ambition and ego
ambition and ego
Feb. 09, 2006, 10:12 pm
is ambition necessarily tied to ego? and do people in high office plot their way there? back in singapore and even here, when it comes to singsoc, that committee chairpersons, sports captains, council heads etc are very simply, straightforwardly elected. maybe two weeks before election the word will go out, and then people will mull over whether or not they want to put themselves up, then they'll volunteer/be nominated, possibly give a short speech, et voila. chair. or head. or maybe as captain, the most obvious player will be chosen by the coach. the level-headed one, the rallying one, the dependable one, the respected one.
how different everything is this year. ambitions. egos. planning, heck, let's even call it plotting. charting your ascent. steering towards leadership. and it's only second term.
i wasnt intending to run for anything or become too involved or commit myself to too much. after all, i'm here to study. that's it. the degree's most important. but if she's plotting, well the rest of us can't just stand around, can we? it's either that, or i quit. wash my hands of it. i will submit to leadership, i will submit to confidence, i will submit to humility, i will submit to authority. but i refuse to submit to your inflated ego, and stand my ground i will.
i dont want to fall ill. boo.
Feb. 07, 2006, 6:25 pm
crap am falling ill. why this week, of all weeks? going to leeds over the weekend to play in the student cup... and since we're there, we might as well party... am absolutely devastated that i might have to miss out on playing for york *shifty eyes* who cares about the partying? *twiddles thumbs*
would like to blog more, but i've just remembered that i meant to set up my flooble chatterbox again... and i know if i procrastinate just one more time, i'll never get it done. so off i go. NOW.
i am -NOT- cherry garcia *frown*
Feb. 02, 2006, 10:53 am
*grin* got inspired by weezi's blog. well maybe not so much inspired. more like intrigued? anyway i -hate- cherry garcia so just because of that, i declare the test inaccurate! i think i'm not as sweet. and i'm chunkier. definitely chunkier *looks at thighs* **faints** haha of volleyball and miss-chua thighs... rg vballers, do i hear you murmuring in commiseration?
ok enough of this procrastinating--big essay due tuesday!
| CHERRY GARCIA! You scored 62% SWEET, 59% CHUNKY, and 59% UNIQUE! |
| cherry sweet cream base with cherries and fudge chunks Awesome...you are one of my personal favs: Cherry Garcia. You fall in the middle on all measurements- sweet, wild, and unique, but not overwhelmingly so on any of those. You make a good friend, able to share your unique perspectives on things, and able to have fun without winding up in jail or something. Good job. |
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My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor Test written by weered1 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
xin nian kuai le wan shi ru yi
Jan. 29, 2006, 1:03 pm
xin nian kuai le everybody!! *grin* had singsoc reunion dinner last night... complete with yusheng and all. super impressed with jason's yusheng, which tasted amazingly close to the real thing. yummy :) lots of great food too, including curry and ma po tofu and tomyum! whee. i made sweet and sour fried chicken. was quite proud of meself :) and steph (my american flatmate) really liked it! couldnt stop picking at it *grin*
had breakfast this morning with the james ppl too. crispy, oily prata! yummm. and god i miss mee sua... am going to buy it when i next go to leeds. strangely enough, i never liked mee sua in singapore -shrugs-
and my brother's on msn with me now... after having finished an apparently exhausting day of bai nian-ing. and my total angpow haul in the year of the dog: £6. can i hear a big yay pls. *sigh* such cheer in the new year. i feel very remembered and cherished and loved. SUCH WARMTH. think my grandparents didnt remember me either. whee.
okay off to finish up the remnants of my gruelling metabolism tutorial before bai-nian-ing at lu's place. and then it's on to clarence's gorgeous apartment. whee. will blog again later.
the return of me!
Jan. 28, 2006, 1:39 pm
guess who's back!
