserted island. which i did last night (i then watched an episode of "the office" to balance it out... it helps to hear dwight talking about how he went werewolf hunting and actually shot one, but by the time he got to it it had turned back into his neighbor's dog. =P). i think i've played the scenario of an intruder coming into the cottage to often that if it does happen (which it won't) i'll probably just smile and be like, "hi, how can i help you?" because i've been so desensitized to it. hehe. seriously and realistically tho, this is a really safe neighborhood, and there are a lot of families around so i probably don't have anything to worry about. =)

then for some reason, i woke up before 8 this morning and just could not go back to sleep! which means that i'll probably be really sleepy at bing/when i get back from bing which means i'll be really tempted by the idea of coffee and a nap. which will only perpetuate the vicious cycle. must. resist.

oh, and in case anyone heard about the earthquake in california and was wondering if i felt it and/or if i am safe, the answer is no didn't feel it, and yes i am safe. the earthquake was in southern california, and i'm further north. on that note tho, i was talking to this guy at bing about earthquakes and he said he's been in about 10 so far (he's in his mid-20s), but mostly minor ones. that's how frequently it occurs here! it's not really registering for me as a real threat since i've been living in malaysia, the country surrounded by the lingkaran berapi all my life.

and speaking of bing... i'm late! malaysian indeed betul.

farmers' market!

this is where i get my week's supply of fruit every sunday... i didn't take as many pictures as i wanted and most of them didn't turn out as nice as i liked tho, because there aren't very many tourists there and i was the only one wielding a camera. shy la. =P hopefully these are enough to give you a feel of it!

tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, apricots and pluots. yum yum. =)

citrus-y fruits. and avocados.

jams, preserves and fruit sauces.

almonds.

how i get my first full serving of fruit every sunday. =P

herbs and other small plants.


a flower stall.

i'm gonna miss the market when i leave palo alto!

pwesent.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTHEA!

my baby sister isn't a baby anymore.
i'm glad you had a great day girl... and i'm glad i got to be a small part of it. =)
here was my celebration for your special day:



hehe.

i love you!

frame by frame.

i was really excited about having run so many kids so fast at bing, but on hindsight i guess i shouldn't have been so... enthusiastic. it's just a pilot, after all. heh heh.

so as a result, i hadn't been to bing for a while, until today. and instead of playing with kids i've been coding. ick. to all you psych noobies (=P), coding is where we quantify qualitative data. basically i'm watching videos of kids playing with toys frame by frame (there're 30 frames per second) and i have to record how much they extend their arms (vertically and horizontally), how long it takes them to lift their arms, whether they use one or two hands, how long they keep the toy on/off the table, how many times they repeat their actions... it's very tedious. it took me about an hour per video, and each video is only about 5 minutes long!

but. it's good experience. and it's nice to be a part of the data analyses too, not just data collection. and i now know not to run behavioral studies like this in the future unless i have unsuspecting undergrads who are willing to work for free that i can prey on. =)

snapshots of stanford.

my cottage. =)

the hoover tower.check out the blue, blue sky!

memorial church through an arch from memorial quad.

memorial church.

inside memorial church.

jordan hall, where the psych department is.

the oval between the main quad and palm drive.

someday.

today i happened to come across two blogs of people i know who are in the middle of traveling. one is in europe at the moment, and has visited spain, switzerland, and france so far. he is currently in belgium. the other i met in kolkata last year, and has gone back there this summer for about four months. he stopped briefly in new york and london on his way there. this is nothing compared to what he did last year though, when he literally traveled round the world - he was in tokyo, egypt, russia, and germany, among other countries, before arriving in kolkata. simply amazing.

reading their blogs not just fanned, but added kerosene and newspaper and cockroaches and all things flammable to my desire to travel the world. and i mean the world. i know cockroaches are flammable, by the way, thanks to ning jia who conducted the experiment in a flower pot many mooncake festivals ago.

it goes beyond simple traveling... i want to have the time, money and courage to see famous places as well as to go off the beaten track, stay as long as i want, and then moving on to wherever calls me next. i wanna meet random people along the way - people i'll never see again but people that i'll remember. i also wanna do something purposeful while i travel, though what exactly i don't know. i wanna discover myself as i discover the world. it's such a romantic notion that i honestly have little hope of it ever being met completely. but my desire to travel has always fallen along these lines of more than the lines of a sight-seeing trip, fun vacation or honeymoon. it's always been egocentric.

kolkata has whet my appetite. it was around this time last year that i was just about done with my three weeks there. my experiences there left me feeling so fulfilled... it's addictive. so. daddy, just say when!

as for my travels around the world... i guess i'll have to be patient. my time will come.

little things.

it's about 9 o'clock on a friday morning, and i've chatted with melmel on msn and she's sent me songs.

waking up early wasn't a waste after all... my day is made. =)

"i've got nostalgic pavements,
i've got familiar faces,
i've got mixed up memories,
and i've got favourite places.

and i'm singing uh-oh on a friday night."

- mouthwash, kate nash.

the inner child.

i had a good day at bing... or rather a good morning, cos i'm going back there in a bit. it always feels like such an achievement when kids you've just recently started working with actually approach you and start up a conversation, remember something you did with them last week, ask you to follow them somewhere, want you to sit at their snack table, or try to convince you to stay for story-time.

the highlight of today was when a 3-year-old offered me a hug and gave me an unexpected peck on the cheek! that totally made my day. =)

on my walk back home today, i remembered something my daddy told me about the younger me. he said that when i was a kid, i was always "the leader". when i ran, the other kids ran, when i stopped, they did too. when i wanted to play something, i generally managed to convince (force?) the other kids to play too, and i got to decide if younger kids could join us too.

the interesting thing is, most of what i remember of my childhood, especially in kindergarten/school isn't like that at all. i remember often feeling like the odd one out - the overgrown one (because i was often the tallest... and widest). i also remember seeking approval from the leaders of the pack, and often feeling as if i fell short. until i was a teenager, i don't actually remember feeling as if i had a secure group of friends.

so... the theory i've come up with is maybe growing up, i was always more comfortable, or more secure with younger kids than with my peers. and maybe that's something that has stayed with me til now. i mean, i don't bully them like i probably did when i was younger (unintentionally!), but with kids i feel more in control. i feel as if i fit. i know what makes them happy, and they make me happy effortlessly.

i have friends my age that i love and feel comfortable with too. and there are so many ways that those friends beat kids flat... you can't play jewish holiday or go yum cha with 3-year-olds.

it's just that for me, sometimes things feels easier with kids.