i like libraries. shelves and shelves of books and musty air, pages turned by so many hands over so much time. went back to the central library at kent ridge today, and because the biz canteen was closed by the time i finished photocopying excerpts from this wonderfully annoying uppity book on how the government is "dismantling" civil society (in terms of fundamental liberties and democracy etc.) jemery and i decided to go to clementi to have dinner.

which wasn't a very good idea, actually. because it just wasn't.

i didn't really want to go there but it was on the way home and i was tired so i agreed (it's the bffils's fault (best friend forever in law school), we went jogging late last night).

i ended up waiting in line to buy kueh tutu from that uncle opposite the ntuc; as before, five peanut ones. i've never liked them with coconut, remember? but this time i actually made myself wait until they were slightly cooler before i ate them. i never used to be able to wait those everlasting five minutes or so. and they were soft and pure white, steamy warm, crunchy when you got to the peanut part. the taste of sadness on your tongue which you've been trying too hard to avoid for too long.

alright i'm going to blog about yesterday even though i really think i shouldn't talk about it in such a public space. but i'm going to anyway.

WAH SO SUSPENSE RIGHT.

the door leading to the third floor of the library does not close unless you pull it after you as you walk in from the staircase. you also have to push it as you exit from it. it's really annoying when people don't do this because you can hear various conversations from the stairwell, people walking up and down, having phone conversations and all; like all stairwells it's really echoey which makes it doubly annoying.

i couldn't take it anymore so i wrote this sign on winston's acjs paper which said

PLEASE PULL THE DOOR BEHIND YOU AS YOU ENTER; OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT CLOSE. THANK YOU :)

yes, i actually added the smiley face.

wei chin happened to have scotch tape with him so that was good, i stuck it on the side of the door leading from the staircase. i should have made a sign for people exiting too though. kong says i should have just put "SHUT THE FRIGGING DOOR!"

it did work, by the way. not all the time but a significantly higher number of people shut the door.

i don't know if the library admin staff have time to come online and google but i'm worried because the notice wasn't stamped? i don't want to be caught for vandalism - eh but please i was simply being civic minded? it's probably been removed by now but i hope they do something proper about it. this cannot go on!!

there was perfect running weather today, despite the slight drizzle - or because of it, perhaps. one of my friends came for his first cg of the academic year (i didn't even realise he was in my cg before), and i asked him what he was doing after and he was like "err i don't really know" so on a whim i just said "okay let's go running!". we almost didn't go because it started drizzling a little heavily but it cleared up so we just went - and it was fantastic cause we just decided to let the road take us wherever and we ended up running super far but it was really super shiok. we ran up to buona vista from kap, past acjc (yay) through portsmouth road (really pretty) and ended up at queensway, coming back to bukit timah through the estate behind the botanic gardens. "shiok" is really the only word to describe it properly. singapore is really much nicer slower and on foot, provided you've got the right company and a good pair of running shoes. and we stopped by the mcdonald's near commonwealth, the open air one, just to see if this cloth slide (do YOU remember it?) which he remembered was still there.

today was a nice day, simply because it just was. it's evening, there's nice weather, and two people in particular made my day.

the first was ruishan. i was feeling a bit bleah - it seemed like everyone i knew was representing silly qian duo duo so they had to come at 0930 which meant that i had to endure the bransome client interview at 1030 alone. well, not alone, because i had my firm with me. they're great people but it's strange being in school without the people you're close to.

but lo and behold, rui, mag and yalan's firm was also representing bransome! and lovely ruishan, being the lovely person she is (and also bored to tears) started smsing me in chinese. i've mentioned before that lcs is like our practice chinese class. and just so you know, it was reported in mind your body today that being billingual slows down the onset of dementia. it pays to be huayu cool, ok! hurhur and the first sms she sends me reads "wei she me ni mei you gen ni the zu yuan zuo?" except that she's put zuo dong xi that zuo instead of zuo for sit.

yesterday we also found out that when paul's bluetooth is on his laptop name is SUGAR. neither i nor rui know why and paul refuses to spill.

sugar????

the second person to make my day was THE TV ANTENNA REPAIR MAN!!!!!!

my mother actually said before that she only wanted to get our antenna fixed after the next door neighbours finished their construction, but i think not being able to watch amercian idol properly made her change her mind. not only is our channel 5 finally unfuzzy, for the first time in about FIVE YEARS our channel 8 is clear again! i kid you not, on that point - the last time i watched a show on channel 8 on an unfuzzy screen was in secondary three. that was chang jia, long vacation, the japanese show dubbed over in chinese. does anybody even remember it?

i told my mum about the lightning rabbit thing and she said my professor probably got the idea from john updike's rabbit, run. she said i should read it so i went back to the central library yesterday to borrow it. i hope it aids my public law assignment in some way - it's a satire on american society. i only borrowed it because i thought it might help - but maybe it's just an excuse, and in reading it i'm trying to convince myself that i'm doing work related things because really, it's a novel. but i suppose it would help in my perspective on why america and individualism isn't all it's made out to be. i'm currently half-way through the night watch and it was going fabulously but i haven't touched it since school started, i've been that busy.

sunday night with quen and jon was good. it felt safe, and just like old times, sitting on jon's carpet picking lint off his cushion covers as the three of us watched the devil wears prada. we ALL enjoyed it very much. incidentally, he has a chair upholstered in the same fabric as his cushion covers.

wednesday's still cca day in mgs, so i saw a lot of mg girls today. and i suddenly missed wearing my uniform. not school, you understand, i just missed wearing my mg uniform. because jon's such a retard maybe i'll be able to convince him to wear his acsi uniform out with me one day someday soon.

public law, in particular, is full of questions that don't have black and white answers. the answers are really just - grey. there's no other way to describe them. and of course, the tutors love asking us these questions. i've noticed that whenever someone answers they invariably begin with "well, thats only true/false/whatever to a certain extent." and the tutors (well mine does, anyhow) will invariably say "that's SUCH a lawyer answer."

i used to think love was a choice. to a greater than lesser extent. of course, that might still be true - there's no real answer to what love is, is there? but if love really is a choice, and i know what i've chosen to do, then why do i wake up some days and find that i still love you?

***
perhaps it's the grey evening - i love grey, if you haven't already realised. slate grey, blue-grey - or it's the fact that i went out with my jc classmates on friday to say farewell to jon (another one), and later i'm going to jon's (the one below) house to talk cock with him and quen. i hope we actually make it there.

bryan, bless his heart, firmly believes that mr right is going to whisk me down the aisle before he whisks miss right down the aisle; he said on friday on the way to suntec (we were rather unfortunately stuck in a traffic jam) that he's therefore going to be laughing his head off at my wedding. and he's also going to tell whoever i'm going to marry, at my wedding, "all the best, good luck! i hope you know what you're getting yourself into!" because for the first time in the history of our friendship i won't be able to pinch him after he's insulted me. must look demure in your wedding gown right. and very unglam and unladylike to pinch people.

we'll see, bryan. about both things haha.

seeing jon was nice because he hasn't changed one bit from jc. we had a record number of people this time, more than half of us came - and the next class outing xian jie wants to watch lions cup - or whatever it's called, i really don't know! the suntec marche has closed down by the way. don't believe retarded ex-classmates who tell you to meet there.