Sad post

The soul wants what it wants, until it does not.

Not that my relationship has ended, far from it I hope. But I can relate to the strange sparseness when life changes and people are far away. Do I still remember how to be a girlfriend? I try, I try very hard indeed. But how was it like before? What was life like before blurry videos on Skype and offline messages on MSN? I'm not sure anymore.

From half a world away

It's a strange feeling trying to listen to the boyfriend's interview via online radio from half a world away. It doesn't help that my internet connection just happens to be shit today, or that I'm dead tired, or that I'm super stressed out. It's sort of depressing actually. :(

Buffering... buffering... buffering...

LDRs suck big-time.

Doing work while grouchy

When I'm working while feeling a bit down and out, things like this REALLY piss me off: "The first is the structural poverty of the African continent. By structural poverty, we refer to the lack of structures, both concrete and ideological, that function to ensure social continuity."

The offending phrase is 'structural poverty'. 'Structural poverty' could mean economic poverty caused by structural factors, but the author uses it to mean the poverty of structures, in which case shouldn't he have used something like 'lack of structural capacity'????? Or why didn't he just use 'lack of structures'???? Save himself having to define it again in the next line? What benefit is there in using 'structural poverty'? In any case his definition is so broad that it covers everything - policy structures, administrative structures, transport and communications, legal structures, political structures, social structures, ideological structures. Plus what do you mean by 'ensuring social continuity'????? Geographically? Temporally? What is social continuity anyway? You might as well draw a smiley face in place of all that crap.

Sometimes the quality of articles in supposedly academic journals is horrendous. I need to smash my head against a wall. Admittedly I have to find a hard enough wall.

Today it seems as if the whole world has forgotten how to use their brain and mouths (and pens. and handphones) at the same time. *glares at LSB*

Also, typos! What are typos doing in a peer-reviewed journal?????? It's typos galore here! Wth!

Have finished reading the whole article, and am still disgusted. He starts off with talking about various strands of Pan-Africanism, gives us a whole list of difficulties with African integration, and his conclusion has no relation to what he's talked about earlier. It's a version of 'I argue X because of A, B, C, unfortunately, A, B, & C are irrelevant to my argument'.

Today had better not get any worse.

WW2 on facebook

(courtesy of LSB)

(& Collegehumor. Yes...)

a modern adaptation of world war II for the american teenager.

note from LSB's book

"Guha thought of consciousness - and therefore of peasant subjecthood - as something immanent in the very practies of peasant insurgency. Elementary Aspects is a study of the practices of insurgent peasants in colonial India, not of a reified category called consciousness. The aim of the book was to bring out the collective imagination inherent in the practices of peasant rebellion. Guha makes no claim that the insurgent consciousness that he discusses is indeed conscious, that it existed inside the heasd of peasants. He does not equate consciousness with the subject's view of himself. Rather, he examines rebel practices to decipher the particular relationship - between elites and subalterns and among subalterns themselves - that are acted out in them and then attempts to derive from these relationships the elementary structure, as it were, of the consciousness or imagination inherent in those relationships."

- Dipesh Chakrabarty, Habitations of Modernity, pp.15-16

Lalala

More flowers from LSB sitting on my desk.

More flowers from LSB!

This time instead of soft white and pink roses and lilies and carnations, they're a bouquet of many cheerful candy colours. They're on my study table now!

Les Fleurs

I got flowers from LSB! Lalalalala...

Possibly my most embarrassing moment in the past 6 months

I was just about to go out to do my laundry when this insect the size of my palm, and with ONLY FOUR LEGS!!!! (how freaky is that????) flew into my room and perched on the wall above my bed.

I opened my door and asked it to leave, I switched off the lights, I even threw a ball of paper at it (a few times!). Finally, determined to get it out of my room dead or alive (the insect, not me), I went downstairs to the broom cupboard to get a broom (duh). I marched back up, then stopped and stared for a long moment at the insect.

Then the silliness of glaring at an insect, holding a broom, getting ready to wage WWIII hit me, and I started laughing. Then I realised I didn't actually dare to whack it with the broom, and then wished that LSB was here to help me get rid of it, and then I was laughing AND crying.

And that was how my housemate found me when she came out to investigate the source of the crazy giggles. I was entirely speechless, so I just pointed at the ridiculous insect (still calmly perched on my wall dammit!). She promptly went down to fetch one of the guys (who looked pretty annoyed) to pick it up with some tissue. I could only manage a choked expression of gratitude, I'm afraid.

If it only had 4 legs, was it even an insect?

Typical LSB-Justareed (JR) MSN Convy

JR: LSB!

LSB: ????????// yes dearie?

JR: i missed u today cute(

LSB: haha tat's so sweet

LSB: have u bn doing work

JR: an itsy bitsy teeny little bit

JR: u say me sweet?

