went to elizabeth's secondhand bookshop in subiaco today. it doesn't look so spiffy like in the picture if you see the link. imagine it looking a little more "secondhand-bookshoppish". you know, darker and mustier and fustier. it's one cool place to be at. i practised quite a bit of restraint today and didnt buy any books. the other day i bought about 5, and it amounted to less than ten bucks. whatta deal.



anyway, i went out cos as i said in the previous post, i've been studying the past week. and now the desire to slack and do nothing is hella great. and also, it was such a nice and sunny day today. totally not the kind of day you spend cooped up indoors in your room at hall.



anyways i'm still pretty much struck with wanderlust and restlessness. so wondering what to do tonight. though the obvious answer is to do my work for next week.



oh well.

the horror that is my econs mid-term exam is over.



it is time to fucking party.



now let me sit in my room and consider the myriad of possibilities that lie before me.

1. sit in my room and do nothing.

2. go to the blue room to try to play the piano again.

3. sit in my room and not study (there is a difference. i have been studying the whole week. well, almost.).

4. go out to town tonight since it is friday and shops close later in the city on fridays. and i want to get the cds i've been aiming since two weeks ago.



well i guess there's one good possibility there. i hope it works out.

i just watched this year's ndp in the tv room in hall with some of the gang.



it seemed pretty nice this year. i don't know whether it's cos i can't really remember how it was last year or it's cos i'm here and not at home.



i enjoyed it more this time round. the light displays during the latter segments were really pretty.



watching the parade, i remembered something. during my first two weeks here, i had the immense good fortune to run into Ong Kim Seng, probably the top watercolourist in singapore. the first time i saw him, he was walking around the school compound with his friends and i kept on looking at him and he smiled back. the second time, he and his friends were seated on small stools, concentrating on the paintings in front of them. this time, when he glanced up and saw me, i waved at him and said hi. later i went up to them and looked at their paintings. the third and final time i ran into him, it was in a same area and me and yu were on our way to school to do something. i dragged yu with me to them and i said hi and eventually started up a conversation with him and his friends. he seemed surprised and a little disappointed that i could recognise him, to which his friend told him in mandarin,"You see Mr Ong, you are a national treasure. Everywhere you go there will be people that will recognise you."



the conversation was pretty interesting and fun. his friend did most of the talking. he had some strong views on singapore and its leaders. Mr Ong didn't really share his views but it was all good cos they were good friends, you could tell. me and yu hung around with them for quite a while and eventually i said that we had to go do our stuff in school. we left them to their painting.



it was really cool to meet him. all the more so that i'm meeting him here in perth. which is a pretty good thing in a way cos if i had run into him in singapore, i'm pretty damn sure that i would have never have gone up to him to say hi and talk to him.



yeah well, that was saturday night for me here. pizza and a tape recording of the ndp.

the time has come.



i think i'm actually falling sick. well hope it's just a dry throat from waking up and nothing more. there seems to be a bug going round the place here anyways. quite a few people catching it. i'll try to lay low and avoid it.



just wrote my first proper essay in about three years yesterday. and i realised to my horror that my vocab and writing skills have almost disappeared after the time in army. i kinda got back the hang of writing. but geezuz my vocab is in shambles. i wonder how i can do anything about it.



it's a pretty relak day today since i've done my work for the week. less work this week. but econs mid-terms are this coming friday. gad.



guess i'd better do some studying.



bah.

man, it's been storming the past few days. got caught in the rain yesterday, and it was freezing.



my english tutor is in singapore for some short story competition and some other thing. her name's gail jones. maybe you guys may hear of her or see her even. she's a nice person.



this week has been pretty uneventful as usual. and also pretty slack. i have one less assignment this week. but have an essay due on monday.



on a more interesting note, so far two girls (at least, that i can remember) have asked me if i am gay. and interestingly enough, they're both from STC. jiwwo,reg, is there something about your school that i didn't know about?

hello ladies. time for some announcements.



first up, the new Dashboard Confessional album is out, "A Mark A Mission A Brand A Scar". it's a CD/DVD pack but DVDs are while stocks last so hurry out to get it to get a load of Chris Carraba's sideburns.



