time to say goodbye

nah, i'm not suddenly leaving earlier - in fact, the assignments have just started coming in.

jon's leaving bangalore this friday, and he gets back to singapore on saturday. a couple of days ago i got mad at him because i was severely caught in the deep, dark throes of homesickness when he said you know, i'm not quite ready to leave yet. and i was like dude, how can anyone not want to go back to singapore? how can you not want to go home and WAIT FOR ME TO COME HOME. which sounds ridiculous, and was pretty unreasonable of me, i'll admit. but girls have these weird moments.

but now that i'm feeling better about my remaining time in beijing (see previous posts) and determined to just make the best of things, even doing my assignments (in chinese!), i feel a bit wistful. because he's right, his time in bangalore did fly by, and while i know he's glad to be going home it all seems pretty sudden. soon enough i won't be sending him smses or calling him with a string of 12 numbers, just eight, and the number saved under jon bangalore is going to be redundant.

it's not just that though. i think i'm also feeling wistful because it's been a difficult, yet amazing and sweet almost eight months for us, and his going back to singapore marks the beginning of the end of exchange, and of this period of growth. i think it'll feel different for both of us when it's time for me to go back to singapore though. so maybe, after all, it's just like this because i won't be there at the airport when he lands.

***
i've got an exam tomorrow, and i've been taking naps during the day, in between finishing up my notes. quite pleasant, really, especially since it rained two days ago and the cold after-rain feeling's not quite dissipated yet.

speaking of making the best of things, there's that saying about making lemonade when life hands you lemons, right? i've bought a large bag of dried lemon slices, and i've been drinking a lot of what i suppose i must call lemon tea as you have to steep them in boiling water. pretty close, you think?

dear lavan

if you're reading this, do let me know. i woke up and turned my computer on to be greeted by the following message on MSN, sent to me by yue en while i was offline last night:

'anyway outta interest, I got this from Lavan's blog

TSH: "For Lavan, he says that Love comes from the heart. So all the guys in this LT, would any of you say that Love is a chemical reaction?" Jon L's hand is the only one that goes up...haha. Nadia takes some of the heat off me by adding her views. The lecture continues. Even though I'm tanned, I feel myself turn red.
hmmmm heee heee, I contemplated for two seconds if I should let you know this, but the fact that you were in Ho Hock Lai's class and I'm pretty sure he doesn't think that it's a chemical reaction now :P being that he's happily looking at you in your MSN pic :D (emphasis mine)'


lavan, i trawled through your entire archive trying to search for that entry but i couldn't find it. just so i wouldn't be maligning you.

and my dear yue en, jon's eyes are CLOSED in the picture? so i don't see how he can be happily looking at me?

so anyway, even if jon still does think love is a chemical reaction, it doesn't matter because he's an acid and i'm an alkali.

awwww!

all this, for a member of the male species who, as is typical of them, tried to make me believe last night that among other things, h0h l@w corporat!on required their prospective pupils to be able to speak hokkien and tie bandages.

in other news, i have progressed on my essay, just that most of it appears to be taken from the articles given to us by our teacher.

maybe

i should cook chicken curry today. looking at abi's pictures of chicken curry on facebook has made me feel a longing for singaporean food. and i still have those boxes of prima taste sauce mummy gave me before i came over, and it's quite cool today because it rained last night and it's windy. only thing is, i think there's msg in the mix.

i have also saved the first chinese essay i'm attempting to write as THISISNOTHAPPENINGTOME.docx (word 2007).

i'm not kidding.

***
1048: the doorbell just rang and a man has just delivered my ticket for the king's singers in beijing on 21 june. which i purchased for 180 yuan (36 SGD). WOOHOO! being able to watch good stuff at great prices must be one of the better reasons for coming on exchange.

awww shucks

okay i know this picture looks kinda wrong, especially since jon wrong isn't there (he's taking the picture i think) and in the original one sean was on quents' left and bryan was on my right. no offence to either of them, but i came across this and decided to crop this bit out to post. bryan's shirt was also Rather Rude and this is a family friendly blog, no?

because i was touched that he sent a message (and a fairly long one at that!), a couple of days ago, to my facebook inbox - which made my day :) and that he finally uploaded the picture, of course. this was taken the night before i left for beijing, at coffee bean in holland village, just over three months ago.

i think we kinda look like twins in this picture, something must run in the fami-lee.

as i was saying

before i go on, don't you think i ought to be recruited for the national day parade 2008? i think i can give a pretty decent rendition of home, and can pull off a live performance, when it comes down to it. it might even bring tears to your eyes, seeing as i love and feel so much for singapore! however, i'm not famous enough, so i don't think that's going to happen, ever. i'm also past that cutesy age where i can audition to lisp my way slightly haphazardly and a little off-pitchly through some national song and get away with it live on television.

unless, of course, by some fluke i become a famous enough LAWYER.

like THAT'S ever going to happen.

