I just came back from meeting up with the Groopeas (my theatre group buddies ♥) and had the best time ever - even though spending a day baking at the beach is usually not my ideal kind of fun. (: It was awesome seeing everyone again and coming out of it a few shades darker and feeling the familiar sunburnt feeling, sipping cocktails by the pool, playing Frisbee in the water, camping out at Mike's house and watching stupid Youtube videos and having such a good laugh with 6 of the closest VJ friends I have. It's funny, because when I look back at the first time our group was put together for TSD I never ever thought we would become so close - I thought groups were just like a phase, you get by with them, finish your group acting piece and move on.

2 years ahead I can safely say that I think we're still the same people as we always were - we've all grown up, but remained silly and ourselves at heart. I love our group dynamics and how we're always up for pretty much anything, how each one of us is so extremely wacky and weird in our own ways but we fit together so well. And I really, really hope that we'll always be the group that remained as friends and that we'll go on to attend weddings and travel together.

I HAVE A MILLION THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE, INCLUDING
a) getting the stupid schedule for next year out. all the classes I want happen to fall on EXACTLY the 12-2 timeslot on Tuesday, which pisses the hell out of me because I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE 3.5 credits next year. SHEEET.
b) seriously getting down to planning for Japan. I've been putting it off for quite a while because the travel bug kind of weaned off after Sydney, but hopefully I'll be more excited as time flies by.
c) finish marathoning Criminal Minds (WHICH I LOVE TO BITS IT IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVOURITE DRAMA, EVA.
d) eat Swedish meatballs and go to IKEA !!

** My fingers have a growing numbness in them and I am horrified because I keep thinking of the medical cases in House and how this seems like one of those times where House diagnoses a weird disease and then my fingers have to be amputated. Oh god.

*** I finally got down to watching Chak de! India - this Bwood film about hockey which features Shah Rukh Khan, who is about 10 times hotter in the film than he is right now in real life (this is fairly sad). Not surprisingly I thought the film was fantastic - it didn't have any of the cheesiness in most Bwood films, had a tinge of realism to it and the whole underdog story line was incredibly easy to relate to. I loved that the film worked around different stereotypes and was centered very strongly on gender equality, which I think is a huge issue in India and across the world. Women should never be told that they're inferior to men - as the film mentions, men often forget that they're given the gift of life by women.

Apparently my school is waaay bigger than I thought it to be. Whatever happened to me being able to go to any place on campus in 20 minutes tops from Vic College?

This relevation came courtesy of watching The Incredible Hulk today: I knew they were filming at Yonge Street (Zanzibar strip club anyone? Sam the Record Man store? ... as the Hulk runs down some random 'New York' street) but I didn't realise they were filming at UofT, and was pleasantly surprised to see my school being featured in a sizable proportion of the film. Knox College looks incredible, why have I never been in there! :( And I'm still curious about that glass passage where the Bruce was gassed down and turned into the Hulk. I'm 90% sure it isn't UofT (I've never seen that building ever, but then again I've never been to anywhere beyond the main areas I guess) ... but who knows, really? If you've seen the film and if you know that this is a place in UofT, please let me know! I thought it was gorgeous. (:

School spirit! Yay! And it proves the absolute certain fact about UofT - the school is absolutely gorgeous in summer. Come winter and it turns into a gray slush ice palace D: but hell having green grass in front of UC is simply amazing. Note to self: must treasure Fall and explore more of UofT in 2008.

The film itself wasn't that good, but Edward Norton <3

(and marathoning Criminal Minds S2 = double win).

Sydney was amazing. It was one of those little cities that doesn't seem much at the start, but it creeps into you slowly; maybe the real reason why I loved it so much was because I finally found the balance between unfamiliarity and familiarity in it. There was so much about the city that I wanted to explore more, yet at the same time I discovered that it wasn't that different from home after all, with its food courts and one day of late night shopping. Amongst the things I did there I enjoyed going to the Sydney Opera House the most, and watching Edward Scissorhands - priceless. (: I also loved how the streets go uphill and downhill, the monorails and trams, Paddy's Market (which is really like a version of Bugis Street!), Darling Harbour. Strangely enough I managed to find the time in Sydney to complete 3 DS games, heh.

The Air Supply concert nearly drove me to tears (aha) - I'm a sentimental junkie at heart, and it's lovely and nostalgic when the songs you grew up listening to are replayed again live.

