of migraines and achievements

i’m awake and positively STARVING at this unearthly hour thanks to a monster migraine i got today. all i did was to go to the library to print readings, buy lunch and come back. but the damned weather was so hot, the first twinges of the migraine was already knocking on the left-side door of my brain when i was buying my food. imagine my horror when i came back to find that for some stupid reason, they’re cutting the grass in hall. AGAIN. and they just did it about two weeks ago! yes, grass grows, but is there any reason why it should be cut so often, creating this awful racket aka noise pollution at the same time???

thankfully, it didn’t last as long as the last time, so after lunch i went to sleep off the migraine. to my dismay, when i woke up at 8pm, the damned thing was still there. probably because i was also dreaming about my sister and arguing with her until i woke up. so anyway, i took one more anarex and went back to sleep… and as usual, i just had to be interrupted by someone returning something, just when i was about to drift off to sleep… sigh. at least i got many more hours of uninterrupted sleep after a few smses and a phone call later.

which is why i’m awake now. and starving, because the last meal i ate was about 12 hours ago. i guess i’ll go take a shower, fix myself some soup and get back to work on the testimonial project. speaking of which, i just have to repost this thing shanta put on my wall, just for kicks.

and oh before i do that, i must say that the khansama tandoori village place is goood. slightly tacky atmosphere and slightly expensive prices (al-ameen is still the cheapest and most value for money!) aside, the food was goood. i just loved the curd rice (sounds gross i know, but it’s really just yoghurt rice) and their naans and butter chicken, meat dishes etc were all pretty good. now i’m making myself hungry again… haha.

ok, so here is shanta’s testimonial for me, which is hereby nominated for “most inspired testimonial, not for a student” in our “achievements of tomorrow” awards. please stay tuned for more nominations and news about “achievements of tomorrow” awards!

In September 2008, Ee Ling was selected out of 500 university students who lived on campus, to work as a free lance writer for Information by Design. Her responsibilities involved writing student testimonials for an unnamed institution. She showed great English writing ability, showing competence in stringing points together, a task found difficult and impossible by many tertiary-level students and peers. Despite the fact that many students did not actually have true achievements to write about, and thought that servicing the community and stacking bottles of water to protect children from the sun were acts that would take them far in life, Ee Ling successfully paraphrased their words to make it seem as though they had fulfilled lifelong community service and water boy dreams. Though Ee Ling is an extremely capable writer, she often found herself frustrated with the inextricably ridiculous task of trying to spin a story of achievement out of absolutely nothing. Despite this challenge, she persevered with her task, showing grit and determination to accomplish her goals. She learnt how to write under extreme stress, and developed strong interpersonal and communication skills by regularly interacting with her co-workers and boss to discuss ways to improve her paraphrasing abilities. She was generous in motivating her co-workers never to give up, no matter how tough it was to write a paragraph on the extreme merits of handing out flyers for six hours. She also has a good sense of humour, lightening the stressful mood for everyone by providing amusing examples of top students’ stupidity. This experience has made Ee Ling a more tolerant individual, coming to understand that some people are just not very bright. This has helped her to forgive the many individuals who were the source of her severe migraines and abuse of analgesics. Ee Ling has learnt lessons from this that will take her far in life.

if that’s not funny and inspired, i don’t know what is. cheers to shanta for coming up with it! hahaha. i’m still very tickled by it.

tell me how i’m supposed to breathe with no air

the week i thought was going to be hell, didn’t turn out too bad, after all. it did kind of blow up towards the end (me ponning the religion lecture, handing up a crappy film assignment), but i did actually rather like this week…

firstly, there was celebrating maryam’s birthday at dr e’s place on monday. nothing too fancy, but she definitely got surprised this time, hehe. and fortunately, that’s the last of our 21st birthdays this year, so no need to think of any more surprises!

then let’s see… oh, the back-to-back US tests. on hindsight, i think they weren’t actually that bad, but i wrote rather crappy answers, so i’m not expecting too much. and i realise that as stressful the tests were, at least we got two midterms out of the way at once. so now i’m only left with the religion midterm… which i need to find out more about and read up extensively for, considering that i haven’t even touched any reading for that module.

by the end of the weekend and two study sessions in the lounge, i’d already finished my supply of garlic and onion broad beans, which inevitably made me jump at any opportunity to go to vivo and get them. which me and vanessa did, after the double US tests, since we also needed to get dinner anyway. and so i got ahem, 800 grams of broad beans… yes, i know i’m nuts, literally. and as of now, only 400g are left… but to be fair to myself, vanessa ate them too. so i’m not that bad… really!

still on the topic of food, i’ve been having terrible cravings for indian food ever since eating at komalas vilas after the field trip the week before. the craving was temporarily sated when i had dinner at dadi’s after film last week, but it hasn’t been satisfied since then. maybe i shall try and wake up earlier tomorrow and go down to techno edge to get my indian food fix. if i’m lucky, they’ll have yoghurt rice or better yet, tomato rice! unfortunately i’m not that enthusiastic about the new indian stall at the deck, because their stuff is a bit too spicy for me, plus the disorganisation and exorbitant prices just put me off. sigh, i’m seriously dying to go to al-ameen like soon… anyone else interested???? tell me okay!