and it's not like they're EVER going to ask a FAMOUS LAWYER to perform at the national day parade, if all she's achieved is. . . being famous for being a lawyer.

alright. again, here goes. i have decided to number everything for convenience and ease of reading. see how my legal skills are being put to good use in everyday life (now i should be in an nus law school ad too, whaddya think?)?:

1. if you remember correctly, we managed to get sleeper tickets for our trip to jilin to climb chang bai shan. what i believe i didn't say was that we all got 上铺 (shang4 pu4) tickets, meaning that we were each allocated the topmost of three bunks, i.e. bunks where you can't sit up straight because then you'll be hunched right against the ceiling of the carriage. and believe me, when you're lying down, your face is literally inches from it. poor paul's feet stuck out a good few inches over the edge of his bunk.

it's not like i had much problem with slotting myself into the small space, but as i was lying in the darkness staring at the ceiling of the train carriage it hit me that i've done many things which i can and should be proud of, which make me, me; chief among them would be fighting my way down the long and winding road (now that is a good song) and finally finding God and getting baptised. which means that i have nothing to fear, because

there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears withhas not been perfected in love. - 1 john 4:18

i realised that i only ever needed to fear God's judgment. i never needed to fear the past or the future, or fear man and the wordly things which encroached so much on my consciousness at times. and even God's judgment i don't have to fear anymore, because of Jesus' death on the cross.

the logical conclusion would therefore be that there is nothing i should fear. at all.

but i am only human, as are we all. still, that was a nice realisation. i don't think it would have come to me at any other time, and it was enforced by our braving the horrible weather to get to the top of the #$%^&#%$(*! mountain. dude, if i can brave that, i really ought not to fear and worry so much about things. right? right. and just have more self-confidence.

2. i'm pretty sure God's teaching me to live this reality:

every christian needs two conversions. one from the world to Christ, and another back into the world with Christ - john stott

i hope that speaks for itself.

it's true, and although i knew the world wasn't all sunshine (no Son what. so how to have Sonshine haha okay bad joke and you won't get it unless you go to church - alright cause we believe in the Holy Trinity: the Father (God), the Son (Jesus, God) and the Holy Ghost (Helper from God, God)) even back in singapore i think part of the reason why i've been feeling miserable in beijing is because i refuse, in a way, to accept that i cannot like everybody, or let go of their faults as easily as i thought i could. because i feel that in some way that makes me a horrible, un-christian person.

loving someone and liking them are also two different things. love is a choice, like isn't really a choice. i could go on and on about this but it's not fundamental to this post. if you'd like to hear more, do let me know.

but that's Growing Up for you. it was easy to be happy in singapore, to love AND like people around me and be a blessing. especially when there was jon to talk to at the end of the day, to reassure me that things were okay, and i wasn't going all crazy and bitter from the world.

so i think i now know a little bit more of why we had to be apart for this period of time: it's simply that i had to Grow Up and get through, accept and learn some things about the world on my own with God. i remember feeling like i was overflowing with joy when i became a christian not so very long ago, and i also wondered how long it would last. because you can't be high all the time - you'd be of no earthly use (i think i've written about this before).

paul (the apostle, not the friend) wrote

so to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. three times i pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. but he said to me, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." therefore i will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. . . for when i am weak, then i am strong. - 2 corinthians 12:7-9, 10b.

i've seriously felt like i was going crazy and becoming bitter, but after last night's revelation and the realisation that i really have to accept some things before i jump out of my window, i feel much better. Jesus never called us to be perfect. He called us to be perfected in Him.

the world and people (including me!) are crazymessedup at times but i've learnt that i have to accept that, and move on - always - with Him.

okay i'm hungry and i'm going to eat breakfast! yay!

by the way, i also slept very well last night. much better than i have for the past week.

truth, freedom, liberation!
(hurhur)

when i was about 16 or 17, i used to follow the amazing race with great plans for my own future: i wanted to travel, to see the world - and the fact that the person i was dating when i was 17 had these grand ideas about the world and how it was probably much better than silly, small ol' singapore probably had a big part to play in my desire to Grow Up and Get Out There.

although a part of me felt that i'd be extremely happy and contented just being in singapore, feeling sian and complaining about it day and night - but still being extremely happy and contented anyway.