Perhaps after all these years I've finally realised that the reason why I'm constantly discontented and unhappy is that I tend to look too much on the bright side, and when that fails to materialize, it crushes me. I'm never satisfied with stability, I'm always on the move for change.

But I'm still very happy here. It's a very mellow, subtle kind of happy, doing small things I love the most - running in the late evenings, watching the rain, meeting up with people over good coffee and cake, tv marathons, late night talks. I'm half dreading the day I get to finalize my plane tickets, but half excited to see what would be different in the next year.

The best thing I like about my house is the view from the balcony window. There's a mix of both small roads and the expressway, more flats (like my own but not entirely similar) and industrial buildings, schools ... I love watching everything come to life as the sky gradually gains light. I love how there can be shades of blues somedays when the sun rises, or on other days (like today morning) there can be a gradation of orange, pink and blue. (:

So the best thing about coming back is definitely the familiarity I feel with this place, having been born and bred here. There's no place like home, and I think it truly takes living out of this place for a while to appreciate it. I still hate the weather (and bitch about it 24/7), but nothing beats having family, friends and good food all at your fingertips. I still miss Toronto and what my life there has been for the past 8 months, but for now I should just really soak in the feeling of being home, because I don't know when next I will be back really (cue summer 09 plans of school/working at Disney).

The last 2 weeks of my being here has been quite a whirlwind. Funnily though I didn't really go out much (thanks to the INSIPID WEATHER *emphasizes*), but the times I did I had fun. (: I sent a good friend off to China, went to a smashing great 20th party which resulted in my first (? I think, because prior to Toronto I really didn't quite keep late nights out but I might have just forgotten) real late night out with drinking, dancing & dim sum in the morning. I went out to a school concert, had a sleepover with my best friends & ate at Simpang (!! best food ever though I HAVE TO STOP OVEREATING THERE because I get freaking insane when I'm extremely full. Even more entertaining than somewhat drunk me.). Yesterday night was awesome - went out to Zouk with my JC classmates etc. for Mambo, discovered that as much as I love old music and following dance steps I still like doing random weird things on my own, and then went to a friend's house to watch soccer till 6am. Arrived home, watched the sunrise at 6am and plopped on bed. Today I finally stopped being a seaslug and dragged myself out to the library where I finished 2 books - strangely enough, maybe the choice of book wasn't really good, but I found my readings today extremely disastisfying (even when a book is written by my favourite chick lit writer, psh).

These days have been spent lazing around, watching House and going out. And planning for Japan (finally everything is starting to settle down and sink in! Japan for two weeks woohoo) I could get used to life like this, really. If only university didn't have to exist D: (I should get started on planning my courses for next year. Anthropology Year 2, yay!)

edit: I made it. But I'm not feeling ecstatic for some reason, which I always thought I would be.

I AM HOME!

So after the intense 20 hour flight (my first trip flying alone, which was kind of exciting) ... I'm finally home. Home feels nice, in a strange way - the kind of way where you drift away from a friend and then gradually come to know them better as you meet up with them again. To some extent I miss my independence and being able to walk out and eat rubbish/watch TV/do the most random things, disturb my suitemates and chill in my room, but being home is still amazing. Especially with all the good food!

That said, though, I'm still fighting feelings of really missing Toronto (which is ironic, really, seeing that this whole month has been a huge countdown to coming home). I wasn't about to cry on my last night, but then a friend came over and we started talking and she started tearing, which made me sad as well since she's an exchange student from Korea and I'll probably not see her again (I hope not though, really). And when it actually came down to packing away my life into boxes and suitcases, I started to break down thinking about all the memories we've forged over the year. And all my friends ... (who I will see again, thankfully! except for those who are going away and back to their home university ):) I'm really missing my suitemates at this moment - one of my suitemates actually stayed up the whole night with me and helped me pack (and listen to me talk nonsense, I swear I'm more entertaining when I'm dead tired and being all 24 hours without sleep than when I'm drunk) and I was really, really grateful for that.

In any case, I will be here for the next 4 months (minus the week that I'm spending away with my family for a holiday & the 2 weeks I'm travelling to Japan). I still have my old number, so you can contact me if you need to at the same number! See you all very, very soon (:

1) Earth Hour tonight! Turn off all your lights (and preferably whatever else) from 8pm to 9pm :]
[edit] Officially, Toronto is :( I did the whole spiel about turning off the lights and spent one hour in the dark talking about ghosts with my suitemate but the city was still as brightly lit as dawn. So much for environmental awareness.

