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Today, I had my first final paper - Abnormal Psychology (joy!). It was the longest, longest paper. Two and a half hours of solid, non-stop work, and it still wasn't enough! She had us do three diagnoses. If you're not familiar with the DSM, let me put it this way - it's a lot of writing. I ran out of pages in my answer booklet, and was still writing when they went, "Stop writing".

Anyway. When I got home, I crashed on the couch to watch last week's episode of Heroes, and when my mum got home, she brought in the mail and much to my surprise, there were four tickets for the Good Charlotte show this weekend. I vaguely remember entering some random contest on mtvasia.com, but I definitely wasn't expecting this.

And icing on the proverbial cake was a postcard all the way from Venice. I knew it was coming, cuz Kev kept asking me if it had arrived and kept swearing at the Venetian mailmen when I kept telling him it hadn't, but it was very, very nice all the same.

I love getting mail. Even e-mails (the kind that people actually take the trouble to write, not just click on the 'Forward' button) are fun :)

One final down, three to go.

the calm before the storm

I just printed out my last assignment of the semester - a five page reflection on all the things I learnt throughout the semester in my Human Factors class. I would be ecstatic, except that it means now I have to start studying for finals which are next week. There are a million chapters, and we don't get a study break. Oh, and there's the fact that our semester break has been reduced to two weeks, to make way for the two-month so-called break we get in the middle of the year, which isn't really a break because that's when I may do a two-month internship, which could actually be quite fun, but there goes my holiday.

Joy.

music. really, really good music.

On the way back from class today, Signal Fire by Snow Patrol was on the radio. It's on the soundtrack of Spiderman 3, and it's really, really good. Another really, really good song is The Fear You Won't Fall, by Joshua Radin. This was on last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy. Priya and I had a moment yesterday, when we swore that it was written for us.

Don't you just love really, really good music? :)

Signal Fire

The perfect words never crossed my mind

Cuz there was nothing in there, but you.

The Fear You Won't Fall

And I miss you more than I should

Than I thought I could

Part of the beauty of falling in love with you is the fear you won't fall

i hate the world.

Yesterday kinda sucked.

Okay no, that would be an understatement. I spent hours on a case study for Biopsychology. It was the most annoying assignment ever. Fred is the new F-word. Don't say it.

Then there was this video I got from Priya about how dolphins are killed in Japan. It made me cry, and it made me hate the world. You can sign the petition here. I really, really hope this isn't one of those gag petitions that everyone just signs but nothing happens.

Then, there was Charlie. We found out last week that he probably has arthritis, which is apparently normal for 4 to 5 year old bunnies. Charlie is 6. We took him to the vet cuz his arms were all floppy. So we've been giving him medicine since then, and he seemed like he was actually getting better. Until yesterday, when he went back to how he was when we first took him to the vet. He could barely scratch his ear. He wanted to, but it was so difficult for him. It's killing me.

Happy Easter.


Song for last night -- Answer by Sarah McLachlan

Cast me gently into morning,
For the night has been unkind

surprises

I was talking to Priya the other day, and I was telling her how I was waiting and waiting and waiting for my brother to get me Catalyst by Anna Nalick, which was on Grey's Anatomy the other day. It's not that I'm not completely capable of getting it myself, it's just that for some reason, the connection on the desktop is faster than on my laptop.

Anyway.

Today when I got home, I found the song in my inbox. Priya got it and sent it to me. It's little things like this that make you realize just how much you love your friends.

crayons

Today in Human Factors class, we were handed a box of crayons (other groups got markers, not sure why...) and a piece of mahjong paper, and asked to apply the principles of automation (don't worry about what it is). While we were thinking, we started to get creative. Even if it did feel like we were in kindergarten, and even though Hannah (her group finished way before we did) came up to us and went, "this isn't art class!", it felt good to be able to get colorful. The end result - a presentation that won the most number of votes and was saved for the last by our lecturer :)


I liked Harveen's example of calling McDonald's and being asked to press one if you're ordering less than 18 items ("Who came up with 18?!!"). And during the presentation, she went "Bloody hell! All I want is a burger!" The hilarity :)

I actually got sick of jeans (which I otherwise live in) today, and I wore this long, white skirt that has gold leafy type stencil things on it.


I miss painting. And my charcoal pencil.


Song for Today - Someday You'll Know by the New Radicals.