JR: yes? u say me sweet?

LSB: erm........

JR: u say me sweet?

JR: yes? sweet?

LSB: yes yes

JR: hehehehehehehehehehe

JR: snigger

JR: so shy

LSB: erm diao

Recollection

I wonder if LSB remembers the night we danced at the bus-stop at his house while it was raining. He thought it was stupid of course, and even I felt a bit embarrassed even though I was the one who coerced him into it. He'll probably kill me for speaking about this in public.

Have you read the papers?

First tutorial today passed by in a fog of drowsiness. 10am is not a good time for me.

I was looking over LSB's (long-suffering bf) shoulder as he was scanning through microforms of newspapers from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

I never knew the papers were so interesting!

There were the priceless nuggets like 'Cat gives birth to squirrel,' and 'Englishman possessed by spirit of lama.' A lady divorced her husband because he refused to give her money for lipstick and cigarettes. A writer was horrified by homosexuality in prisons. People were to watch out for an injured man-eating tiger. Rubber prices were down. Chantilly lace was debonair (yes, the article used this word!) this summer. Lolita was all the rage among liberals in America, and we weren't certain at all if it was indeed pornography. Dulles had passed away, and the Russians were wrangling in a most uncivilised manner with the Americans. People were struggling with issues of language and culture, and students held emergency meetings to pass resolutions on governmental misdeeds. Algeria and Congo were in the news, as was merger, and Scottish dances were all the fad with 'blood-curdling screams' from the men and 'twirling skirts' attached to girlish waists (yes, actual quotes).

I love the papers.

ed: Just a note, these were local papers.

ed2: LSB just notified me that Malay Mail (the paper we were looking at) was actually a Malayan publication, and therefore not really 'local'. Not that anyone cares, but historians are anal retentive like that.

My Ultimate Romantic Songs list

I always forget how differently I behave in front of different people. Some people think I'm very mature and serious. It seems as if I've saved all my immaturity for long-suffering bf (LSB). You guys have no idea.

I'm in the mood for music today! But music really makes me tired. Anyways, I decided to compile my Ultimate Romantic Songs List! (URSL) (I've acronymised the world!)

I love this song:

That's All
Artist:Michael Buble

I can only give you love that lasts forever,
And a promise to be near each time you call.
And the only heart I own
For you and you alone
That's all,
That's all

I can only give you country walks in springtime
And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall;
And a love whose burning light
Will warm the winter night
That's all,
That's all.

There are those I am sure who have told you,
They would give you the world for a toy.
All I have are these arms to enfold you,
And a love time can never destroy.

If you're wondering what I'm asking in return, dear,
You'll be glad to know that my demands are small.
Say it's me that you'll adore,
For now and evermore
That's all,
That's all.

Isn't it deliciously soppy? Isn't it? Isn't it?

Ok, next:

On the Street Where You Live

I have often walked down this street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high.
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.

Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour
Out of ev'ry door?
No, it's just on the street where you live!

And oh! The towering feeling
Just to know somehow you are near.
The overpowering feeling
That any second you may suddenly appear!

People stop and stare.
They don't bother me.
For there's no where else on earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won't care if I
Can be here on the street where you live.

I've gotta admit I'm not a huge fan of the lyrics for this one. There is such a thing as TOO sappy. But the glorious romantic melody! The strings!

Well, from the same film, I like the lyrics of the next a lot more:

I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face Lyrics

I've grown accustomed to her face.
She almost makes the day begin.
I've grown accustomed to the tune that
She whistles night and noon.
Her smiles, her frowns,
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now;
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I was serenely independent and content before we met;
Surely I could always be that way again-
And yet I've grown accustomed to her look;
Accustomed to her voice;
Accustomed to her face

This one is such a tender little song... And I've got a thing for Prof Higgins, so... ;)

Ok, I've left out the sad romantic songs, and the non-English/Chinese ones. But my absolute absolute ultimate favourite romantic song would be:

追
張囯榮
曲:李迪文
詞:林夕

這一生也在進取 這分鐘卻挂念誰
我會說是唯獨你不可失去
好風光似幻似虛 誰明人生樂趣
我會說為情為愛仍然是對
誰比你重要 成功了敗了也完全無重要
誰比你重要 狂風與暴雨都因你燃燒
一追再追
只想追趕生命裏一分一秒 原來多麽可笑
你是真正目標
一追再追
追蹤一些生活最基本需要 原來早不缺少
有了你即使平凡卻最重要

好光陰縱沒太多 一分鐘那又如何
會與你共同渡過都不枉過
瘋戀多錯誤更多 如能重新做過
我會說願能為你提前做錯
誰比你重要 成功了敗了也完全無重要
誰比你重要 狂風與暴雨都因你燃燒
一追再追
只想追趕生命裏一分一秒 原來多麽可笑
你是真正目標
一追再追
追蹤一些生活最基本需要 原來早不缺少
有了你即使平凡卻最重要

只想追趕生命裏一分一秒 原來多麽可笑
你是真正目標
一追再追
追蹤一些生活最基本需要 原來早不缺少
只得你會較我仿佛人群裏最重要
有了你即使沉睡了
也在笑

I'll fall in love straightaway with any guy who sings this to me, I swear.　