2) My favourite class for the year ended with a very dramatic note. Dr.J: "so, I've spent the whole year telling you how much the world sucked, it's now time to go do something about it as anthropologists!" I think this was the class that probably was the most life-changing for me all year round. The Course Calendar for 2008-2009 is already out and boy I am so excited to go onto second year and take more anthropology courses. :) (can you say geek with a capital G, really - I live for the GPA. ._.)

3) 40 Days to home. Sunny Singapore, ♥

4) I'm re-getting into Ragnarok II (okay, I officially know how much I suck) again. It's fairly cute, though I miss the original game, the graphics and music for the new one are awesome.

5) And it's official. After 4 months of tumultuous argument and debate, lunesin [best friend] and I have decided that we'll be going to Japan, Summer 2008 for about 2 weeks (I wish it was longer, but I'm not that rich). I'm going to be using all of my life savings (20 years of red packet money!) to pay for the entire trip. I'm so psyched, I can barely wait! Was talking to the parents about it and planning for the trip is such a headache especially when you have to do so much research, but I'm loving it. Plus I'll hopefully get to meet up with my Japanese friends there too :)

6) I'm getting a monster hoodie!! :D [oh it is the cutest thing in the world]

7) I played the Wii yesterday night at 3am over at my friend's suite. The Wii is amazingly fun, really, tennis and bowling especially when you're half lucid is hilarious! Yesterday was the craziest day I had in a long time (helping out for TSFF > delivering press packages > meeting up with the gang for Ethiopian (supremely amazing) food > going down the Annex for incense and Bollywood songs > running to Hart House from St. George in 5 minutes for suitemate's dance performance > going to another friend's jazz performance > coming home and chilling with the gang over funny Youtube videos, games, and finally the Wii marathon).
[edit] ( Quotes of Yesterday )

... I should really stop procrastinating on my film essay.
[edit] So nearly 11 hours later, I am still NOT done with my film essay. But I have watched 3 episodes of Flight of the Conchords and an episode of The Big Bang Theory. YAY.

( week-end )

In other less stupid/boring news I am possibly (very, as long as AUR starts planning) going to India for summer. I AM PSYCHED. and close to 2 months to home now! Hurray for $2.50 chicken rice and $1 bubble tea (in SGD, of course)

i dreamt that i gave a poor, starving child food, and started a whole chain of mass-killing amongst children without food. it was only meant to be a kind act, but maybe the kindness hid a secret penchant for evil and destruction. it was so lucid: the experience of looking down at the children from my apartment balcony, seeing that child look up at me, having guns placed into my hands and being yelled at to stop the killings only by killing the ones who were the most innocent. i remember the daughter from the daughter-mother pair putting a knife to my throat and threatening to gut me to death because i was the cause of it all. the fear and anxiety - the guns, hidden neatly in nooks and cranies of our outfits - and us, going through customs. the lady waved some sort of detector over our car and i jerked because i somehow heard a noise/was too anxious, and she came down from her high tower and i lied through my teeth that i was only startled because my friend at the back of the car had grabbed me suddenly. we struck up a conversation and it was amazing how i could pretend to be so calm when all i was thinking in my head was about the children.

then just as we got there i realised i left my gun in the car and had to brave through all the tight security to get back in (seemingly there were celebrations in the city). i bypassed a couple of family friends along the way, but i tried to hide my face because i didn't want to explain what i was doing there, i didn't want to hear the words or say the words that linked me to this tragedy. a lady officer stopped me and waved a metal detector over me - i completely forgot that i had a knife at my back pocket - and i tried to inch away; in the end she was convinced it was the zipper on my skirt that was reacting to the metal detector, and i got past her and back into my car.

i never eventually got around to the killing. i think my subconscious mind was trying to prevent that from happening, and i woke up feeling nauseated with pounding headaches, hating myself. i've not had nightmares for such a long time - it seems like ages ago that i fell asleep every night dreaming of a new horror, and waking up to remember it all. i don't remember where i kept my dream journal, but i do remember each and every single one of these horrors clearly in my mind. i still remember the days i spent in a concentration camp. the sensation of getting shot. having to abort my own child. and the way i felt about myself when i woke up.

76 days to home: it feels like just yesterday that I got off the plane with a bundle of nerves, fighting those hesitant and unsure feelings. 6 months ahead, I'm still not sure I made the right choice. These days I fight a constant love-hate relationship with this place, and it's the thought of being able to have this myriad of experiences that keeps me rooted. I'm ready to get packed and leave for home, but at the same time there's a sense of impending nostalgia at the thought of having some of my closest friends here leave for home (since they're on exchange), and not seeing or living with my suitemates any longer (8 months of co-living is pretty long indeed).