I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow

I watched the stars crash in the sea

cake

Today was my dad's birthday. Feeling particularly indecisive, we decided on getting slices of cake as opposed to a whole cake. There were six different types of cake from Secret Recipe - Chocolate Indulgence (yum), Chocolate Banana, Tiramisu (I think. I tasted coffee bleh), Black Forest, White Chocolate Macadamia and Lemon Cheesecake (I think). Plus, there's a whole Marble Cheesecake in the fridge. I am so. full.

Back to literature review now.

uni on a sunday (!!)

Today was Research Colloquium. We attended three sessions back-to-back (one was a keynote speech), then we had a break for lunch and to rehearse our presentation. It went okay, our lecturer quite liked it, but apparently not enough to award us a prize HMPH. We attended another presentation after that, and then it was time for the prize giving. For our Human Personality poster, we won RM150 MPH book vouchers, which when you divide by six people, doesn't really amount to a whole lot. But we won =D

When I got home, I got as far as the couch. Then, my brother and mum had leave for his tabla class, and I had to get off the couch (easier said than done) and move the other car cuz it was in the way. I couldn't be bothered to turn, so I drove around the block, and when I got back, I realized that my brother had locked me and my dad (who was fixing something in the garden) out of the house. So then, I had to walk to my grandmother's house (which is down the road) to call my mother, who then had to drive all the way back from the Temple of Fine Arts to give us the key. After all that, I decided a soak was in order. So I drew a bath, poured in some Velvet Crush liquid foam-generating stuff, and finally got out of my new long-sleeved shirt that I had to get for today's presentation (it's white with vertical blue stripes and from WH) and black pants which I've been in since 9 today morning.

I know I have a literature review to write, but I don't think I can manage anything more than sitting in front of the tv watching Grey's Anatomy tonight.

**I didn't get to watch tv last night. Brother was watching some football game. Bleh.

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.

say it with me – ugh.

Last week was Chinese New Year. Many people got a whole week off. I had, in essential, one day. Monday and Tuesday were public holidays, so we didn’t have our Abnormal Psychology class. But that was it. Thursday and Friday we had the usual classes. And to top that off, we had a replacement class on Saturday. Saturday!! That meant I had 9 a.m. classes three days in a row. Say it with me – ugh. We were supposed to spend Saturday afternoon performing community service as a course requirement, but that got cancelled.

On Wednesday, I had to interview the CEO of HELP for an article I’m writing for the American Flyer, the ADP’s newsletter which I’m still a part of, even though I’m no longer a part of the ADP. It was quite interesting. Hannah was with me, and the two of them found out they had something in common – playing Chinese musical instruments. We also found out things about HELP that we didn’t know, like the area from the main entrance of the main block until the bursary was originally meant to be a disco, of all things…

On Thursday, a bunch of us ended up going for Music and Lyrics, with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It was a very, very light movie. Predictable, but he’s funny. Friday was the first ever Student Council Meeting of the B.Psych. program. Being the newly-appointed secretary, I had to go and take notes and all. The meeting ran a little longer than was expected, so I was basically in class from 9 to 12, in a meeting from 12 to 2 and in another class from 2 to 4. Say it with me – ugh.

Today, we were supposed to have a quiz on Sexual Variants, Abuse and Dysfunctions for our Abnormal Psych. class, but that didn’t happen, even though I flipped through the second half of the chapter (Hannah flipped through the first half), pausing to read only what caught my attention – pause-and-squeeze technique, anyone? I read out bits of it to Lavan, who was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. We expected class to be “lively”, as Viv put it, but it was far from.

It started to rain, and Viv was going to give us a ride to the main block. She and Hannah had gone to get her car, and Lavan and I were waiting outside our building. Then, these two guys appeared and were talking in some foreign language. Being the curious (I’ll refrain from using ‘nosy’ here…) creatures that we are, we tried to figure out where they were from. Our guesses were Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius and the like, but it was only when the moved behind us that we figured out what they were speaking was Hindi.

All I’ve been doing lately is attempting to study for some more midterms. Human Factors is on the 1st, and Personality is on the 2nd. Biopsychology is on the 9th. Ihave to go to bed now, cuz when I wake up it’ll be time to tackle Freud's sex life. Say it with me – ugh.

...and what i want is you.

