crimson dreams

Exchanges

2011-12-08T20:50:00.003+08:00

It's that time of the year again, when people are getting exchange programmes all over the world. I think it's NUS' turn this time. I think I realise it more, because although NTU's exchange programmes happen like half a month earlier than NUS', I have more friends in NUS than I do in NTU (I mean for NTU it's like... Chrys and no one else). I don't know why but it seems like getting an exchange in NUS is easier than getting one in NTU, and MUCH MUCH MUCH easier than getting one in SMU? Someone please enlighten me on why this so. #doesnotstudylocally

Suddenly FB (and to a lesser extent, twitter) is inundated with status updates like: "You have been offered a place at -enter university name here- for the student exchange programme during NUS AY2012/2013 Semester 1" along with added squealing and emoticons/smileys/etc.

I mean, I'm just like lol, congrats guys (: Although I wouldn't personally want to go to many of the unis which my friends/acquaintances are heading to (I think I only have one friend whom I envy to a certain extent, she got a place at the University of British Columbia which has a beyond gorgeous campus), I think my point of view is skewed and biased because I already study overseas. If I had ended up in NUS/SMU/NTU and got a exchange programme, I think my reaction would be exactly the same. Like $#@% YES!~ As long as it's overseas and far from S'pore, I would have been happy. I guess this reminded me of how fortunate I am, to be able to travel as often as I do around Europe, and to be able to see what I wake up to every day. Even though it's cold and miserable sometimes, I am thankful for what I have.

I mean, I travel so damn much I'm sick of travelling and flying on planes. That has got to say something right? :/ (Everyone at home: WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I WOULD KILL TO BE YOU.) I really am blessed: recently, in less than half a year (Sept '11 to Jan '12), I've already been to/am going to 5 countries in Europe in total, not counting UK and S'pore.

I'm honestly humbled by and grateful for the things I have been blessed with. I don't think I appreciate my situation enough sometimes, and I guess I ought to do it more often. I'm just really glad and happy that my friends in S'pore can experience this too, the joy of leaving home and fending for yourself, being independent, and hopefully they'll learn to appreciate their parents and their home and being in Singapore more. I've met too many people who are going overseas to study (armyboyz, this is you) and they see this as an escape, to "get out" of the country and leave all the shit behind. I am almost ashamed to admit I was once like that too, but I suppose I was less fervent and open about it. Yes, you feel like that when you leave and the first term is just you letting loose and being free. But after a while, I believe that everyone, through leaving home, will ultimately appreciate it more someday.

It's the small things really. You gain lots of freedom, sure. But you have to do your own laundry, wash your own dishes, take care of all your admin stuff yourself, cook for yourself, clean for yourself, travel by yourself (sorry ah, no one to ferry you around)... Plus you have to be more careful on the streets and no, you can't actually eat any S'porean food anymore. They've Chinese food yes, but other than prawn mee and laksa and chicken rice and a few more, there is nothing else. No bak chor mee, no seafood soup, no sugarcane juice, no fishball mee, no pig organ soup, no Malay/Indian food... It's sad. ):

So yes, through the excitement of leaving and thinking about all you will gain, I hope that you guys think about what you're losing too (: But I suppose for a short six month exchange, the excitement will probably last throughout. Heh heh. Enjoy, you guys (: Wrap up warm.

Winter

2011-12-07T21:02:00.003+08:00

I absolutely detest Christmas shopping and trip planning. I can totally see the appeal of giving up and going on a tour, where everything is planned for you and you just need to go with the flow. But I guess the appeal of planning your own trip is the ability to go wherever you want, whenever you want... I guess you sort of see more of a place rather than just being stuck on a tour bus all day. You get to go on ~public transport~ and mix with the locals and order your own food. You get to stay in gritty hostels with people of different nationalities whom you'll never see again (but for the short moment in time where you were coincidentally in the same place at the same time).

But until you get there, the planning SUCKS.

Fine, it's not the first trip I've planned. It's probably not going to be the last either. And I'm not the most anal of people who actually have an entire timetable of where to go and at what time for the whole of the trip, so that takes a lot of work off me as it is. However, I think people underestimate how annoying it can be to plan a trip, especially a big one with like five people tagging along. (Not that small groups are much less annoying, but still.)