But emo/mellow-rant aside, I've been up to some great and wonderful things this month, and it's been fun pretty much non-stop punctuated with brief periods of stress and exams. ( Here's what I got up to: )

So after that whole two weeks of fun it's back to cracking the books, making the 3.5 GPA, writing essays, and then in a whirlwind pack up 8 months of my life into 3 suitcases and head to this place called home (and hopefully getting tickets to see Evil Dead the Musical!. I think there's going to be a lot that needs readjusting to when I get back (first and foremost the weather! hello to a place where 0 degrees is actually considered freezing-ass cold, and not normal or "warm"). I'm going to miss Toronto in Spring/Summer (this place is seriously so gorgeous at all the wrong times), but hey, there's always 2 (hopefully) more years to look to.

Class 95 soft rock weekend: I've found that the best cure for homesickness is ... listening to Internet radio which is streamed from home. I've been listening to Class 95 FM for the past 3 hours and it's amazing how much I feel like I'm back home in my room, listening to the radio or at my gym listening to the slow rock tunes playing while running. And all the Singaporean news (and slangs!) and funny advertisements! I feel so happy going through my readings while pretending to be home, aha. 'meanwhile along the ecp ...'

Ah Meng, our national orangutan/icon/monkey at the zoo died. :( I think the last time I saw Ah Meng was when I was so ridiculously small, I probably don't even remember anything about her anymore save the fact that she was very orange, they had some tea session at the zoo thing going on with her as a guest star. It's funny how we cling onto these little items as part of our identity, but it's things like the fact that we have a national icon in the form of a live orangutan that makes me love Singapore. It's true, being away from home has made me so much more patriotic - I never thought it would be this way, but I'm glad that it did turn out this way (and I don't think I want it to be any other way).

... and on a side note, in a discussion about accents: I just remembered that the Westerners pronounce orangutan as o - rang (as in rang someone up) - u - tan (tan, as in tanning). And I watched the clip about Taiwanese celebs dissing Singaporean English. And the whole scandal with Edison Chen and whoever else is really annoying me (everyone Asian is talking about it! Gee.).

UofT had a snow day today - apparently the very first in ages (shows you how brutal we are)! It would have been pretty amazing if I actually had classes today, though. :( Still, it was nice to stay in and do some reading for my upcoming midterm on evolution. I also went out with a few friends for a snowball fight (my first ever!) and ended up making a giant snowman after getting pelted with snowballs. SNOWBALL FIGHTS ARE AWESOME!

I am currently writing my 500 word essay on Linguistics and it's driving me nuts - I'm surprised how hard it is to write a short essay than a long one; the challenge with short essays is brevity and being concise, two traits which I don't possess in academic writing. Plus I hate finding articles for references (I should be used to this by now, though) - it's so much easier to write without needing to accord your ideas to someone before you. We should all just agree that no idea is original (save a few great ones) and stop the whole business of referencing.

Also, currently - my triceps hurt a whole bloody lot from the gym class I took. It was great fun (I'm developing an interest in Step though I'm so uncoordinated now that it's really funny), but my triceps hurt. Like mad. But the classes are a lot more fun than being a gym rat on the treadmill, so I'm going to stick with it for a while (it seems like a long time ago that I had to go to the gym twice a week to meet my instructor). I'm on a work-out regime of thrice a week (I will eventually pump it up to daily ... eventually). Wish me luck!

So, plans for the weekend:
1) Iron Chef competition tomorrow in res
2) Academia hullabaloo - essay writing and studying for mid-terms :(

I just watched Se7en and I'm amazed at how good the movie is, and how amazing the director is (he directed Fight Club, Panic Room, The Game, Zodiac. It's probably the best thriller I've seen in a long while (after Memento in film, I think). And watching Shane for the western module in class was just hilarious (it wasn't supposed to be funny, but we read all sorts of untoward meaning into it) I don't talk about my classes much, but I am enjoying them and having a great time. I guess if nothing else, I would have still been pretty glad to be here for the academic exposure. It's weird to think that I'm sort of in second-year and I can technically graduate a year ahead of everyone else and be done with university at 22. Or that I could cross my fingers and pray to get into Japan for an exchange programme. Or I could aspire to take the year off after graduation and work/travel to the best of my ability. Or I might consider applying to graduate school early and maybe head to Sweden or somewhere else for graduate studies. So many options - it seems like miles away till graduation, but I know it's going to come tumbling down my path faster than I think it would, and I hope I make the best decisions by then.