I'm sure I left many songs out. Tsk. Too tired to think.

Ok, let me go swoon now (or rather, let me go read my book now).

Violin teacher

Violin teacher: That candidate failed. And he played 10 times better than you.

Do you count that as having a way with words? Or just (brutal) honesty?

Argh I'm going to fail my violin exams!!!!!!!!!!!!! (& my classes, and my diss., and my DELF!)

Tentative songs for my wedding (that no one will recognize except J) (just indulge me. I'm female):

- That's All (Buble)
- East of the Sun (& West of the Moon) (Sinatra)
- Me & My Gal (Kelly & Garland)
- Mine (I've got the track, don't know the singers)
- The Way You Look Tonight (Sinatra)
- Come Fly with Me (Sinatra) --> for honeymoon!
- Moon River
- Quand On S'Aime (french duet by unknown singers on the CD someone hasn't returned to me after 2 yrs. *ahem*)
- Aren't you kind of glad we did (Garland duet)
- Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (Louis & Ella) --> if I'm feeling cheeky hehe
- Can This Be the End of the Rainbow --> to finish off

Hee that's all I can think of now. Unfortunately, I don't think I get to decide wedding tracks. Sighz.

And no one's supposed to use this list for their wedding!

These songs make me happy! They're smiley songs.

*slaps self out of bimbo mode* Back to work.

In a Rut (just my life in general)

My brain can't wrap itself round the idea of writing a paper that has nothing to do with politics... I find myself reading for a political angle even though That Is Not What I Want. Maybe I should give up the fight and just write something on politics.

And I keep thinking about the paper I submitted on Friday, largely because it's for the module that I lost 25% for during the exams, so I really need to do well for that essay. Unfortunately, procrastination being a hard habit to break, I submitted a really dubious paper. Sighz.

My poor darling honeymunchkins is not feeling well, so being the sweet, committed girlfriend I am, I went out with my girl friends today and bought a ridiculously expensive tin of safflower & orange flower cookies. Which I'm going to eat because my darling honeymunchkins shouldn't be eating expensive cookies right now. Get well soon, honeymunchkins! *sends smooches from afar*

Hahahahaha

Sorry, this all just sounds too familiar. Terribly amused.

One for the ladies: How to date a geek guy?

Movie log (14 Oct-22 Oct 06)

You, Me & Dupree - This is not my fault. The bf gave me a choice between Silk & this.

Black Dahlia - Creepy at parts, but fun. Sniggered throughout the show, full of outrageous characters and (to me) nostalgic plots.

My Summer of Love - Cool show! I loved it.

Don't ask me why I'm watching so many movies. *cry*

Dedication

ya ya I'm doing the post-lyrics thing.

----------------------------------

生命有一種絕對
作詞：阿信　作曲：阿信　編曲：周恆毅/五月天

如果我不曾走過這一遍　生命中還有多少苦和甜美
那風中的歌聲　孤單哽咽的聲音是誰
回憶中　那個少年　為何依然不停的追

想要征服的世界　始終都沒有改變　那地上無聲蒸發我的淚
黑暗中期待光線　生命有一種絕對　等待我請等待我直到約定融化成笑顏

那生命燦爛煙火般上演　你和我最後都要回歸地平線
那留下的足跡　浪花沖走回憶海岸線
靠近我再擁抱我　請不要讓我的心冷卻

想要征服的世界　始終都沒有改變　那地上無聲蒸發我的淚
黑暗中期待光線　生命有一種絕對　等待我請等待我直到約定融化成笑顏

想要征服的世界　始終都沒有改變　那地上無聲蒸發我的淚
黑暗中期待光線　生命有一種絕對　等待我請等待我靠近我再擁抱我
不要走請不要走直到約定融化成笑顏　直到我看見生命的絕對

Love,
me

Nightmare

I know my dreams are strange. And this is a classic. Here's snippets.

We were (that's J and I, I suppose cos we spent the whole night out last night) standing outside a viewing room with a big screen. There were 3 big buttons labelled 'realist,' 'liberal' and 'constructivist' outside the room. Each button would start a film encapsulating the tenets of the respective perspective.

I pressed the liberal button, then a black and white film with men in top hats tap dancing with canes started showing. Lots of high society types socializing at a party with big band music.