AND SO. after much whining to jon, and some whining to chor, here it comes:

i'm not really enjoying myself in beijing. i don't want to be afraid to admit it any longer, and i'm just going to have to accept it - as will you. if you've been following my previous posts, you'll know that for me, the novelty of being in a new country wore off a couple of weeks ago. since then, i've had bouts of feeling Absolutely Miserable. i've been putting it down to the long distance between jon and myself, but i don't think i can do that any longer because it's not fair to us, not to him, or me.

the truth is, i'm just boring, and small-minded (EDIT: BUT NOT PETTY AND MEAN!), if you'd like to think of me that way; at this point in time i'd much rather be back in singapore ironing clothes and having driving lessons and being able to go out for a proper run whenever i want to, instead of having to skip in the lift lobby because it's too dusty outside.

i want to be able to eat as much as i want of my mother's good and healthy cooking, watch bad singapore tv, get annoyed at my dad for being so dad-like. i want to ask my grandmother how her day was, i want to nap on our worn faux leather sofa in our living room with no air-conditioning, and wake up feeling hot and sticky and irritated because hey, it's hot and sticky back in singapore and that kind of weather makes you feel irritated! i want to make fun of my brother and his cool new life in acjc - heck, i even want to be preparing for year 4 sem 1.

i won't go so far as to say that i'd much rather have been back in school for year 3 sem 2, bitching with everybody about assignments and exams, because the break from school was welcome, and today i studied for an exam i have next week and found it interesting. so there are good points about having come on exchange, see?

i miss my friends. cookies and cream ice cream at island creamery with the guys, drinks and a girly dressy night out with the law school girls just because we feel like it. movies with adele, baking, sunday mornings walking over to the ywca to steal abi's baked goods or just to see her. BAK CHOR MEE WITH JON. seeing the girls from my romans group at bsf on thursdays, even though we were split differently for matthew.

most of all, i want to feel happy just doing things like walking down the street, looking at the trees - the Everyday things. which i do enjoy doing alone here, but it's different, you know? i don't belong, not even with the others, no, not really.

somehow i think almost everyone (okay, not everyone, but it seems so. although i'm sure everyone's homesick to some extent) i know's been really excited about having the opportunity to travel and see new things - and i've just been too scared to admit that i'm not like that. all the things i've seen i've actually found Extremely Boring, and i think if mummy makes me visit the forbidden palace or other attractions with the family AGAIN when they come next week i will really just 吐血 (tu4 xue3 VOMIT BLOOD) for them to see. haha! i feel like i'm terribly uncultured but hey, that's just the way things are.

(in fact, i secretly think my mother will be extremely bored too, and she'd rather go check out groceries at wal-mart with me and exclaim over how cheap vegetables are downstairs. especially when the prices are converted back to singapore dollars...!)

seeing how other people live their lives has been interesting. letting them share a bit of themselves with you has been great. those have been the things i've enjoyed the most about travelling in china.

but when it comes down to it, THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME AND THIS IS NOT HOME. i am dying to go home and get on with my life in singapore.

i'll miss the girlfriends i've made in 政法 (zheng4 fa3) though.

after all, exchange hasn't been all that terrible. you'd have heard if i'd been driven to jump out the window already, right?

it's not even the inefficiency and sheer number of people, the lack of consideration for others which gets to me, really.

but there are things i know i came on exchange to learn. oh, not just about jon and myself. other things too. and that will be a story for tomorrow, perhaps. for now, i'm feeling much happier than i have for the past few days, weeks, and i think i'll be able to sleep better tonight as a result.

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE! indeed it does, and in all ways and senses of the phrase. nothing like God's wisdom for you.

of all the things in the world

guess what! it might please you to know - it sure pleased me! - that i managed to buy the right shampoo after all! i just compared the chinese words - 西柚 （xi1 you2) - on the bottle of shampoo i purchased with the bottle of conditioner which i purchased in beijing, when they still had the pictures of fruits and flowers on the bottles.

now, i have no idea why it smelt different to me. maybe something's wrong with my olfactory senses, or there's too much dust in the air and hence up my nose.

noooooo

remember those vaguely offensive yeeeeeeeees! yeeeeeeeeesss! clairol advertisements?

well, anyway, this post isn't about them.

it's about how somebody, somewhere, decided to give the whole range of clairol hair products an extreme makeover. not that it's that big a deal, really, because i like the new scents they come up with, and the new shampoo bottles are more ergonomically friendly.

but why did whoever-they-are have to choose to do this when i'm in beijing? because along with being more ergonomically friendly, they also decided to stop printing pictures of the fruits and flowers whose extracts are contained in the shampoo on the bottles. and because it's beijing, duh and obviously, all the words printed on the bottles of shampoo are in chinese.

which meant that i spent, firstly, a good ten minutes, searching for the clairol section, and secondly, another fifteen or so minutes sniffing the contents of almost all the bottles of shampoo on display there.

the shampoo and the bottle it's in are still coloured more or less according to the older range, but i couldn't find the one i'm currently using (with matching conditioner), which is the grapefruit bright pink one. or maybe it's been re-released in a different colour. who knows? so now when i condition my hair, hopefully the smells won't clash. the bottle i finally bought smelt orangey - it was orange, after all - which is pretty close to grapefruit. you think?