and sorry about still talking about food, but i discovered pretty good and cheap pasta at great world city, while i was collecting the cake for maryam. i went to the food junction and was torn between pepper lunch express and the pasta/western food when i walked past the pasta stall, saw how good the pasta looked and immediately planted myself in the rather long queue. the queue was long because it was popular, but also because it was kind of slow, in that they actually individually ‘cooked’ each plate of pasta. the cook was standing in this glass area, kind of like at almost every hokkien mee stall now, and you could see him make the pasta sauce almost from scratch each time an order came in, which i thought was great. i think the prices are a bit higher than normal food court western food prices, but i think it’s worth it, considering that it’s still cheaper and even better than pastamania. my spaghetti was al dente, by the way, and the sauce, despite it only being ‘cream’ sauce, was good – it kind of had ‘wok hei’, although it veered a little on the salty side. the fried (grilled?) fish fillet that came with it was unfortunately not as good as the pasta, because it was definitely too salty. but it still wasn’t too bad. anyway, the pasta is from olive vine at food junction, so if you happen to go to great world city, do give it a try. in fact, i’m tempted to think of an excuse to head there again soon…

oh yes. i must confess that part of the reason why i procrastinated so badly on the film assignment was that i got myself hooked on youtubing joshua & katee dances. now i regret not watching the last season of so you think you can dance, because from what i’ve youtubed, it must have been a blast. the dances were fantastic, like mark & chelsie’s bleeding love one, and twitch & katee with duffy’s mercy. but joshua and katee just totally rocked. i am seldom so enthralled by dance, but oh boy. they’re just way too good. their hip-hop routine to jordin sparks and chris brown’s no air is just whoa. and it was only their first dance together! so you can imagine how good all of their other dances together (fortunately for us, they had a whopping ten dances together, because the both of them never got in the bottom 3 or 4) were. the bollywood one is a must-watch, as is the samba one, which was just smoking hot. to save you from some youtubing, here are the videos :D

okay, time to do some work / sleep so bye for now.

If I should die before I wake
It’s ’cause you took my breath away
Losing you is like living in a world with no air
Oh

I’m here alone, didn’t wanna leave
My heart won’t move, it’s incomplete
Wish there was a way that I can make you understand

But how do you expect me
To live alone with just me
‘Cause my world revolves around you
It’s so hard for me to breathe

Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air
Can’t live, can’t breathe with no air
That’s how I feel whenever you ain’t there
There’s no air, no air
Got me out here in the water so deep
Tell me how you gon’ be without me
If you ain’t here, I just can’t breathe
There’s no air, no air

jordin sparks and chris brown, no air.

did you doubt the curve of the earth

sigh. it’s that time of the semester when i begin to feel terribly stressed, because it suddenly feels a bit like i have too much to do. way too much. namely school work (thank goodness i’m only doing 4 mods!), stuff i have to do to keep myself in hall, and the stuff i have to do to earn money that i don’t particularly need very desperately, but definitely want.

sigh is right.

anyway, i’m blogging because i realised that i haven’t done it in a while. when i last blogged, i think it was still on my laptop with its puny 12″ screen. fast forward to now, where i love my gorgeous 22″ monitor to bits and have become reluctant to work anywhere else or to go home because i hate to be deprived of my upgraded monitor real estate.

and i’m also blogging because i’m feeling achy and tired all over, but probably can’t get to sleep because i took a 20 + 10 minute nap earlier and also drank red bull before that. i know i should be churning out the testimonials (where i try very very hard to convince myself that they have a vaguely addictive “just one more” quality. maybe it’s the “just one more = $$$” quality.) but my brain is kind of stalling at the moment.

i don’t have that much to say, actually. i mean, life is about the same, busy, yadda-yadda… and the things i want to say, i do say to the other three when i meet them from mondays to wednesdays. or online. and unfortunately i can’t really post any music because i haven’t really been listening to any new albums, thanks to itunes being retardedly selective about which albums it will allow to be added to its library. oh well.

oh i just remembered, here’s something i do want to record, because i think i might just forget – i want a hedgren bag! saw them at OG when my family decided to stop for a supposed-to-be-brief shopping trip after dinner at boon tong kee (my parents, being the traditional chinese people they are, kinda insisted on us ‘tuan-yuaning’ for the mid-autumn festival) before sending me back to hall. anyway, the bags are nice in a very simple, understated manner, and they also feel very well-made. unfortunately, they also cost a bomb. something like crumpler and timbuk2 prices… sigh.

and okay la actually i do have quite a lot of stuff to write about. but they’re incredibly mundane and i don’t have the time, so bye for now. and here’s also hoping that i survive the next two weeks… this week in particular is looking absolutely terrible.

Tell me does the world revolve the same
Tell me do the people all take care of you
Did you doubt the curve of the earth
And every word..
Every word…
I bet you heard

matt nathanson, curve of the earth.