*grin* finally decided to start blogging again. whee. a longer post will follow soon, i promise :)
in the meantime, xin nian kuai le and gong xi fa cai and all that! yes it's just another weekend for me in york but the rest of you back home in singapore... happy gambling, drinking and pigging out :) and that's what chinese new year is all about! who needs the relatives? *grin*
proud of myself
Sept. 28, 2005, 12:24 am
already i have successfully pushed you out of my heart and locked the door. i know you don't mean to still knock, but you do, and it reverberates and bounces off the walls, the empty space inside making the sound seem louder and the knocking echoes more intensely. but i can honestly say that yes, you are out. i have worked hard and in so short a time, i have managed somehow to cram, crowd and squeeze you out and i shut the door almost too fast and now i lean heavily against it, worried that the moment i falter and grow weak, the slightest tap from your unwitting fingers can make the door fling wide open again and i will be once more at your mercy.
already my heart is yours; please. spare my soul. this weekend it will be one year since i read those words randomly, unexpectedly, serendipitiously.
you see, the only reason why i am so worried is that i have shut you out, yes, but you still hold the key.
pyromaniacs come out to play
Sept. 18, 2005, 8:47 pm
ah so it's the night before the mid-autumn festival and all the little pyromaniacs are out razing the grass and and melting the foam on the playground mat. and what's happened to those pretty yellow/green/pink paper lanterns with the chinese brush paintings? now every other lantern i see is modelled after some cartoon character or otherwise looks really tacky.
i'd like to go moon-gazing tonight. just drive out to an open field, throw a blanket on the ground, lie back and look up. what wouldnt i give to be back up odaesan in korea underneath the full canopy of stars framing the moon in all its glory.
i'll just wait for the little runts to get home and sleep.
less relaxed than i'd thought
Sept. 11, 2005, 1:57 pm
so. went for the 6km sheares bridge run today. what can i say? i'm BLOODY UNFIT; unacceptably so. my senior says the york running route is 7 km... and since i don't want to be doing rounds around the track, i guess i'd better get used to that distance. hoho. okay lah but i sort of managed to finish the run... stopped just before the final turn into the finishing point cos my blister was killing me, but had a very nice runner's high for a good part of the 6km. so it's all good i guess :)
went for brunch with pepper and jason and found out that she has 2 lectures a month (one a fortnight) and about 6 to 7 hours of classes a week... and she's doing lit AND philosophy. jason said he reckoned i'd have the toughest workload there, so i came home and checked it out.
Most teaching is through tutorials, seminars, practical classes or lectures. During the first year you will have about seven lectures and 11 hours of practical classes per week, falling to about five lectures and eight hours of practicals by the end of the second year. This does not include your private study.
in terms of hours spent, that's triple that of the arts ppl. and what about my language plans... that's gonna take up extra time too, especially french, what with its darnded grammar. hindi's gonna be purely conversational. screw the grammar, if there's such a thing as that.
was browsing around the james college forum too and apparently the bio workload is the heaviest, next to medicine and engineering. i mean, i'm not particularly dreading it or anything because truth be told, i miss studying. there's only so much slacking you can do before you get sick of it. even if your days are occupied, you can feel your mind wasting away and your brain congealing, and if anything at all, studying's just there as assurance that you're still mentally alert and viable. army ppl agree?
but still. it sounds daunting. and i do want time too, to try out all kinds of other things. wouldn't hurt to be able to work too, for the extra income.
mengxin's gonna be the first shot fired. one week left, darling. spend it well.
this post is for andee
Sept. 10, 2005, 12:00 am
i dont know why but this past week studies and the future have kinda featured consistently in my thoughts, and it occurred to me sometime this week that we both actually knew/know what we want. through all those open houses, education fairs, talking, pondering, deciding, etc... i don't know about you, but for me at least, there's actually always been this fairly clear image of what i want to see myself doing; where i see myself and how i see myself.
you see i dont think it's so much an issue of not knowing what you or i want. it's just that after having to tweak our wants/hopes/goals to suit reality and circumstances, it leaves us thinking that we're actually unsure of what we want, since it seems as if everything we thought we wanted has grown fuzzy and everything we seem to be headed towards seems as fuzzy cos we were never really focused on it anyway.
gee i wonder if you got any of that. what's my point in all of this? truth be told, i dont know either. there hasn't been a point to all the thinking i've been doing (it's entirely out of my hands, i'll have you know. all these random thoughts pop unbidden into my head) and no conclusion either; no sudden great revelation or enlightenment. it's just that it kinda made me see how we are, to some extent, a victim of our circumstances (i did not mean it to sound this dramatic or negative, so i really use the word victim in the most neutral sense possible) and it has become all too easy to let the lines between desire/hope and compromise blur until we can no longer look at the things we think we want/the decisions we're going to make and remember why we've wanted these things/made these decisions.