***
two days ago i was feeling a bit blue; on my way to the bakery i saw the weather-beaten middle-aged lady who runs a bicycle repair-come-parking service under a nearby overhead bridge reading the bible.

we're not into counting months, really we aren't, but since it was the second last 22nd of the month that we'll be apart, yesterday -

next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
and one day passed away in his sleep
and his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
and passed away

i'm sorry, i know that's a strange way to tell you
that i know we belong
that i know

that i am
i am, i am
the luckiest - ben folds five, from the luckiest

because we're all talking about american idol

i know i'll risk getting lynched by yalan (if she can even be bothered to read this because she's too busy voting for david arnold cook HURHUR) - and thousands of david cook fans across the world, not that they'd read my blog - for saying the following BUT. i'm youtubing david cook and david archuleta's finale performances and i have to say that the latter sounds better and just fresher, somehow. after jasmine trias murdered elton john's don't let the sun go down on me in season whatever it was, i didn't expect any other idol contestant to ever do it well but david archuleta did! and he's only, what, 17?

although imagine and the long and winding road kinda got on my nerves, because i'm one of those annoying purist people, and i like the beatles, so no one will ever match up to the fab four in my book. still, both were well-executed and pleasant enough. which i couldn't really say for david cook's performances. he just sounded... jaded. and like a lot of other stuff we've heard already, you know?

ooh and it appears that david archuleta plays the piano, and he played it when he performed angels.

okay and THAT was an amazing performance. i actually liked it almost as much as i like robbie williams singing it!

i guess you can really see people in their music, and maybe that's why david archuleta appeals to me. err yes, although i've only just youtubed his performances, haha. he's still young, and you can hear his dreams when he sings. rather more untainted, and hopeful, with touches of wistfulness and innocence, which is nice. you can hear that he's uncertain but excited about the future.

ah well, he just hasn't lived enough, and let's hope and pray that however much he'll have to grow up in the following months he won't forget what it was like to feel like he had the world at his feet, and more importantly, the feeling that he knew exactly what he was going to do about it. in a good way, of course.

euphemisms
kelly, joe and daryl are over from shanghai for the weekend, and although the following is in no way inspired by anything they said, after they came over to our apartment and checked out my room, i thought of a nice way to get out of telling somebody that they've got a messy house or room.

you can simply say, wow, your house/room has so much character!

although now, if you ever say that to me, i'll know what you're really trying to say.

this morning i found a single 蛋奶星星 (dan4 nai3 xing1 xing1) in my bowl of 雀巢千怡营养香脆全麦谷物 (que4 chao2 qian1 yi2 ying2 yang3 xiang1 cui4 quan2 mai4 gu3 wu4).

doesn't that sound like i'm eating super cool stuff for breakfast?

actually, it just means that i found a single honey star in my bowl of nestle fitness wholewheat cereal.

***
now that i've found a bus which takes a shorter route to church, i've managed to find a seat in the main hall for the past two sundays. which means that i'm there about 15 minutes before the service starts, and it's interesting because one of the pastors will teach the congregation the hymns to be sung during the service, and others, if there's time. he's got a rather nice voice, and he'll first sing the tune in solfage (they use numbers, not notes), then ask the entire congregation to repeat after him. and when he's satisfied that they've got it, they'll sing the hymn to its lyrics.

the main hall is huge and has an extremely high ceiling, but learning hymns together makes it seem kinda cosy.

cream of things soup

furthermore, you are reading the blog of the successful concoctor of cream of things soup. i'm calling it cream of things soup because it was onioncarrotpotatomushroom soup with thick shreds of chicken breast thrown in for good measure. said chicken breast was cooked to get chicken stock. ingredients listed in the order they were put into the pot.

there was quite a lot of it so i gave a bowl to paul AND SHANGREN just that paul finished it because he thought it was nice. it was thick and creamy and good, indoors in the cold after-rain last night.

in view of the finale of this season's america's next top model, which i haven't been following, gofugyourself seems to be down. do click on the words, i think the server in singapore should be okay.

constant vigilance

was mad-eye moody's supposed catch phrase, but that didn't stop him from eventually being killed in harry potter and the deathly hallows.

paul told us that after hearing about how the earthquake in sichuan might affect beijing, shangren packed a bag with all his important documents (and clothes and other things, i think) and placed it at a strategic location in their house, where he could pick it up in an instant and escape to safety if the need ever arose.

that, along with the email the law exchange team sent us to check that we were all right seemed funny at the time, but last night i was reading news and looking at pictures of the aftermath of the earthquake, and suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore; just really, really sad. and there was also the fact that there were students in our school whose families had been affected, we heard that someone's house had collapsed, and jinni said the students from sichuan running the charity donation drive in school for the red cross had red eyes, most likely from crying.

i'm sure there are people in beijing who've lost family members and friends and can't go home.

here, we're a little over a thousand five hundred miles from where the earthquake occurred but everything, after all, happened in the same country. it's kinda like you're staying in pasir ris and a block of hdb flats collapses in jurong, i.e. a totally unimaginable scenario to singaporeans.