First step: find flights. This can be really annoying because you're checking Every Single Flight Website there is, and trust me there are quite a few. It's even more annoying when you're planning a general trip in December and you don't actually have proper dates when you want to fly. It's just one of those we-fly-on-the-date-where-it's-cheapest things. So you have to check every single website for the whole month.
--
Next step: Are you flying from Birmingham or London? If it's Birmingham, yay! We're almost done with the process. But if it's London? (Which it is like 90% of the time.) Then damn, you just set yourself up for more work!
--
Step 3 (London things): Find train (including return journey) down to London. Find hostel to stay in for half the night. (Because most cheap flights fly from 6am to 8am in the morning in London, you'll need it.) Find transport to the airport (hello Easybus).
--
Step 4 (skip Step 3 if flying from Birm): BOOK A HOSTEL. Hop onto hostelworld.com, find a ~cheap~ and ~good~ hostel. (Sounds easy? Try it when you're visiting a big and expensive city, I assure you, this step is all but impossible to complete.)
--
Step 5: Oh look you're almost done! Wait, root through your email inbox for the gazillions of confirmation emails sent, print out whatever you need, and don't forget to check in online and print out your boarding pass!
--
Step 6: Wash rinse repeat for every single trip. And oh yes, check wikipedia and google and books for awesome sights to see when you actually get there. And if you're in a big group, email/text/skype with everyone in the damn group to see if they're okay with the flights/hostel/whatever you booked. If you are travelling between countries, don't forget to find transport between each one (read: buses/trains/flights)!

If it sounds like pie, I challenge you to plan a 1.5 week Eurotrip with 3 countries, 4 cities, and 5 people in total going on the trip. I did that in Easter '11 and it was pretty stressful (although the trip itself went really well). Now I've spent most of the last two weeks planning my trip to Budapest in the first week of the hols, Dublin in the last week of the hols and Mystery Destination during the weekend of my first year anniversary/birthday.

Plus, Christmas shopping. I'm only buying ONE present, for my boyfriend, but please do not underestimate the fussiness and pickiness of this one boy. I can spend hours online shopping for the perfect gift and then I need to run it by him to make sure he likes it (no surprises for this one, he hates surprises) before I buy it otherwise if I buy it and he doesn't like it, I will prolly have to return it. He also only likes ~practical~ things, so I can't get him something impractical or decorative cuz he hates that shit. And I have given up on getting him clothes because he is extremely picky about colours. Anyway, after some hits and misses over the last 1 or 2 weeks, I managed to spend FOUR HOURS on Monday picking the perfect category of present (wallet), picking the perfect present itself, and making sure it doesn't bust my budget (tried to keep it below 100 pounds). All this while, was texting the boyfriend to make sure that the colour/texture/etc of said wallet was okay with his picky self.

It went something like this: Wallet or belt for Xmas? Wallet. Black or brown? Black. Coin compartment or not? No, card space would be nice. Does texture matter? Yes. Smooth or "scratchy"? Nothing weird is good. Do you need a card holder? Er no.
~By now, I've narrowed it down to two choices. I go on Skype to ask Chrys and Reubey for their opinions. I finally pick one.~
XMAS PRESENT BOUGHT, FINALLY. For all you curious peeps who have stuck with me through this entire post, I got him a Hugo Boss wallet.

And all this whle I had two essays due at the end of the week. As of now, I have finished/handed in one, and am 1/5 through the other. Hohoho. Just can't wait to get this thing done, hand it in on Friday, and GO ON HOLIDAY and reap the benefits of all my planning. Hehehe.

iPhone, why are you so depressed

2011-11-15T21:06:00.002+08:00

Just got back from Croatia! Was such a lovely trip and was great hang out times with the people I went with, especially since I haven't seen them for so so so long. Had a few mishaps along the way but nothing major/life threatening haha (: those mishaps didn't detract from the trip so all's cool.

Rushing my readings now and listening to music and my iPhone is being one depressed bitch right now ): First it played Katy Perry's The One That Got Away before shuffling straight after to Taylor Swift's Last Kiss. Haiya, iPhone. At least it didn't go to If This Was A Movie after that otherwise I might have just died from sorrow and moroseness ):

Come on, play me some krubbing music now. Mama needs to get pumped up and finish this shit.

Back in the UK!

