random updates

It's been a pretty crazy...I think almost three weeks. So much has been going on, and I hate how it's difficult to remember every little thing, but I'm going to try anyway.

Uni-wise, things have been hectic. Last Friday, we had two quizzes, a group report, a group presentation, a poster, and a mock presentation. All of that. In one day. It made us think that somewhere, someone really, really messed up. Who does that to people??

We also finished up our community service. The second time we went to Petaling Street, it was all rainy so the atmosphere under the tent wasn't as uncomfortable as the first time. We met Kim again, and there were a few familiar faces. I don't know if we'll ever do it again now that we don't have to, but I think it would be nice.

Last Wednesday was Poster Defence for our Human Personality poster. Our research was a content analysis of personal ads, which really was as fun as it sounds, even though we did the whole thing in one day. Our poster turned out really cool, too. We printed some of the ads we analyzed, and Viv had this idea to cut out lil hearts from it. It was really different from the other posters we've had to do before, and I have to say I prefer this, as opposed to the lab report format. Oh, and we were told that we won Best Poster for this class!

Human Personality Research Project - Content Analysis of Personal Ads

We also ended up turning the abovementioned presentation into a poster on Thursday, even though our lecturer okay-ed a presentation. After class, Viv drove me home to print out the slides, and by the end of the day, we had ourselves a poster. According to her, we're getting so good at this that we'll soon be able to write literature reviews in half an hour.

Human Factors & Ergonomics Research Project - Hand Tools

I also had to make a poster for the Psych Wall, which is one of the many bulletin boards lining the staircase. It was on Health Psychology. We've also been getting our midterms back here and there. I have been doing a lot better than I thought I would be. I got a perfect score on an essay on why I think people behave the way they do. Our very cool lecturer doesn't see why we shouldn't get a 100 if we did a good job.

Tomorrow (yes, tomorrow. A Sunday.) is Research Colloquium, which is where students present their research projects to other students and the faculty. We're presenting for Abnormal Psychology, on the Dangers of Addiction, which is related to our community service. I still can't quite believe I have to spend the whole of Sunday in uni. I mean, hello?? But we have the prize giving ceremony to look forward to =D

Enough about academics.

Somewhere along the line, I managed to watch 300 with my brother. I expected good things and I wasn't disappointed. I think having a six-pack was a prerequisite for being in that movie. Seriously. But other than that, the effects were quite cool. The part with the whip...

Some time ago, we went to Malacca for the wedding of my dad's cousin's daughter. She's 26 or something, and the guy she married is 19. Made no sense to me, but he was clearly very, very into her. He couldn't stop smiling. The wedding was quite different from the usual. The reception was outdoors (the whole thing was in some retreat), and get this - they had fireworks! REAL fireworks! The kind you see at New Year's. How cool is that, seriously.

The other day, Ling and I were chatting on MSN, and this was when Stefan decided to self-destruct, so I was using the desktop. And suddenly, the phone next to me rang, and it was Ling. It was so good to talk to her :)

The other day, it was really, really hot, but when the sun set, it was gorgeous. Blue sky interrupted by patches of orange.

And speaking of gorgeous things - sms conversations/chats late into the night, and when you wake up the next morning, it feels almost surreal, and makes you wonder if it really happened.

So I think that's it for the random updates. Time for some random tv.

what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger.

I left my house at 9 a.m. to go to Hannah's, from where we took a bus to KL Sentral, and then a train to near Viv's house. She picked us up and then we got to work on our content analysis project for Human Personality. We only stopped for lunch (excellent nasi lemak) and ice-cream (Magnum, yaay!). I got home just before 9 p.m. After a quick shower and dinner, it was back to work. I only just finished.

I have another assignment due and a quiz, both on Friday. Tomorrow is a Student Council meeting and a hair cut.

I'm so beyond tired, but I think I'm going to reward myself with an episode of Nip/Tuck before I crash.

the return of patches

There are a bunch of cats that live in the lane behind my house. The nice people that we are, we feed them. When I say feed, I really mean spoil...

It started with this one white cat, who had Patches (a girl) and Marmalade (a boy). I know, I know. But we can't tell if they're boys or girls when we name them, so they get random names depending on their appearance or their personality. I wanted to name Patches Fang, cuz she just had that look. The 'you talking to me?' kinda look.

Then, there was Peaches (a boy, unfortunately) and Fidget, a girl. Then there was Jack (a boy, lucky him), who belongs to Patches. Then there was Henry and Lyla, who belonged to Fidget. Lyla disappeared, and we rescued Henry and my aunty took care of him because he was sick and she's a cat person (they have like eight cats). It was then that we found out Henry is a girl, and my aunty renamed her Cleo.

Anyway. Patches disappeared a while ago, and we got all upset, cuz she really is the coolest. She doesn't give a damn, and I know that's how you would generally describe cats, but Patches is different. The others would be all whiny for food, but she'd just sit there and look at you. Marmalade disappeared too, ages ago, so we didn't think we'd see Patches again.

Today, she reappeared. She's all scrawny, but she still has the look.

Today was a really long day, and it's far from over. It's going to be a really long week, too...

brothers, cheese and effortless perfection.

It was my brother's birthday on Friday. I was going to get him the new Fall Out Boy CD, but for some reason, the shops only had this "Special Malaysia Edition" which although is cheaper (RM29.90), doesn't have an inlay. In my books, that is completely and irrevocably blasphemous. So I didn't get it for him, and instead I took him and my cousin out for lunch to Kim Gary's in The Curve, because my brother has a thing for cheese-baked rice, and because my cousin misses his sister.