the wheels on the bus

i had my first exam today (more on that to follow), so imagine my consternation when the bus bringing me to the my school's nearby research institute where i can catch a shuttle bus to school suddenly pulled over in the middle of nowhere, right in front of a bus stop and a line of other buses, just as rush hour was beginning. i was half-afraid that it had broken down because the bus driver had been shoving the gear stick about roughly during the journey thus far, and the bus seemed to be making creaking and groaning noises in protest.

the bus driver fiddled with some buttons before saying something (i hesitate to put 'swearing' because i'm not sure if he was, really) loudly in chinese, opening the front door of the bus, and getting out, shoving aside a lady who wanted to board the bus in the process.

he then ran in front of the bus which had just overtaken him and was going to pull away from the bus stop and signalled to the driver of that bus to get off. whereupon both of them came back to the bus i was on; the driver of my bus got into the seat and the other driver remained outside to help him adjust his left wing mirror.

what i understood of the wild gesticulations and rapid chinese was that the driver of the other bus, when overtaking, had knocked out of position the left wing mirror of the bus i was on.

imagine all that, in the midst of rush hour and hundreds upon hundreds of commuters rushing to work or school.

***
i really didn't know what to expect from my exam, because we've done little else in class besides translate passage upon passage upon passage - this is the class the vice-dean takes. when i went into the classroom this morning i noticed two girls setting up their laptops, and i also noticed that i was one of the few who had brought dictionaries. three of them, in fact.

the paper consisted of two comprehension passages in english, with multiple-choice questions, and an explain these words in the context of the passage section. then followed the longest ever english to chinese translation i've done in my entire life, which i thought i did creditably, and then i was asked to write a summary in less than 200 words of a case we discussed in class.

just like secondary school, hor.

and the vice-dean, when he was around - he actually told us all not to cheat and then left the class for an hour or so (whereupon nobody cheated) - kept hovering around my seat. in fact, mine was the first script he collected!

my friend keeps saying that he exhibits particularly 变态 (bian4 tai4), lecherous, (insert like synonym) behaviour towards me and that because of that, therefore, i'll definitely pass.

anyhow after it was over one of the girls from the class (huiyuan) brought me to eat barbecued chicken wings at a tiny shop near school. just like how we go do something nice after an assignment or paper, back home.

finally, something other than porridge. which i've really eaten everyday for lunch and dinner for around a week now.

***
no, we did not feel tremors in beijing. in fact we didn't even know there were supposed to be tremors in beijing because the chinese news said it would be 没事 (mei2 shi4 or mei2 shi-ER4), there would be nothing wrong, here. it was only when jolie rang at around 10 plus p.m. and i heard her frantically telling jinni over the phone about how her mother frantically rang her and told her what the news on FM 95.8 reported that we felt slightly worried. i mean, if the premier travels all the way to visit the affected areas, something is wrong, isn't it?

huiyuan told me also, that she only found out about the tremors we were supposed to feel in beijing through the internet.

it's true, what one of my prc friends told me - most prcs don't know what the world knows is going on in china.

happy mother's day! :)

happy mother's day mummy! this is a totally unglam picture of you, but too bad. i don't seem to have any others, and at least your armpit isn't showing. not that that would be that bad a thing, because you don't seem to suffer from the Luxuriant Armpit Hair Condition which so plauges me. i have no idea whose genes inflicted me with that Extremely Unfortunate condition.

oh, the wonders of mitosis and meiosis. your only gripe with the picture should be that you look more like lukas than me, so people who see this will not comment that i have inherited your looks, i.e. you are very pretty lah, hor.

***
given my recent spate of emo-nemo posts, i don't blame you if you haven't thought it worthwhile to see what's up and happening with me here in beijing.

and rightly so, because nothing much has happened except the light in our bathroom finally blowing, meaning that we showered and had to use the toilet in almost total darkness for two days, until our landlord showed up yesterday with a light bulb. now it's brighter than day in there, we feel very strange when we open the bathroom door after using it.

also, our landlord brought some men over yesterday to remove the air-con in jinni's room so he could install a new one, and they tied a piece of rope around one of the men so he could climb out of the window to remove the part of the air-con which connects to the fan outside, you know that tube-like part?

there's now quite a sizeable hole in the wall in her room.

the temperature has fallen again, below ten, and i thought we were entering summer?

chloe is sleepy and wants to go home.

not porridge

my chicken and rice bake turned out pretty nice, though i think i added just a teensy bit too much salt. but no matter. it also called for long grain wild rice, but i used random generic grown-in-china-first-type-i-saw rice and it turned out okay too. just in case you're interested, because it IS a one-pot meal after all, here's the link to the full recipe (click the words full recipe).

i greatly reduced the amount of all the ingredients; also, obviously, i was too giam to buy sour cream, parmesan cheese and olive oil at expat prices, and where in the world would i find chicken long grain wild rice mix in beijing? it'd have been hard enough (not to mention Extremely Expensive) back in singapore anyway.