2011-11-04T00:14:00.002+08:00

Well it's been ages since I last blogged, because I haven't had Internet access for a couple of weeks and once I got Internet access (as opposed to living off my iPhone data plan) I spent my time doing useles things like catching up on my Project Runway episodes and reading funny webarticles. And anyway it's not like my life is particularly happening, same old same old. I think it's the same thing whenever I talk to my parents every week on Skype because I lead such a boring life (:

Currently I'm slogging over my International Security essay which happens to be due TOMORROW (yes you got that right... and I've only written about a third of it) and I'm also hungry. Which is not a very good combination because when I'm hungry, I am not happy. And when I am not happy, I do things that make me happy. And usually what makes me happy also wastes a lot of my time, hence my essay is not going as quickly as it ought to. Heh.

Also, oftentimes what makes me happy also spends a lot of my money. Case in point: I just bought a pair of purple Doc Martens >_> I also ate a small bag of chips so now not only am I unhappy, I am also fat and unhappy.

Going to go drink tea now, hopefully that takes the edge off the hunger ):

This is life, isn't it?

2011-08-30T22:41:00.004+08:00

I hate feeling helpless.

It 's the worst feeling in the world. I'm inching forward to this unspoken deadline and this deadline I've known of for months and months, and I guess I've sort of buried it behind my classic procrastinator facade: Oh, it's like a month away, there are plenty of fun times ahead, I'm enjoying every single moment... And then suddenly, boom! It's crept up, and I'm like where on earth did all this time go? Then I start getting desperate, yes yes let's meet up on xx day at xx time to do xx and how about the day after that as well, are you free for lunch, are you free for dinner, are you free to spend an afternoon with me? I frantically block up dates and times and days, trying to squeeze every single iota of time I can manage.

It makes me feel so selfish, so desperate. But this is all I can do, because soon enough it'll be months and months before I see you again in person, in high definition and 4D, instead of from thousands of miles away on a blurry computer screen and via a shitty connection that makes your visage hang and lag at the most inopportune moments. I can hug you really tightly even though you wriggle and pull faces and make the worst noises in the world. Right now, to talk to you, I don't have to dial a foreign country code, I don't have to calculate time difference, I don't have to pay more than my phone bill demands, I don't have to yell into the crackly laptop microphone. Soon, however, I will have to content myself with a grainy image, a facsimile of you, and hollered conversation which leaves hardly any room for the sharing of secrets or even bitching/gossiping about people -- unless of course you don't mind the whole world around us listening in. Soon enough, we'll go from seeing each other a few times a week to "seeing" each other once a month, or even lesser than that.

I don't think it ever gets easier. Perhaps that's why I'm pushing meetings, scheduling like a maniac, trying to create enough great awesome amazing wonderful fond memories this summer to last us through more long months of separation. And perhaps the saddest thing is, I'm not even sure it's really going to work.

I hate feeling helpless. However, it's all I can feel right now.

Momentos

2011-08-26T17:14:00.005+08:00

Had to clean my room today, under the instruction of my mother. Had to clean her room too, because that's what university students home on summer holidays do: clean shit so their parents don't have to. She tried to get me to do the toilet via phone call today too, but I was all like hell no you didn't mention the toilet I ain't cleaning no toilet. If that sounds mean, it's because I was halfway through cleaning BOTH rooms and the end was in sight. Plus if I'd done the loo too, I prolly would've been late to meet Hwee (:

Anyway the point is, while cleaning my room I took the opportunity to look around. I mean, the parents have made much effort to revamp and reorganise my room so stuff that was a certain place when I hadn't gone to uni yet was now in another place altogether. And it struck me how many things I have lying around in plain sight. Some of these items are things which I feel I don't take enough time to appreciate, both for the item as well as for the person who gifted it to me. Some of these things are trinkets which were given almost a decade ago by very old friends, and I guess it served as a nice walk down memory lane.

-Painting of a rose (with glow in the dark paint) from Stella Bee, circa 2003.
-Painting of sunflowers from Jasmine, circa 2006/7. (It was from the CAP period, I can't really remember which one though. I also have forgotten what the message at the back means. Oh dear.)
-Photo frame with Vietnam picture from Stick, circa early 2009.
-Dreamcatcher from Ryan, circa 2006.
-Wooden D&T carving of a hamster? Pikachu? It's from Desiree, circa 2005.
-Candle holder from NJC OGLs, circa 2006.
-Large stuffed dog from my aunt on my father's side, lovingly named Alexander Montgomery Chubb, circa 1998.