This year I made no resolutions on how to better myself, how to live a much more fulfilling life, or anything else of that sort. Maybe I was caught up in the whole flurry of activity at being at Times Square over the New Year, but somehow I always knew that I would end up not keepnig to any of my resolutions. This year I'm turning 20 - it's scarier than I think it would be, even though everyone around me post-20 is all nonchalant and telling me it'll be fine and I'm going to have the best time of my life in the 20s. I think part of my fear comes from the fact that I haven't really lived in my 19 years of existence, and I don't think it's got to do with breaking all sorts of rules or finding myself stoned dead/drunk somewhere along the streets. It's just that the times you once had are slowly turning into memories, and you worry that these memories, which make up who you are, are slowly going to slip out of your grasp.

The prettiest thing about snow - after the novelty wears off - are the smallest things, really. Like the way snowflakes get caught on your scarf and turn your purple scarf momentarily into a purple with white spots scarf, or the way the snow falls onto your hair, and the way it glitters and shines when it's lying on the ground. I notice that when night falls in Toronto the skies aren't pitch black, but rather somewhat reddish. But like all cities, you still can't see the stars.

Snow is kind of losing its novelty now, especially when you have to put on layers everywhere you go - but it's still nice for giving you the excuse to hold a cup of hot chocolate in your hands and let the warmth fill you bit by bit.

The other day when asked about would I prefer to be an artist or a musician, I said I would rather be an artist. I didn't have a clear answer back then, but now I think I know why: it surely is some sense of wonder to be able to recreate a piece of reality for yourself and others. I think that was kind of why I stuck so tightly to TSD once I got over the whole 'I suck at this, I can't act for life' phase: because doing set design somehow created a false illusion that I was not the failure in art I used to be, that I could draw, design and colour competently. Aur argues that art boils down to practice, but I think the capacity for being a good artist is attributed far more to talent than music is.

... and the reason why I'm so mellow these days has definitely got to be because of Honey & Clover, which is the most realistically heart-breaking thing I've seen in quite a while. Nothing captures the poignancy of heartbreaks and relationships that well (other than Juno, maybe, which I loved) other than two dimensional characters living in a world of pastel colours and hand-drawn animation. I'm forcing myself to read all these books I never thought I'll ever read because I don't want to deal with the fact that school's started, but at the same time the thought of having just 3 months left before I return home makes me both excited and somewhat sad. Excited, because I miss home and everything else on that island, but sad, because inevitably next year's going to be so different - without a huge group of the people I hang out with (who are returning home after their exchange year or moving out of residence). And in 8 months maybe everything else would have changed and I would find myself not fitting in like I used to. I'm not expecting the world to stop for me (especially since I made the choice to leave everything behind and move on), but is it a naive dream to think that it might have moved just a bit slower?

All right, so I'm on the edge of terminating my Fido (phone) contract (ha bloody ha) 4 months into my contract of 36 months. And switching into pre-paid. I have no idea why I'm shelling out 50 odd Canadian dollars a month for a phone I barely see, lest actually use - I'm just not a phone person, especially when it comes to chit-chatting (can we say MSN/email/Facebook? I'm such an anti-social non face-to-face git). Seriously. That, along with my insane Burwash meal plan (I discovered I ate 110 meals ALL OF LAST SEMESTER. AND practically survived on skipped meals and apples.) makes me think of moving out of residence because everything here is seriously way too overpriced, way too expensive (not that I did not foresee it, but! but!).

So back to the point. Other than the fact that I use my phone like once a day for 1.5 minutes, I'm going to have to pay 200 Canadian dollars AND taxes to terminate my plan (and a possible $25 Cad to get into prepaid). Which works out to be about 350 SGD (fuck, that's a new phone/tons of books/clothes/crap I CAN BUY) But the way I'm looking at it, I'm thinking it's the smarter choice of the two. Unless I get insanely popular in the next 32 months and start calling people like crazy/have them call me. PLUS if I end up going on exchange, that's one bloody year of paying 50cad/month for nothing just to keep my line (I don't know if they allow me to suspend my number - does anyone have any clue?), and when I get back to Singapore, that's paying them 200 Canadian dollars anyway.

so friends and fledgings, what do you think? at this point i'm pretty set on moving but i just need people to confirm that i AM thinking straight and not being ridiculously out of my mind at 2.05am in the morning.