i also used fresh broccoli.

so i just used as little butter as i thought wise to prevent the onions from burning and added that teensy bit too much salt to make up for the lack of whatever else they required.

there's also enough for lunch tomorrow. this is how i cook in beijing, two meals at once.

online student feedback exercise

i never know what to say about my professors. in year 1 i tried my hardest to give feedback on all of them, filling in almost all those empty boxes which appeared on my computer screen. and i actually gave thought to the different questions asked about teaching style and motivation to learn, etc.

this industriousness and concern for the welfare of the greater student body continued in year 2 sem 1, but by year 2 sem 2 i distinctly recall somebody telling me that nobody cares: i clicked satisfactory or average for all the questions, and left almost all the boxes blank. sometimes because i remembered, if you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it.

i also think the questions are boring, and too standard for real constructive feedback to be given.

this morning during mo shijian's class we were given an optical answer sheet with questions printed on it, beside those boxes you have to shade.

right at the top of the sheet of paper was a box where we were asked to critique the teacher, and among other options, there appeared the following:-

(this teacher is?)

气氛沉闷、平淡死板 (qi4 fen4 chen2 men4, ping2 dan4 si3 ban3)
boring, bland and stodgy

严重离题 (yan2 zhong4 li2 ti2)
severely off topic

思维混乱 (si1 wei2 hun4 luan4)
has muddled and confused trains of thought

时有迟到早退、上课接打手机等 (shi2 you3 chi2 dao4 zao3 tui4, shang4 ke4 jie1 da3 shou3 ji1 deng3)
often begins class late and ends class early, and answers the handphone during class time, among other things

don't you wish nus had such interesting options as well?

***
today i am going to make a chicken and rice stove-top bake which i found online, but i have a feeling it's going to, very sadly, turn out rather porridgey. the chicken is now sitting in the fridge marinating.

our landlord was nice enough to offer to install air-conditioning in my room, but i think i'd rather she installed an oven in the kitchen.

and so it goes
in every heart there is a room
a sanctuary safe and strong
to heal the wounds from lovers past
until a new one comes along

and this is why my eyes are closed
it's just as well for all i've seen
and so it goes, and so it goes
and you're the only one who knows

so i would choose to be with you
that's if the choice were mine to make
but you can make decisions too
and you can have this heart to break

(though i know you won't)

and so it goes, and so it goes
and you're the only one who knows

right, i've omitted a part of the lyrics and i think it appears that i've changed the meaning of the song, rather. but it's such a lovely song, i had to make some mention of it.

emo-nemo strikes again
although i realise that every time i think i'm going to have an entry that's veering towards being puke-worthy i make sure i post warnings beforehand. which kinda ruins the overall effect, you think?

you can also blame jon for this emo mood, because he was the one who told me to go listen to ben folds five's landed and still fighting it when i was verging emo-ness last night.

all right, i know that if you youtube landed it appears to be about a chimpanzee.

BUT STILL. you don't fight with music like that, especially because one of the reasons i think they're good, too, is because you can actually hear what they're singing about.

and of course, brick. one of their classics. that one i went to youtube myself, but how can you listen to ben folds songs and not go back to brick?

cannot win lah.

***
it's 0535 as i've begun typing this, and the sun is rising. despite the fact that i've been mentally (rather than physically) exhausted after our climb up changbaishan, i've been waking up early the past two days. the sunrises from my window are surprisingly unpretty, maybe because the sun rises slowly slowly, the mornings are foggy, and the surrounding buildings just too tall.

the fact that the sun's rising this early means that we're really entering summer here in beijing, but it's still pretty cold until about 0800, and it starts getting cooler around 1700 in the evening. i've buried my legs under my trusty quilt, which i hope won't cause me to exceed the weight limit when i bring it back to singapore.

last night jinni told me that i really should consider going to inner mongolia with them, and that they would try very hard to squeeze the trip in before i had to leave. i was touched, but i declined and told them to do everything according to their plans, because i was looking forward to bak chor mee more than to seeing stars right up close and grassland and riding on a horse and sliding down sand dunes.

i know that sounds Absolutely Ridiculous to some, but i think you'll understand.