And I'm sure there's more stuff in my drawer, cards and postcards and whatnot. I guess it's just a small reminder to look around at what we see every day and think about them a little more, because they hold memories of the past and the people in it (:

Meaningless meaninglessness

2011-08-24T03:10:00.002+08:00

It's 3am, I'm up doing nothing, and I'm feeling completely useless as usual. I think I need some meaning in my life but it's difficult to find meaning when you don't even know where meaning is. Somehow I don't think staying up watching videos and playing online games is particularly meaningful. Kind of want to go back to school pronto, it would suck a little but at least I would have something legitimate to do with my life.

Despondent

2011-07-22T23:13:00.002+08:00

I am a fortunate person, I have it relatively easy in life. I have decent grades, am somewhat intelligent, am not ugly, am in a great school doing a great course, have amazing friends and family, and the world's best boyfriend. Yet I do not know why I am sitting up here alone at night while the entire family is sleeping, pondering why I feel so empty inside.

It started out as a wonderful day, but somewhere towards the end, I suppose it turned a bit sour due to my own raging emotions. I suppose if there is something I have realised, it is that I have become far too dependent on others. Think about it. It's depressing to realise, but for example if I hold XYZ in high esteem as a friend and would pretty much do anything for him/her and put him/her first if he/she needed, would XYZ do the same for me? I am not being calculative and saying that every good thing I do for a friend ought to be paid back, because that is definitely not how friendship or relationships work. I'm saying that, if one needed, how many of your friends would drop everything for you?

That is the kind of friend I aspire to be, but yet some selfish part of me wonders if it would be returned at my greatest hour of need.

I feel like jumping off a bridge right now.

The Road Not Taken

2011-07-11T01:34:00.002+08:00

Ah Tiff, it is a dangerous road you tread. And now we come to a fork in this road; one back to (relative) safety and another that straddles the fine line between safety and the alternative.

Well, I was always a risktaker.

A mere technicality

2011-07-07T01:20:00.002+08:00

When my mother told me to read up for next year and I told her I was working on my Sociology optional module and in particular, violence and feminism, I don't think she meant for me to spend hours reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction.

Hehehe (:

In separate news, I spent my day talking about boys (I ought to open a counselling business really) and my night going out with Warwick peeps. Finally saw my elusive boyfriend for the first time in a week, and it was like everything just fell into place again (:

Dancing alone

2011-07-05T01:31:00.002+08:00

Well hello, Singapore. Been back for a couple of days already and honestly it's been a bit of a whirlwind. On one hand it's so lovely to see my friends and family again, and to taste some of the food I haven't had for the last nine months. It's also nice to take the MRT again, the transport system here beats the London tube any day. So nice and clean and air-conditioned, and the journey is comparatively faster, though that can prolly be explained by the fact that London is huge and S'pore is weeny. Bu I thik getting a seat on the tube is easier than on the MRT, people are more chill on the tube while everyone chiongs for a seat on the MRT which can get a bit annoying because you see perfectly able bodied young men running to grab a seat ahead of some old auntie. After a while I just prefer to stand, especially for short journeys to town or something. On the other hand, I have discovered that I absolutely detest S'pore weather. Have taken to showering twice a day and washing my face way more often.

Phone is a bit cranky of late, think it's cuz of Singtel because my iPhone was perfectly fine in the UK. Trying to get it fixed but it's really annoying when I can't send texts or when people message me but I don't get the message. Like wtf argh. Also have barely talked to the bf since we touched down, apart from sporadic messages and the very very occasional skype (try like, two skype conversations. Not even calls/video calls, but just typing). I don't think we're very good at this technology relationship thing cuz we're practically been living together and when we use our phones to contact each other, it is more of like a cursory 'Hi where are you' call/text which doesn't last very long so I guess we're not too used to doing this. All the same, it's weird and I'm not too psyched but I guess we have to figure it out.

In the meantime, having a great time with my old friends. Appreciate them so much more nowadays, because I have known life without them in the UK and really, it gets kind of lonely sometimes without your bestest friends there for you. I love you guys (:

Every day I'm shufflin'

2011-06-11T07:24:00.002+08:00

GUESS WHO FINALLY FINISHED HER EXAMS? (Y)
World Pol was way better than Intro to Pol, perhaps I'm just not the theory sort of person ): Hoping that IP didn't turn out too badly, though it's queer how almost everyone else says IP was better than WP for them. Had my first jack and coke at the Duck in positively ages, was so good. Looks like my IP grades are going down, looking at the standard of the rest hahaha. But hopefully I make up for it in WP. But all the same just got to work harder for next year because honestly speaking these exams... They weren't the best I could do and that sort of sucks. But oh well at least this year the grades don't count and next year they do, so... (: (: (: Full power ahead next year.

Been progressively feeling sickness coming upon me, which manifested in a runny nose yesterday and a sore throat this morning. Went to sleep after the exam, and woke up with a fever ): Oh well at least the fever happened today and not yesterday otherwise I would've been screwed big time. Still not feeling too great right now but I think it'll get better. Or at least it had beter cuz Sunday night I'm heading down to London so I need to be in tip top shape. Imma bring my rape alarm just in case ;)

Goodness I don't know what to do with myself. I'd even consider starting to read up for next year but all my textbooks have been shipped to S'pore ): Bless bookdepository.co.uk's free worldwide shipping though it does take bloody forever to reach S'pore. Oh well can't be helped, it's a UK bookshop anyway. (Haha free advertisement.)

Little things

2011-06-08T18:51:00.001+08:00

"I heart you." "I heart you too." "I heart you more." "Not true."

Silly and mushy and very (overly) cheesy, but it's moments like this that make the exam period much more bearable. (: Haiya I feel like I'm thirteen again >.< What nonsense is this lol.

PANIC

2011-06-06T17:03:00.003+08:00

EXAM PAPER IN FOUR HOURS AHHH CRAMMING FRANTICALLY AND EVEN THEN I DON'T KNOW IF IT WILL BE ENOUGH ): ): ):
Also have been spazzing out on everyone about how I am going to FAIL. (Everyone makes soothing noises and tells me I'm not BUT STILL, AHHHH.)
Okay back to panicked cramming.

Forever young

2011-05-28T20:44:00.002+08:00

I need to stop online shopping like seriously ahhh I don't know how I will survive in S'pore without my data plan and my debit card ): Exams start in just about a week and I am scared shitless. Functioning today on three hours of sleep and honestly, it's 2pm and I am dead tired and sick of comparing Rawls' Theory of Justice against Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia. I respect their ideas, they're really smart people, but my brain just cannot pick any more holes into their (admittedly extremely carefully thought out) arguments, though I fundamentally disagree with Rawls' ideas more than Nozick. (Whoopsies.) Maybe cuz I am an individualistic bitch who doesn't believe in distributive justice. My monies ish mine, kthx.

Just waiting for the end of exams. Then, Sweden. Then, France. Then, moving house. Then, home for realz (: Can't wait, guys.

I hate my essay. Also Econs is somewhat interesting. (now complete with three separate updates!)

2011-05-19T12:01:00.009+08:00

It is 5am, I am at ~2400 words of my 3000 word essay and it is due in exactly 9 hours. Sipping my strawberry wine and hoping for an epiphany because I am kind of stuck right now ): On a side note though, my headings and subheadings look great in the essay, haha. How asthetically pleasing (: Also, in a fit of randomity, the boyfriend taught me about Prospect Theory in Microecons today. He used it to answer a question which I could not for the life of me see the logic in. Admittedly he thought it was ridiculous and illogical too, but I guess if you apply the theory to it, it makes sense. In a warped way.

Allow me to explain, in a simpler way. There was a company who was under an old insurance plan. The workers would pay 500 pounds a year to the company. If they got sick, they would just claim the money accordingly. If they didn't, no change. (In other words, you give a set amount of money no matter whether you get sick or not.) Under a new plan, the workers would pay 250 pounds instead of 500. If they didn't get sick, there would be no change. If they did, the first time they got sick they would have to pay another set amount of 200 pounds. (Hence, total of 450 pounds.) However, most of the workers stuck with the old plan instead of the new one. Why?