The boys had their cheese-baked rice, one with Szechuan pork and one with a pork chop (incidentally, that's the name of our Uno Attack machine thingy). I had something with a name that was much too long. It was basically a chicken chop in curry, with melted cheese over it. They like cheese, these Kim Gary people. I've only ever been here once, with Ling and Vee. They're both in Melbourne now, and going there today reminded me of when we were there and Ling kept ogling one of the waiters.

Now, I have to finish a case study on a schizophrenic named Peter. He hears voices and thinks the FBI is after him. He also thinks that there are messages for him in television shows.

I love long phone conversations, where you don't really talk about anything, but you're talking about everything at the same time. Effortless perfection.

is it still called 'community service' if it's compulsory?

So the midterms are over. Before the Biopsychology paper on Friday, I realized that I had done 320 mcq's for the eight chapters that we were supposed to study. I didn't realize it was that many (I was impressed!), but they seriously helped. Those questions were in the exam =D the other questions were just...strange. But reading the textbook, I learnt the most random things. Like fish have three types of muscles - red, pink and white. White muscles are most susceptible to fatigue, and red the least. Pink is obviously somewhere in the middle.

Today, we had some more community service. First we went to this Street Fellowship place in Petaling Street, which is basically a place where the homeless can come for very basic meals, and to wash up and things. Then, they had a Bible study led by Nick. I was flipping through a Bible during that. Seeing as how I've never actually read the actual one (I have the kids' version), I learnt some pretty interesting things...like Noah lived till he was 950. And that 'Babel' was from a Hebrew term meaning confusion. I want to watch the movie!

After that, we talked to the coolest person, Kim. She was telling us all sorts of completely fascinating things about her life. Then was time for lunch (McDonald's for me, beef noodles for the rest), after which we went to the street feeding place, where a whooole bunch of people come on weekends for meals. That was quite the experience...these are homeless people, junkies, ex-convicts...all sorts of people. But even though it's compulsory community service, it was an amazing experience.

Later, there was a little dinner thing for the Student Council. It was quite fun, nice to meet up outside college.

Tired now. I'm thinking I'd like some Dr. Christian Troy...

exams, egg tarts, exhaustion and eclipses.

Three midterms are over. The last one is on Friday. Human Factors was on Thursday morning, and Human Personality was on Friday morning. I found the latter more challenging – 70 MCQ’s and two one-page essays. I had to discuss the points of convergence and points of divergence in the personality theories of Freud and Adler, and Horney’s view on human nature - yes, you read that right. Her name really is Horney. Karen Horney. Our lecturer refuses to pronounce it like ‘horny’. The way he says it, the end bit rhymes with ‘high’ :) For human factors, there were 30 MCQ’s...strange ones. And a three-part essay that was just over two and a half pages long.

After the Personality exam, we went to Midvalley for lunch, and ended up in Secret Recipe. There’s one in the Main Block, but we were supposed to go watch Dreamgirls. That didn’t happen. Lunch was good. I had chicken lasagna, which had a little too much garlic. I burnt my tongue, and more than a day later, it still feels weird. For dessert, we had Chocolate Indulgence cake. They don’t call it that for fun. It was excellent. Viv wanted to buy some bird’s nests after that, while we went to Carrefour cuz Hannah wanted shampoo and I wanted these French chocolate chip cookies that are really, really good.

Later, Hannah bought me an egg tart. For some reason, they find it really hard to believe that I’ve never had an egg tart. It wasn’t a choice or anything, it just never happened! But my friends decided that was unacceptable, so they’ve been talking about getting me egg tarts for months. I didn’t eat it there and then, so I was made to promise that when I did later, I’d get someone to take a picture as evidence. My brother recorded it – quite funny. I’d have liked it to be sweeter, and the pastry to be a little crunchier, but it was good.

After dinner, I ended up going over to watch a movie with Anisha and Priyanka. We went to 7-11 to get some ice-cream (I don’t remember the last time I had a Magnum, and it was SO good) and then we watched The Last Kiss with Zach Braff, Rachel Bilson (Summer on The OC) and Jacinda Barrett (from Ladder 49). Out of the three of us, I was the only one who liked it. It had some good music too, apparently thanks to Zach Braff. I’ve got a bunch of the songs, but I haven’t listened to them yet.

Yesterday was a long, long day. I got up, went to tutor Harein, then came home and had lunch before Hannah picked me up. For Abnormal Psychology, we have to perform 15 hours of community service. So we (I use this loosely…) spent the afternoon cleaning out kitchen cabinets in the women’s home. I dropped a blender of some sort on my toe. Then, we went to a nearby supermarket to buy a case of mineral water for them, because they wanted to keep these really old plastic bottles.

When I got home, I had a quick shower then went to One Utama with my mother. I finally got that kimono top I liked. Then was dinner, and I watched the Liverpool/Manchester United match with my brother. I was completely asleep during half-time, and only woke up when Steven Gerrard almost scored. Know what I think is completely amusing? How the commentators get SO excited that they yell the name of the player, then nothing happens : )

There was supposed to be a complete lunar eclipse earlier today morning, visible from 5.30 to 7.23 a.m. My brother and I decided we were going to watch it, so we set our alarms. At 5.30, I went to my window and tried to look for the moon. I couldn’t see it, so I went to my brother’s room. No moon. I woke him up, and we decided that maybe we should try in half an hour. The same thing happens, and we decided that going all the way downstairs and unlocking the doors and all was too much effort. So we went back to sleep.

I’m still in bed : )


Song for Today – Love Will Come Through by Travis. I think this song was on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy that I haven’t watched, but this was the reason I turned on my laptop just now. It wasn’t on my mp3 player, and I wanted it.