(yes, because it'll really mean porridge until i go home, not to mention more hassle with visas)

some days, sometimes, bouts of loneliness seize me, even though i couldn't ask for nicer people to be on exchange with.

like now. and yesterday, when i was having lunch with jolie in the school canteen. for no reason whatsoever i felt my heart contract and i just felt sad that i was still 8 weeks from home.

we talked last night, the three of us in the house, about how we felt on top of changbaishan. i sheepishly confessed that although i'd said it would've been unwise to carry on, i was really thinking of how far away beijing and a proper hot shower was, and of the fact that i had a pair of dry track pants in my backpack which i could change into once we got off the mountain. that thought sustained me through the climb down and through the freezing cold wait for the others in the souvenir shop.

it's not that i didn't honestly think it was unsafe and there was a chance that we might have gotten hurt, or that i didn't want to see falling snow in the underground forest. pressing on to the tianchi would've been nice, i guess, and seeing the white against the green would have been lovely.

i don't quite know how to explain how i felt at those points in time.

i think it was more like i felt that i'd had enough, in the sense that whatever we'd seen and done was enough for me and i didn't see anything wrong with sitting out because i was Too Cold For Words and i didn't want to fall sick or break a leg. the former would've meant 2 to 3 weeks of Feeling Miserable in beijing during exam time, and the latter would've meant that i couldn't run the singapore marathon at the end of the year.

and of course, i sure as heck didn't want any of the others to get hurt either, and they sounded Pretty Darn Scared up there.

beyond that, things just don't feel the same without jon, and i think that's probably why i get a bit quiet so often, and why i'm more willing than the others to sit out on things.

it sounds like my life revolves around him, but believe me, it doesn't.

i was sure about coming to beijing on exchange, just as sure as i was that he was meant to go to bangalore. it hasn't always been easy, of course, but i think we've had a very enjoyable, peaceful long-distance relationship, which i think is more rare than it is common. when i look at the past seven months they seem like almost nothing short of a miracle, and it makes me ever more grateful for what i know can only be God working in our lives.

i realised last night that loving him has made me a stronger person: i think i'm now more determined to get things done and to see things through, simply because i don't want to die without seeing jon at least one more time.

that's a morbid thought, huh. but it's what pushes me to keep pressing on whenever i feel like staying in my room and crying or playing endless rounds of text twirl to stave off the jon-shaped empty feeling and the dizziness and exhaustion which comes from being out in the busy, bustling, overcrowded city which is beijing. it pushed me to get to the top of changbaishan despite weather conditions never before encountered and to survive awful train rides (we got ying zhuo seats for our journey back from changbaishan), among other things.

most of all, it's made me determined to live, not just for the reason i gave above, but also because i want to be someone worthy of his love. there's living, and there's living. you know what i mean?

still, the novelty of being in a new country is fast wearing off and is being replaced by a longing for bak chor mee, tiger beer, teh-o-kosong and hours and hours of sitting and walking around talking about nothing, and everything in the world.

i'll miss beijing when 1 july comes.

but nothing i can see in the world, no place i can go to, will be able to compare to seeing jon smile at me in Real Life. little else matters (God, family, friends - don't worry i haven't turned into an obsessive possessive maniac), and it's comforting to know, you think, that i've reached that realisation?

i hear bluebirds

well actually, no, i don't. i have no idea what species of bird it is that i hear singing.

but that was a very springtime thing to say.

now that the weather in beijing has finally decided to stay warm and properly spring-like, school isn't such a drag anymore - i don't dread having to use the toilet because it's Too Cold, and i don't have to keep taking my coat on and off. yes, in case you were wondering, i had to keep it on during classes.

in fact, i just collected my scarf and coat from the dry cleaners' today, and i can't wait to give it to my parents to take home to singapore when they come at the end of may (that rhymes).

on second thought, maybe it's so warm now because it's summer!

evenings see old people and small children throng the park downstairs, the latter sometimes with an ice cream in hand. they run about with happy smiles, and they also pee on the foot reflexology path.

bars of soap, beef hot plates, and barely-there water pressure

because all the photos from our trip to chang bai shan are with jinni or xiaoyun or paul, and the best hopes i have of obtaining any of them are from paul, via facebook, as he has to clear the pictures - he borrowed shangren's camera - and that might take a rather long time, the above picture is sort of how chang bai shan looked like when we were there.

it looks like a scene from tintin in tibet, firstly because it is a scene from said comic book, and secondly because it really did look like that, with less snow, minus the yeti.

***

this might very well be my last time touring china, and i'm glad i decided to go to changbaishan after all, because these outdoors-y activities are really my kind of thing, except that it rained and rained on our third day there and i was colder than i'd ever been in my entire life. i decided to forego a look-see around the underground forest (地下森林 di4 xia4 sen1 lin2) because my jeans were soaked through; i sat on a chair in the souvenir shop at the bottom of the west side of the mountain and tried very hard to think warm thoughts. but after a while i was shivering so much that the shopkeepers offered me one of those roly-poly coats.

even after i had that, a while later, i started shivering again. i think my dentist is going to have a lot to say about the state of my teeth because they couldn't stop chattering.

at that point in time i sat there and prayed like anything for some warmth.

and lo and behold, the shopkeepers then offered to bring me to the rooms they stayed in behind the shop, where it was lovely and warm because they had a 炕 (kang4). wikipedia describes it as a sleeping platform made from bricks or other forms of fired clay, and heat is channeled to its interior through a flue which leads to a charcoal stove. we also slept on one in the youth hostel where we stayed.