So neither the boyfriend nor i could make head or tail of it. If you didn't get sick, the new plan was better since you give 250 instead of 500 pounds. If you did get sick, the new plan was still better because you gave a total of 450 pounds instead of 500! So why would the workers stick with the old plan still? I tried to come up with some nonsense answer like, oh they either didn't understand the policy (because well they were using some crazy words like 'deductible' and whatnot to explain it and I was like wtf is this about) OR the workers were too darn lazy to change to the new plan from the old hahaha. But obviously, it's wrong >_> (ECONS DEPT Y U NO HAS TRICK QUESTION.)

So later the boyfriend figured it out, somehow. APPARENTLY, it all comes down to this graph here below. Notice the bit about losses and gains? Yeah that's actually important. This is the Prospect Theory graph. Very undulatey, I know.

Okay when the workers paid 500 pounds, they gained a set amount of utility, which is quite a lot because well, they did pay a lot, so the point is nearer to the end of the x axis, the outcome. When the workers pay 250 pounds, the utility they gain is less. Okay got that? All this is happening on the x axis ah. Now, look at the shape of the graph. Notice the left hand bit is much steeper than the right hand bit? Yep, apparently when the workers pay the extra 200 pounds when they fall ill, that goes into the left hand side of the graph, and the loss is HUGE as can be seen if you shade the area under the graph. And that's why. Kind of.

Makes sense, in a theoretical and really warped way. For a better explanation, ask someone who is actually majoring in Econs >_> I might not have explained it as well and as fully as I should since this discussion took like 10-15 minutes and really, who can absorb theories fully in 10-15 mins anyway. So, arguments perhaps that some theories in Econs might be way too impractical in the real world? But then again I guess anyone who spouts pure theory at you in real life, whether it be economical or political and so on, is definitely a moron.

Okay this post took like 20 minutes, I ought to get back to my essay now. Taaa.

/update: It's 7:20am now. I have passed the 3000 word mark. o_O And I still have like two major points to get through, though admittedly I do have quotes littered around those sections which are taking up word space. But all the same, argh. It's getting harder to concentrate now as my head is killing me. I wish today was yesterday so I wouldn't be in this state now... Such is procrastination, guys. Don't do it. Hahahaaa.

/another update: Just about 9am now and I have more or less finished with a conclusion to write and que horror! (Sorry no accents, I'm not on my iPhone currently.) I AM FIVE HUNDRED WORDS OVER THE WORD LIMIT ARGH. Need to rectify this faaaast ):

/last update: Turns out I am an idiot. I forgot to click the button on the word count limit that doesn't take into account the words in the footnotes. I only discovered this when I was chucking huge chunks of text into my footnotes to get the word limit down (much like PW where we chucked everything into diagrams and footnotes teehee) and somehow the words weren't going down. I got suspicious, checked, and tada~ It worked. Dropped from 3500 words to like 2800 words immediately, so that's when I put some sentences back to make it flow better ;) Handed it in at 10am, and crashed so badly from 10:30am to around 5pm. And, I'm hungry ): AND MY NEW FLOOBLE IS OUT SO PLS COMMENT THANKS.

Food is for Fat People

2011-05-19T03:24:00.004+08:00

Have not eaten anything all day, other than water and a can of red bull. Weighed myself a few hours ago, lost 1.5 kg. Just weighed myself, lost another 1 kg. Have lost 2.5 kg alone today just by not eating!!! (Have to have dinner later though. Maybe in 1.5 hours?) 2.5 kg left to lose until I get back to the weight I once was when I left S'pore for the UK. Assuming I don't put the 2.5 kg I lost today back on after dinner... which is highly likely actually. ): ): ):

Reason why I'm not eating/why I'm drinking red bull? 3000 word essay due tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. It is 8:30 pm here, I am sifting through the fourth of six books from the library for quotes, and I am at ~1800 words. Go me.