I liked The Holiday. I think there could've been more of Jack Black (he's funny, but a different sort of funny in this movie...), but I still really, really liked it. I knew Jude Law was hot and all, but ohmygod. There's this one scene of him in bed with his...okay, i won't say with who in case you haven't watched it, but it's not what you're thinking!! Anyway, there he was, in his pj's with a stack of papers he was editing, and he looked completely adorable. And when he smiles. And those eyes. And when he came in out of the snow.

There's this one scene he goes, "I've finally figured out what I want, and what I want is you...".

*melts like a block of butter on a sunny day*

hell week(s) - the aftermath.

I'm on my bed, in sweats and a t-shirt. It's been raining all morning, and it's all quiet (except for my music) and cold. Weather like this would put anyone to sleep. My mother baked a cake. It smells really, really good.

Things have been hectic. I had two assignments due on Thursday and Friday last week. One was a journal critique for Biopsychology. I'm trying really hard to remember what it was about. All I'm getting so far is 'HILOG analysis', which is something we definitely didn't cover even in our Oxford/Cambridge-level Advanced Quantitative Methods class. Oh wait. It was about eyewitness memory. For Human Personality, our (very cool) lecturer had us write a paper on our Implicit Theory of Personality. In other words, he wanted to know why we think people behave the way they do. It was a very subjective paper, one that I don't think I could recreate at all. I had some help in the form of a little pixie with shiny purple wings ;)

Thursday was also when Ling left for Melbourne. Sue and I went over to see her before she left for the airport, and as I was walking towards the car, I told Sue that I already missed Ling.

I spent Friday night and the entire weekend with my Abnormal Psychology textbook. Our midterm was on Monday, and we had to cover eight chapters. The most difficult part is diagnosing disorders according to the DSM-IV-TR, which is basically this book that lists disorders according to symptoms. For the case study, everyone had a different diagnosis. But afterwards, we had a late lunch in Dome, BSC. The food was really, really good.

Some chicken and mushroom pasta thing.

Fish and Chips with Wedges

Apple pie with ice cream =D

Tuesday, my family and my mum's sister's family (minus my uncle) had lunch in Antonio's, this Italian place that my dad's family owns or something. My cousin was leaving for Dunedin the next day, and we were supposed to go out on Sunday but she was sick. The food was really good, and we all went home completely stuffed. Interestingly enough, the Cream of Broccoli soup wasn't at all green.

Wednesday afternoon, I went over to the same cousin's house cuz she wanted some of my really cool music, although she'd never admit that. There were things all over her room - bags, books, photos, cables...I spent the whole afternoon there, and then went home for a quick shower before leaving for the airport. We had some of her bags with us in the car, and when my brother was wheeling the trolley, I sat in front of it, realizing that I never walk in airports anywhere. He wheels the trolley, and I sit on it. After they checked in, we had dinner in KFC (yuk) which my cousin loves, and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye.

Wednesday was also Valentine's Day. I've always been ambivalent towards Valentine's Day, but this year pushed me towards the 'dislike' end of the continuum. There was a lot of that going around. About seven people I talked to reported feelings of disgust and annoyance and such. It can be amusing, how people get so excited and all. But I still wanted to kick Cupid and Saint Valentine where the sun don't shine. Even the word 'Valentine' annoys me now. Kevin came up with the ultimate revenge - straighten Cupid's curls. I thought that was completely hilarious. I don't think I know anyone who actually got into the whole spirit of the day, and...wait. Scratch that. I do.

The last two days have been a little difficult. Somewhere along the line, it hit me that both my cousin and one of my best friends left within days of each other. A friend took one look at me on Thursday morning and knew something was up. In Friday morning's tutorial, I got the same thing from two other friends. But they still made me laugh with the boyband impression thing :)

Some people (including my brother) get a whole week off for Chinese New Year. I get, in essential, one day. I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off by default, so they don't count. But on the bright side, I'm finally going to watch The Holiday today. Hannah said Jude Law looks amazing in this one.


Song for today - Into the Fire by Thirteen Senses. Priya sent me this song the other day, and I love it.

caught between all i wish for and all i need.

This song is amazing. I hear there's a version by Chris Martin and the lead singer of REM, but I haven't listened to that one yet. Enjoy.

the world according to peyton sawyer...

quickie

So there are a bunch of things that need to go in here (the rest of the Thailand trip, Cousins' Night Out...), but since I'm smack in the middle of what I've affectionately dubbed as Hell Week, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Eventually, though...