so i spent a much happier and extremely thankful half-an-hour perched on edge of the 炕, chatting with the 阿姨 who ran the shop along with various family members whose relation to her i couldn't quite catch because of her thick accent, watching a Very Drama tv serial at the same time. she kept urging me to move up so that my legs would be entirely on the 炕, but i felt it wouldn't have been very polite to do so.

i ended up buying quite a lot of postcards from the shop, and if you like i can show them to you when i come home. or you can ask me to send one to you.

other more memorable highlights of the trip include jinni dropping the very first bar of soap we purchased into the toilet while she was showering: according to her, it slid out of her grasp, onto the floor and into the toilet (a squatting one), whereupon she made to grab it but it just disappeared!

there was also one of the best beef hot plates i've had in my 21 years, and the showerhead which produced a mere trickle of water, either scaldingly hot or terrifyingly cold, so i had to bathe in a splash-myself-with-water kind of way; and the fact that the chicken dishes we ordered were all served last - we came to the conclusion that that was probably because they'd been running about in the garden when we ordered our food.

what's more, they all came served with their chopped-off heads.

paul even thought the head of one of the chicken heads, even though already boiled with mushrooms to make soup, experienced a bout of rigor mortis, and cackled at him and blinked its eyes.

i really ought not to insinuate that he's a little mentally unsound, especially because i suggested that we bite our thumbs to draw blood and have a mini-ceremony to become sworn siblings after i'd clung to his arm for dear life as we struggled to move forward against a ferocious wind at the top of changbaishan, trying to shriek louder than it at random intervals, usually things along the lines of HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO ACCOUNT TO JON/JASMINE IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO YOU PLEASE DON'T GET BLOWN OFF THE MOUNTAIN HOLD ON TO THE RAILING ASDGGFKALJFSFSGKL.

and on my part, PAUL THINK OF JASMINE AND HOW YOU MUST SEE HER BEFORE YOU DIE.

i believe i now understand a bit better about how soldiers going to war, when written about in storybooks, carried pictures of their sweethearts in their hearts to the front. not that i actually thought that we would die, but the fact that it's summer all year round in singapore might have had something to do with the fact that we found ourselves Rather Unable to cope with the bits of ice being flung at our faces, the rain and spray from the waterfall whose origin we were trying to trace, and the wind, which was of the Threaten To Blow You Off the @#$#%#^! Mountain kind.

we didn't make it to the origin of the waterfall, because we got to a place in the path which was completely snowed up and we realised that we were the only four souls up there. the others were a little disappointed, but me, i was just thinking of getting into a pair of dry pants. . . among other things, see above. i also thought that by itself, the climb up the mountain and the views along the way had been worth it.

when i go trekking in the future, i'm going in the summertime. trees, grass, unfrozen lakes, flowers and more predictable weather. apparently you can experience all four seasons on changbaishan - the rain turned to snow on our way down.

going up the north slope (which we did on the second day) led us to an aerial view of the 天池 (tian1 chi2), source of the waterfall and what changbaishan is famous for. it was too foggy to see anything clearly but the fog did lift enough for me to have a nice enough view.

what was more exciting was seeing the stone which marked the border between north korea and china, walking beyond it, and being shouted at by a guard. does that count as having been to north korea?

tight-ass thursday
i watched transformers with my godbrothers on tight-ass tuesday when i went to sydney last june to visit my godparents - as the name suggests, we got expensive seats for half the price, with awesome surround sound and all.

today, i'm talking about a different kind of tight-ass. as i told jinni, our trip to 吉林 (ji2 lin2) to climb 长白山 (chang2 bai2 shan1), which i decided to be a part of only last night due to extenuating circumstances, translates into a month of porridge and the occasional 外卖, whenever i feel like i deserve a treat.

and that's only because i'm very vain and i want to have enough money to buy spectacle frames to take home and use in the future.

not that i'm complaining, really. i do enjoy eating porridge, and it's healthy, quick, easy and nutritious with some meat and vegetables i can purchase cheaply from the fruit and vegetable co-operative downstairs. so very easy, and a one-pot meal at that!

i sound like one of those annoying american cooking shows with shiny happy blond people stirring food in even shinier pots.

after all, we do have only have one pot in the entire house.

sadly, it's not very shiny anymore.

***
we depart tonight, and thankfully we managed to get hard-sleeper tickets. today marks the beginning of the one major holiday on china's calender, the labour day holidays. it means two things: firstly, that everyone is "celebrating," and there are extremely loud techno re-mixes of perfectly nice chinese songs blaring beneath my window - what's more, i'm on the eleventh floor!; secondly, i'm two months from home and from running into the arms of sdfskjgldfhizx (what? who's that? i don't know either?!) at changi airport's terminal 3 arrival hall, just as if we were in some cheesy scene from some cheesy movie.

i'm already smiling to myself at the thought.