ARGH

2011-05-17T19:46:00.002+08:00

IT IS FORTY FIVE MINUTES TIL MY FIRST EXAM (SPANISH FINAL) AND I AM FRANTICALLY CRAMMING AND SHITTING MYSELF WITH FEAR.

sigh

2011-05-15T10:30:00.002+08:00

i am dating the most anal boy to ever walk this god-given earth. i am so weary that i refuse to type this with proper capitalisation and whatnot. suffice it to say that he couldn't find his correction fluid and spent 25 minutes turning the whole room upside down trying to find the damn thing. the whole time his brow was scrunched and he was scowling at everything in the room. he searched everything that he touched, checked behind the bed, lifted the bed up to check underneath, shone a torch into all nooks and crannies, even checked inside the pillowcases/duvet cover/trashbin, lifted everything on the table and bed up at least three times and so on. i tried to help him for a while before i decided it was ridiculous to get worked up over a tube of correction fluid and lay back to watch. and dramatic it was, as Hurricane Boyfriend swept over the whole room, full of bluster and very agitated. at one point in time, he grabbed his powerball and rotated it with fury in an attempt to calm himself down, and another time he sat on the bed with eyes closed for 5 mins (as if in deep meditation) trying to remember where he'd put it. i did make some suggestions though, all of which were rebuffed.

suggestion 1: i suggested cancelling the mistake and continuing on with his work.
the answer: apparently, even looking at the cancellation is making him pissed so he can't continue on with his work.

suggestion 2: i have correction tape, and i offered to go get it for him.
the answer: only fluid will do, not tape.

suggestion 3: well i figured since he was so anal then he could just rip out the foolscap and rewrite the whole thing on a fresh piece.
the answer: he uses a foolscap book which has separate dividers. (stuff like this is sold in the uk, it doesn't come cheap though.) apparently if he rips out a page, he will have an UNEVEN number of pages between the dividers. yes, apparently he counts the pages. seriously.

and well at one point in time he got all hot and sweaty from tearing down the room and ripped off his shirt while flopping in front of the fan, staring at it like it was his worst enemy and then proceeding to scratch like mad like a psychotic monkey on crack due to the (self made) heat. sigh.

well, halfway through this post, we managed to finally find the damn fluid. turns out it was underneath some random cupboard in the room next to my capri sun drinks. whew crisis averted for tonight. -.-

we float like two lovers in a painting by Chagall

2011-05-15T07:31:00.002+08:00

Haiya I hate my life right now. Too much nonsense going on, and I kind of can't wait to get home. It's going to be blazing hot and I am going to have no freedom at all but at least I can eat and sleep and slack and see my family and friends. I can't wait til Thursday right now (small steps, guys) cuz that means that a) my Spanish final will be over (it's Tuesday dammit) and b) last IP seminar ever (yay) and c) IRM essay is due which means it will have been completed which is good cuz I don't have anything right now and it's the beginning of Sunday and d) module ballot results will be out and I hope I'll be lucky and get one of my first two choices plzzz.

grumps.

$#@!

2011-05-06T22:58:00.003+08:00

Today has been a TERRIBLE day. Let me list the ways.

1) Woke up to find a monster huge dried coffee stain on my iPhone. Boyfriend has evidently dripped coffee on my phone without cleaning it up. >:(

2) Told boyfriend to go to Coventry and exchange my pants at SportsDirect as they are too small, and I want a bigger size. He came back with my new pants, yes, but in a SMALLER size. So now, they are EVEN SMALLER. >:(

3) Checked the tracking site and apparently THREE (THREE!!!) of my deliveries have reached the post office. Have not received ANY cards to collect said deliveries. Post room is VVV inefficient >:( >:(

4) Received email from PAIS office that I need to submit my outside options form "asap" to make sure the other department signs it and I have a place on the module. I take "asap" to mean "today", run down to the PAIS office and find out that instead of it's usual 4pm closing time, it closes at 3pm on Fridays. So I chionged through various websites for nothing, frantically tried to make boyfriend's printer work for nothing, and ran down for nothing. ARGH. >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

Okay fine, boyfriend has reminded me that some good things have happened today (he said this as I was bashing the bed up and ranting).

1) He got me my salad from Subway. Something that I've been craving for quite a while.

2) My books from Amazon came in the mail. (At least the post room got ONE delivery out.)

3) /edit: Boyfriend would also like me to add that he is making me mango sticky rice for dessert today. Complete with coconut milk (: It's one of my favourite desserts.

BUT STILL. $#@!$#@! I'm the most annoyed about the outside options form cuz I HATE waiting. And this could affect next year's module choices. But hopefully it works out cuz PAIS module picking closes on Thursday so I'm hoping if I go to the office mother early on Monday (like 9am when it opens), the lady there can get my form to the other department on Monday as well (hopefully) and I can still get the modules I want. Sigh. ):