and next, we have the new release from Sigur Ros, called "Sigur1/Sigur9". and guess what boys, this one's a CD/DVD release too. with no apparent while stocks last teaser.



alright that's all i got for ya this time. check them out.



you do realise that i'm putting this up cos i want these albums for myself, right?

another boring night in my room.



i ran into my neighbour, matthew from england, on the way up to my room just now. i asked him what he was gonna be doing this saturday night, i myself wondering what the heck i was going to do, he replied, "i'm going to sit in my room and grow my beard. Mmm!"



so much for the nightlife here.

the protest is over.

illustration of a car crash.

i've been here for about 3 weeks now. and i'm starting to miss the food back home. the other night the dining hall served wanton mee(i can't remember how they fucked the spelling of 'wanton' up) as one of the two choices offered and i hesitated to take it, not wanting to spoil my memory of the dish back home. but i also couldn't resist at least trying it to see what it tasted like. so with a deep breath and a heavy sigh, i took it and went to find a seat.



it wasn't too bad. well, it wasn't that bad. just to be able to feel the strands of mee kia in my mouth was almost enough to make me think that it was authentic. but of course that certain something is always missing when you're overseas and eating food that is supposed to be food from home. it doesn't taste like home.



i'm not missing singapore that much yet i suppose. perhaps cos there are like hundreds of other singaporeans here around the place. people here are friendlier, or at least they seem to be.



last night, i went to this late night bubble tea place with a bunch of friends. they played videos of taiwanese variety shows on a big screen tv. they had a chinese comic book section. and they also had a lan gaming section. it was a pretty nice place and even though i usually am not a big fan of bubble tea, the glass of it that i had was kinda nice and comforting.



a few people have been asking me if there are any gatherings or celebrations here by the singaporeans. well, there are but i'm not going to them. not that i can't be bothered about the event but i don't know where they're held and no one i know around me is going. we've been talking about it and no one really knows what to do to commemorate the day, which is a little pathetic when you really think about it. [add your own thoughts about identity and belonging here.]



oh well.



happy national day ya morons.

someone save me from this boredom.

there always comes a time when something that has never happened before happens. and this time it is this.



today i had my econs tutorial. and it sucked. why? because i was more prepared than the tutor, and the answers i had prepared were much longer than those that he gave us.



this is the first time i'm feeling dissatisfied with econs got i didn't get the verification i wanted for my answers. goddamn it, i prepared for this one and this happens? gimme a break man.



ms lim, can you hear me? i prepared for my econs! i swear i did! i even used one whole piece of paper for each question and didn't just scribble some one-liner and draw an unlabelled graph. you could've asked me to present the question on the whiteboard and i would've slayed the class!



bah.

another chilly morning.



somehow this is already getting a little monotonous.

the time for a resurrection is near.

it always rains on mondays.

i just finished my econs tutorial!



now for the other work in my other units.



i wonder what's for lunch.

i'm lucky to get the sun shining in my window throughout the day if the weather is right.



some mornings when i wake up, the sun's rays will be falling across my body. and i will shift around so that my head will be under the sun's shine. it's a really nice, fuzzy feeling to be dozing under the sunshine on a winter's morning. and it's really hard to get up when its sunny and i'm in the sun.



around noon, the sun will be shining into my room from directly in front of my window. so that a neat rectangle of the sunlight will be cast upon the area of the floor closer to the window and that's where i sit. so i will be sitting in the glare and it can get reallly warm. but it's also really comfortable and sometimes i just sit in the sun reading or stoning or dozing even when i'm not sleepy.



the evenings will cast orange beams across my table and computer. and it gets hard to see what's on my computer screen. but i sometimes stare at the rays of light instead of what's showing on my screen.



i hope summer doesn't come too soon.

maybe i shouldn't have taken econs after all. i tried to do my tutorial assignment and all those old feelings of bewilderment and confusion came back. ms lim, where are you to scream at me with your beaming face turning into a mask of blind fury at the snap of the fingers.



oh away! away with thee! macroeconomics and thine fiscal and monetary policies and fluctuations and graphs. thy minions of suffering are succeeding well in creating the dark periods of my days and nights.



in other more succinct words, fuck you econs.