and if you're wondering why i'm making a post like this, i dont know either. like i said, i haven't consciously summoned any thoughts or feelings but they've pretty much made themselves comfortable in my head, quite like uninvited guests, and have been swimming around for some time now. i've tried to get it all down coherently but it's one of those things where pretty much only i know what i'm getting at. in any case, do take care, and don't tear your hair out over uni apps! once you've cleared the essays you'll be mighty proud of it :)
stupid books
Sept. 05, 2005, 9:22 pm
borrowed two books over the weekend and both of them were such let-downs. gah. one was by a local author (david leo) and another by a fairly prolific writer who's supposed to be in the league of carol shields (i don't like her but she's won a booker/pulitzer/newberry/somethinglikethat so i suppose if you're in her league i suppose you've got some kind of standard there). david leo's was okay, very authentically singaporean, pleasant and familiar, but it held so much potential that just wasnt realised. no proper plot and unsatisfying character development. the one which really sucked, though, was the alice hoffman one. stupid pretentious book. it leads you on the whole way through, making you willing to forgive the meandering plot and frilly over-descriptions of everything because you honestly think it's setting itself up for an ending that will redeem the book. and then the ending comes, quickly tied up in two short chapters (i HATE it when stuff like that happens) with no explanation, no closure for anyone, neither justice served nor redemption gained.
as it turned out, i left it behind at toni and guy after my dye job. it was entirely unintentional, i swear. thing is, i dont even feel like going back to get it. am hoping someone will return it to the NLB on my behalf. otherwise they can just track me down in england.
oh the dye job was unpleasant but the colour turned out nicely in the end, so no complaints there. it's very similar to what i had, except it's darker now and more subtle, which was exactly what i wanted anyway. nothing as nice as omalley's though -sulk- but then again that girl can pull anything off.
will be having a horribly busy week, giving plenty of tuition to various people. sec4s are starting to get desperate (haha) and i've been roped in for some super last-minute crash-course physics and chem lessons for evelyn's cousin. anyway it's no fun going anywhere this week cos it's the school hols and everywhere's crowded, so i figure i'll just have myself a boring week and then kick back and relax next week.
and on a completely unrelated note: the changing rooms at tang's lingerie department are plush and gorgeous *ahem*
if you think it's meant for you
Sept. 05, 2005, 1:31 am
i'm scared that you will regret and change your mind.
i'm scared that you have regretted and changed your mind, but can't find the words to tell me so.
and i dont know why i'm scared. i'd like to take the 'so what' attitude. it's easier to pretend i couldn't care less, when actually i do, i really do, it's just that i'm too proud to admit it.
anyway just so you know, if you've changed your mind, just tell me. i wouldn't have it any other way. i promise i wont ask why, and i wont speculate either. i just want to hear it from you, that's all. i've enough faith in you to do that; dont make me think i'm a bad judge of character.
mummy's best-laid plans
Sept. 02, 2005, 2:26 pm
my mother's currently being very hilarious, but i don't think she intended it. as in, she's unintentionally very funny. she's been drawing up plans to DHL me beehoon and fish gravy, along with a slow cooker. she's also very proud of her devious, clever plan to prettily gift-wrap bak kwa and send it to me so that no one's going to inspect it.
you must realise that i have not asked for any of these. i don't know why she's placing such importance on food. i told her that as it is, i'll already have problems packing all my essentials without exceeding the baggage limit/busting the seams of the luggage and she gave me this very incredulous look and went "but what do you have to bring? nothing what!" she's got some very firm beliefs on what people in the uk do.
first of all, because the weather is cold and dry, they only change their clothing once every three days.
second, because the weather is cold and dry, they never ever take of their jackets and it is therefore unimportant and unnecessary to bring nice clothing as long as you have a nice coat.
third, because they wear so little, they have no need for laundrenettes or washing machines. everything is scrubbed in the sink and left to dry over the radiator.
ergo, clothing's really not worth packing and the only thing i really should be thinking about stuffing into my luggage is food. xi mifen and chu mifen (the fine one is for beehoon soup and the thicker one for laksa), sambal, maggi noodles (they have no such thing as instant noodles there!), soy sauce, knorr's chicken cubes. oh who cares about clothing! or shoes! nevermind the books!
we're very amused, my brother and i. i'll leave her to her plans. my clothes are coming with me, as are my sneakers, birkies and heels; campbell should prove useful as well, and a small supply of my favourite type of ballpoint pen here.
i might have to start packing all of that in secret so that i leave no room for the food.
nuanced at 10:12 pm