I pressed the constructivist button, and a colour film with men in uniform marching, patriotic music playing started.

I pressed the realist button - and this is classic - and the screen showed a big room with a U-shaped arrangements of small tanks, with a few fishes in every tank. A goldfish (that looked exactly like the goldfish J and I saw at the aquarium near Paradiz at 1am last night) started jumping from 1 end of the U to the other. Somewhere along the other arm of the U, there was a big gap between 1 tank and the next, and when the goldfish tried to jump, it landed outside th tank.

Now here's where it gets REALLY weird. I (now suddenly in the movie) picked up the struggling goldfish and put it into the next tank. Then I asked it why it was travelling along the U to since it was a dead end on both sides. It said (it said!!!!!) that after the war they (I don't know who 'they' is) had promised it they would bring back the dolpins, and it wanted to travel to the ocean to see the dolphins. I laughed in a monosyllabically cynical way (like, 'ha') and asked if it really believed they'd bring back the dolphins, and if it really thought it could travel out of the tanks into the ocean.

I don't know why a goldfish would want to meet dolphins that would probably eat it at first sight.

I don't know what this says about me either. Am I a closet realist? Is it only in my dreams that I can admit my true inclinations?

Next snippet from dream continuing the piscine theme.

A Prof from my course (I shall not mention names) decided that in order to pass our module, we need to pass a particular test. We had to go to a small lake in which a HUGE monster shark lived, and each of us had to hold a dead chicken in front of the shark, bleed it, and then get ourselves back to safety. Yay. Easy-peasy.

For some reason the test was conducted at night, so all of us were dumped into the lake, holding a dead chicken, a small knife, and sort of floating around in a clueless way. (btw, Joyce, you were still there) It was dark, we couldn't see no shark, and I was scared shitless. I told a classmate that I was pretty sure I couldn't pass, and she looked at me uncomprehendingly (the way they look at me when I say no, I haven't done the essay, no, I haven't finished the readings, yes, I'm human unlike you). This is how the conversation went:

Classmate: I guess you just swim up behind it, cut the chicken, then swim away quickly. (a la I guess you just manage your time better and read whenever you're free. Oh, and give up your social life too.)

Me: But it's a huge shark! Aren't you afraid it'll eat you?

Classmate: Just give it a kick when you swim away... propels you further and delays it. *reassuring smile* It'll be fine.

Me: ... *runs/swims away screaming*

At some point in the lake, I had to wrestle with a 'small' shark that was about the length of my leg. I think it was trying to snatch my chicken from me. So I just blocked the 2 holes I saw on top of its mouth and suffocated it. (don't ask me how I did that when sharks breathe through GILLS) It's eyes turned red and sort of imploded when it suffocated though. Oh and by the way, I chose to suffocate it because I didn't want it to bleed cos I sure as hell didn't want to attract the attention of Monster Shark. I don't think I was thinking about passing the test by then.

The rest of the time was just floating on the dark water, hoping to HELL that Monster Shark wasn't swimming somewhere below me, ready to snap my fragile body into two and toss my bloody remains on to shore (a la Jaws).

Then I started thinking. Why should we even get into the water? Maybe we could rig it up so we can dangle a huge bait (like the shark I just killed) to attract Monster Shark, and then we could find a way to position ourselves way way WAY above that bait, wait for Monster Shark to come, bleed the chicken, and finish the test in relative safety...

And just as I was going to suggest this, our Prof got fed-up with our lack of creativity and told us to do exactly that. So, using a intricate contraption of ropes and dead bait, our classmates made attempts one at a time. And I got to see Monster Shark rise from the depths of the lake to engulf the bait in its monstrous jaws.

I figured that it'd take a while for it to be my turn, so I decided to walk down to town with Joyce (who'd already passed) to get some food. On the way back to the lake, however, I saw my classmates walking around, and realized the test was over and everyone had passed. Except me. I rushed back to the lake, only to see a couple of classmates carrying a late classmate's severed head in one of those baskets people carry their pets in. They were comforting her (the severed head!) that at least she didn't have to stay in the lake forever, and at least they were bringing her out. You're talking to a severed head for goodness' sake!

And I woke up. Please don't judge me by my nightmares...

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Btw, 2nd anniversary! *does happy dance* We rock!

Sappy post

When his mum suggested he should reciprocate and buy my family mooncakes today, Ed gave me That Look.

That dismayed look that complains plaintively:

"Why have you taken my mother away and replaced her with a robot under your control?"

"Why did you have to tell my friends that?"

"Why did you have to leave the ice-cream on the table to melt?"

Mwahahaha.

But he still wins. Cos there's very little a girl won't forgive for a look like that. You could see a lifetime in that look.