Just now when I turned on the hot water tap, it gave me a great gush of yellow water. Even though the water cleared up after a few seconds, I'm now eyeing the taps with considerable suspicion.
Subway's sweet onion with chicken teriyaki wrap is heavenly.
[edit] Oh, it was just Facilities Management tweaking the hot water supply. So we aren't about to die of tap water poisoning after all.
Because this is such a lot of pathetic nonsense, I shall post in Japanese:
外へも出かけないで、寮で勉強ばかりしていて、よくできるし、それに楽しいんだから、そのままにすればいいわ。その人は無知のばか者なので。
words were spilled on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Deducing chemical structures from IR, NMR and mass spectroscopy data is proving to be comfortingly therapeutic. Although I suspect I might change my mind about the mood benefits of spectroscopy problems come Wednesday's midterm, for now it would do nicely.
words were spilled on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
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Monday, September 25, 2006
Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Or will be, once I purge this latest provocation from my memory.
It's NOT a good idea to get myself agitated when I'm on a caffeine regimen. That's something to remember.
It's NOT a good idea to get myself agitated when I'm on a caffeine regimen AND dealing with a midterm/ paper crunch AND pulling a semi-all-nighter.
No, no, no.
words were spilled on Monday, September 25, 2006
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
The obvious solution, of course, is not to be so stupid as to screw up, but that is too damned hard. And that's where trepidation and hope come in, useless as they are.
This has been a tiring week.
words were spilled on Saturday, September 23, 2006
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Friday, September 22, 2006
So I am boring, am never seen around campus (at least by people who think they are the epitome of cool) and have 'no interests', unless academic hermitage counts.
But it doesn't matter that much anymore, because I know, and my closest friends (who, after all, are the ones that matter) know, that it isn't true. And that would be enough, if I decide that it is. Still, it's tough work changing the habits of a lifetime, and I don't suppose I can claim success anytime soon, but it's a start.
words were spilled on Friday, September 22, 2006
No specifics, I'm afraid, but it's happened again and brought me crashing down from Wednesday's stratospheric mood. I can't help but be bothered. Here I am trying to find some sort of happy equilibrium and make my own choices without having to conform unwillingly to someone else's rationally constructed ideal of a full and interesting lifestyle, and then I find these choices under attack. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly in the span of an hour. To be fair, my increasingly snappish responses, along with my usual incompetence at the art of subtle conversation, probably aggravated the situation. Or I could be imagining the whole business and taking lots of needless offence, in which case I'd be proving the case against myself and still end up in the same no-win situation.I think I might be becoming pathologically passive-aggressive because I get easily irked yet dare not confront. Even then I don't make a very good passive-aggressive - I need better retaliatory tricks up my sleeve, or else I'm just all passivity with zero aggression and that's sad.
I know I'm babbling heat-of-the-moment nonsense now and that everything would look different in the morning. Oh wait, it is 3 in the morning. See, it's never rational to get angry - bad for sleep, bad for homework, bad for staying awake for the next day's lectures, no good for anything productive - unless blog rants count. But I'm hopelessly irrational anyway and so I don't care.
words were spilled on Friday, September 22, 2006
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
It didn't have that auspicious a start - falling asleep in my first class prompted me to rectify the situation with coffee. And, dear me, how everything just soared from that point on.
The weather was beautiful: buoyant sunshine, brilliantly blue skies, a late summer/ early autumn warmth with just the right amount of snap in the air (and enough caffeine-aided sensory enhancement to properly appreciate all of that). Lectures went by swimmingly - I made a rather nice tree sketch during Physics, and for once I didn't doze off at Immunology, but was inspired enough to stay behind to pepper the professor with questions about non-specific binding of secondary antibodies and the principles behind flow cytometry. After that I skipped off to the school dining hall and further fueled the endorphin rush with 8 Polynesian chicken wings and ice-cream.
After that shameless display of gluttony, I sat outside my residence hall and sketched tall grasses in the sun, enthused about the weather, the flowers and the general joys of living to a passing Korean friend, visited a friend's all-male suite and exchanged half-an-hour's worth of banter with 2 guys who weren't at all reserved about dropping none-too-suggestive hints re: electric toothbrushes (vibrating, cylindrical objects - you get the idea) and showing me their stash of Maxim and FHM. But we also did things like locating our hometowns on Google Earth and playing around with noise-cancelling headphones, and one of them asked for my advice on whether he should buy a gaming console. Naturally I had no clue, and happily told him so. Went back to my room, started singing 'Summertime', finished Japanese homework with lots of energy to spare for recreational cycling around Providence. I covered about 13km, inclusive of endless uphill climbs, Providence being a rather hilly place. At one point, at the end of an especially brutal climb, I saw a road named, appropriately enough, Overhill Street. It merited at least a mirthless chuckle.
But there was also plenty of downhill coasting to be had along the way - and those made me go wheeeeeeeeeeeomglifeisgreat!!
And then there were the ghetto neighbourhoods, where a couple of locals shouted inexplicable things at me as I whizzed past. I didn't linger in those places, and took care to make it back to campus before it got dark.
That about sums up a day in which I found my energy to be as boundless as the sea (the more I gave, the more I had, for it seemed infinite - which was a truly rare thing). Or, to ditch the mangled Shakespeare and rephrase that in normal parlance, I got high, stayed high (no pot required)... and found it great.
words were spilled on Wednesday, September 20, 2006
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Monday, September 18, 2006
I do not appreciate being judged, even if indirectly, yet such things do happen and in fact happen all the time. Theoretically, I just have to make peace with my own choices, be comfortable with myself, live the way I think best and to hell with what other people say. They have less moral superiority than they presume.
But. But.
(Dash it all to heck. I need to get cracking on physics homework.)
words were spilled on Monday, September 18, 2006
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Sunday, September 17, 2006
Met the Singaporean freshmen - many of them for the first time - while gorging on guo tie this afternoon. The intake this year was huge, and I idly wonder what sort of effect this is going to have on the Singaporean society here at Brown. Hopefully the naysayers (I'm not one of them, but then again the reason why I don't presume to judge is entirely selfish) will be proven wrong, but in any case I hope to get to know at least some of the freshies better - do a better job of playing senpai than I did in HC.
words were spilled on Sunday, September 17, 2006
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Thursday, September 14, 2006
So I haven't got anything to complain about, besides the regrettable fact that I'm having a certain amount of trouble overcoming the inertia of summer and readjusting to the hectic flow of college life. Being paralysed by a growing sense of panic isn't helpful either.
words were spilled on Thursday, September 14, 2006
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Sunday, September 10, 2006
Pictures, as promised.
words were spilled on Sunday, September 10, 2006
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Thursday, September 07, 2006
[edit] Trying to eat my first homecooked meal of the term - noodles with canned 'chicken chow mein' mix. It's disgusting. It has too much celery and water chestnuts, too little chicken, and tastes awful. What else can one expect from American 'Oriental' food?
The thought of having to do this on a daily basis (given the resources available in this backwater of a city) for the next 4 months fills me with dread.
Recipes and food in the mail will be very much welcome.
words were spilled on Thursday, September 07, 2006
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
We can never cease to be ourselves. Indeed. It's like a terminal disease, being myself, although I don't fancy the cure.
words were spilled on Tuesday, September 05, 2006
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Saturday, September 02, 2006
Oh, not that there was anything wrong with SIA. SIA was, as usual, irreproachably efficient and gave me a pleasant enough flying experience – as far as air travel can possibly be considered ‘pleasant’. I got all the drinking water I wanted, and the food was good – except that, owing to an inconveniently-timed sore throat, I had to pass on the Haagen-Dazs ice-cream and didn’t even finish my meals.
Trouble, as expected, started upon arrival at the dreaded port-of-entry, LAX.
First off – the lines at immigration were disgusting, as usual. But what was even more disgusting was the blatant under-manning of immigration counters, especially for ‘Visitors’. Not only was staff lacking, but the current shift was more eager to head back home than process passengers. To my blank dismay, three immigration officers began packing up to leave even as passengers waited in interminably stalled lines. A supervisor pleaded with them to stay for just a while until the next shift came in; one of them groused, “But nobody asked us to stay.”
The plane touched down at 8pm. The cabin doors opened at 8.30pm. I got out of the immigration and customs tangle more than one frustrating hour after that. My connecting flight to Philadelphia was scheduled to depart at 10pm, from another terminal at the opposite end of the airport. I have been through more than enough air travel annoyances to be able to tell a lost cause when I see one, but somehow I was subsequently unable to treat the situation with the equanimity it deserved. I was rebooked on another flight departing the next morning, and eventually arrived in Providence at 5.30pm - 6 hours behind schedule, but with my bags intact, thank goodness for small mercies.
words were spilled on Saturday, September 02, 2006
