dear santa


i've been a good girl this year


i promise (:

i thinkkkkkkk............korean dramas are attractive because............the people inside are very very very frank and honest? as in, they really tell one another EVERYthing that's on their mind, without even making a beeeeeeeet of effort to beat around the bush or to hide their true feelings, right? if they like someone, they'll tell them. if they feel upset, they'll tell it too. do we even do that in real life? seriously.

or is it just us?

The energy that so many outsiders feel when they are in China and that President Obama may see when he is there comes not just from the frenetic activity that is visible everywhere. It comes also from a sense that it's harnessed to something bigger. The government isn't frantically building all this infrastructure just to create make-work jobs. And kids aren't studying themselves sleepless because it's a lot of fun. A few years ago, I interviewed Zhang Xin, a young man from a deeply poor agricultural province in central China. His parents were wheat farmers and lived in a tiny one-room house next to the fields. He had graduated from Tsinghua University — China's MIT — and gotten a job as a software engineer at Huawei, the Cisco of China. His success, Zhang told me one day, had changed his family forever. None of his descendants would "ever work in the wheat fields again. Not my children. Not their children. That life is over." (And neither would his parents. They moved to prosperous Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, soon after he started his new job.) Multiply that young man's story by millions, and you get a sense of what a forward-looking country this once very backward society has become. .... as Zhang understood, hard work today means a much better life decades from now for those who will inherit what he helped create. And if that sounds familiar to Americans — marooned, for the moment, in the deepest recession in 26 years — it should.

Bill Powell
TIME, 23 November 2009

自己好像越来越喜欢一个人做事情。
一个人去图书馆看书，一个人去走走，一个人买些可以让自己开心好几天的东西。
其实一个人的生活好像很简单，也可以很充实。
小的时候，不甘寂寞，到哪都想有人陪，因为印象中，没有人陪就是没有朋友,很uncool.其实有别人在身边，有时真的挺累。
原来要找一个自己每天面对每天说话却永远也不会厌倦的人，真的不容易。

on a side note, exams are over!! years of education have taught us that consistency is the key. you shouldn't procrastinate and leave everything untouched till the end, blah blah. but it seems like ever since i entered uni, that is the only thing that i have been doing. sigh. it has been another round of rushing against time and touching my tutorials for the first and last and only time.

anyway, it's december. time really flies hor. it's coming to the last month of the year again, and then by this time next month, we'll all be busy making new year resolutions, half of which we probably won't follow. lol.

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

happy holidays everyone (:

it's this time of the semester, again.
jiayou everyone :D
I LOVE 202 + COMPANY LAW + INVESTMENTS + ACCOUNTING + 218 :D :D

each time i come across a baby/toddler on the road, in the train, etc, i fall deeper in love with them x) i actually really really look forward to having my own children next time, hee!
taken last year when my cousin was a 100 days old. big big love for him. (:

zixian sent me postcard from taiwan! :D
din tai fung, hahaha, so cute x)

on a side note, as much as i despise those people who do things for others just so that they can get back something in return, i find myself gradually falling under that category too, though i constantly remind myself that i should be more selfless. i guess it's just the sad truth of growing up? hai.

anyway! everything aside, today is mum's 45th birthday! hahaha i realise each time i talk about dad and mum's birthdays, i'll always make sure that i mention their age, cos i seriously think i have the youngest parents among my friends hoho ((: and the greatest too. i can't describe how much i love my parents. haha so mushy :p happy birthday mum (:

Whatever will be, will be

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
What will be, will be

When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

Now I have children of my own
They asked their mother what will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich
I tell them tenderly

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

totally in love with this song x) i realise a lot of the very old songs are still worth listening to over and over again decades down the road, such as those songs from sound of music. i'm totally in love with sound of music too x)

doing slides now for tomorrow's board meeting. 3 projects are due this week. year 2 is seriously no joke.

i swear that this semester is the busiest.sem.ever.
rahh.
i should stop whining, haha.

dad and mum used to do this with me when i was young.







ok ok you get what i mean haha. i wish those days had lasted longer. x))

dinner + studying with shiyi and wanqing just now ((: well i didn't exactly study la. it's like how do you get yourself to study when you finally get to see some most wonderful friends of your life after so long and you have so much to tell them. hahaha. big love. ((:

anyway wanqing was telling us about this movie.
a boy and a girl broke up, and they didn't get back together in the end, but the movie still had a happy ending. because after that they both found the right one for them(: This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

and i'm getting obsessed with the 7-11 mr men and little miss capsules these days. x) i think i like the excitement when opening them up, and then i'll give them away to people. lol. spread the love :D

i bet i've told this to the whole world but
I
HAVE
FOUR
TESTS
TOMORROW.
it's gonna be a record-breaking day.

GO STUDY! :D

by the way, yesterday was erge's wedding. happy for him! i miss him so much (:

why is the video removed zzz. haha. you can go to this link (:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=141656334491&ref=share

i guess if it's rj that gives me the sense of pride, then it is dunman high that gives me the sense of belonging (: we went to send xunyong off just now at the airport. i think all the guys who got navy scholarship and are going to imperial were taking the same flight, so the whole world was there to send them off. i've never seen so many people at the airport before haha. and it felt like a bittersweet thing haha. but like what hongwei said, we may feel sad, but it must be even harder for the one leaving. sigh i think we're gonna miss him so so much, so i told him not to spend so much money on food so that he can buy more air tickets and come back more often to visit us (: it's a funny thing how most of the people who have been sticking by throughout these years are actually secondary school friends. i guess it's because we went through those particular years of our life together and we witnessed one another growing up and maturing. so no matter how much you may seem to change years down the road, you'll still be your very genuine self in front of those people (:

anyway i shouldn't be blogging now! because i have 4 tests and 3 projects to do rahhh. i've seriously never felt this stressed before since i entered ntu. for the first time this semester i'm thinking if it's a right choice to pick up double majors, trying to juggle too many balls at the same time, only to end up dropping all of them. sigh. work hard work hard!

found out about this from yiwen. it's really uber sweet x) lots of love for dunman high ((:

it's my last night in hall before recess week. though recess week is so not gonna be a recess time cos i have tons of tests and projects on the waiting list, i still look forward to it. had my first foc meeting just now. eh i mean for foc'10, haha. i went to read what i wrote this time last year after my first foc'09 meeting:

hello i just came back from the first foc main com meeting and i had a great time with the other cgls and our ic clement. haha i really look forward to working with them for the year ahead (:

this time round it felt very different. i don't know how to describe it. i don't know if it's because of the lethargy after going through one round of foc, or the lack of batchmates in this year's committee. and the conversion from cgl to programmer feels very different too. like what i told kefeng and lixuan, after having been a cgl, no other post in foc seems to be able to give you the same amount of satisfaction all over again. i was looking at my freshie cgls sitting at their table just now, recalling the first time i attended foc meeting as a cgl. back then we barely knew one other, probably all shared lots of optimism and good expectations for the year ahead.

that's why sometimes i tend to tell myself, if time could stop, i hope it stops at the stage where everyone just starts getting to know one another. because of the lack of knowledge of one another, we tend to have a lot to look forward to. things were so much simpler, and life was so much easier, sigh (:

but again, if not because of time, how are you going to identify those who can really survive through the thick and thin with you. how are you going to identify those who can always accept you for who you are, despite the fact that sometimes you can really be a bit annoying, or a bit insensitive, or a bit demanding, because they know you better than all that, and they have faith in who you really are, and not who you may sometimes appear to be. in short, they won't judge. and with such people in life, even if it's just a handful of them, you will realise that unworthy comments of others are something that you'll learn not to entertain.

it's 1.30am and i have lesson at 8.30 tomorrow, i should be sleeping. i seem to be digressing too much. end up talking incoherent stuff (stuff which i keep on repeating over and over again in my blog entries hah) when i was actually talking about foc haha. it must be my single deluxe room that makes me get unnecessarily emo cos i have no other channel to vent.

i look forward to foc'10 ok, really ((: i'm sleeping already, good night (:

quoting wanqing who quoted elle woods from legally blonde:

On our very first day at Harvard, a very wise Professor quoted Aristotle: “The law is reason free from passion.” Well, no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law — and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world, remembering that first impressions are not always correct. You must always have faith in people. And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.

quoting wanqing again who quoted benjamin buttons from his curious case:

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

i was telling max that this is so inspirational that it makes me feel wiser x)

quoting max who quoted from dunno-where:

To me, a guy and a girl are best friends only because at some point in time, there was interest on at least one side. And because things didn’t develop for some reason or another, they become best friends instead, and that stage is irreversible.

life is beautiful. but you have to live.

friends will always leave you, because as their friend, that is what you would want for them.

nice (:

carrie went to france during the holidays and she brought back postcards for the class people :D

everybody took one each but i took two :p i think collecting postcards must have become my #1 hobby hahaha. ((:

shiyi and i watched this yesterday. great movie! :D


tuesday's my day off for the semester (: should be catching up on my tutorials and projects instead of blogging, and serene and jen're coming over to hall to visit me in the evening (: see you!

suddenly so many people around me are making comments about everyone else behind their backs. in hall, in school, everywhere. i don't know if it has occured to anyone that while you talk about people behind their backs, people can do the same back to you. i guess it's really about tolerance. after all nobody is perfect. and no one can please everyone. why can't we just accept other people's mistakes with an open heart, because we need others to do the same for us too (: sigh.

on a brighter note! i saw this deco on one of the windows of the nbs reading room.
hahaha so cute! i like (:

and shaun sent me a postcard from denmark!
'I choose the picture of the little mermaid because you wanted it; and of the snow because it looks so nice.' ((:

shiyi chinghui puiyee xiaocui and i went to zixian's house to barbeque on saturday night. before that zixian was telling me that she actually felt quite excited about it cos it reminded her of the bbqs that the class used to have at her house when we were still in secondary school, lol. they make me happy ((:

and i really.really.really.really love this song! it makes me happy too(:

had dinner with 4h and lu laoshi at ichiban boshi at esplanade just now before coming back to hall. xunyong treated all of us to the meal because he's going to imperial next month on navy scholarship ((: i really miss everyone a lot, and being around 4h people is a very very enjoyable thing. i love talking to those friends because they will always remind me of who i once was, who i will continue to be, and what it is in life that i am really after ((: