Ever so quickly

I switched the lappie on just for the grand occasion of officiating a Singapore-style rainstorm in my memory, and what do you know! By the time I am typing this, the lovely rainstorm has ceased. ceased ceased ceased. deceased. Typical English weather, typically fickle and changeable. Tonight, the wind was ever so strong, but the temperature was warm enough so I could just about enjoy the walk back from the library despite the gushing wind. No wind chill really. The wind just blew my hair about madly and wildly. I recall irrationally liking windy days while on the water in MacR. When I looked up the sky tonight, the clouds were practially running across, it could have been on fast-forward mode really. It was reassuring yet mysterious.

And yes, there was a rainstorm, even if for all of ten minutes. For a while, I remembered the sound aspect of rain. English rain is hardly present. It makes no sound, it doesnt howl and cry pitter patter like in Singapore. But today it did, and the trees properly shook and made noise too.

Just the other day, it snowed, hailed, drizzled and sun-ed all in one day. English weather!

Anyway, spring is coming, daffodils are appearing everywhere. Natures’s surprises. They give occasion for strangers to exchange smiles. At least two people have smiled to me in wordless two-second conversations created in passing about the purple, yellow and white lovely dears. How nice. I give the flowers credit for making me miss Kate at the train station today. They simply insisted on holding up my brisk walk to town. But my pictures dont do them justice really..

It is Fairtrade Fortnight, but I think the markets were disappointing. I spotted only two stalls retailing foodstuff. A lot of the other stalls were knick-knacks, clothing and display items. I suppose, to be fair, that isn’t a classic disappointment, but more for me. I guess, I just regard clothing and display items as much less necessary than food, -which is true-, and so fairtrade which is aligned to the trade justice movement, I stubbornly lump together with my beliefs in just consuming less. Which is cutting out things which are not necessary. Ahhh…not that I do that consistently,I aspire, I do. But anyway, besides that, a lot of the products I do regularly spot at Newgate Market as well, like the Black Yak line, or once in a while in York anyway. So, I guess it all felt an eensy weensy bit sham-ish to me.  But I did purchase some fairtrade strawberry jam made in Swaziland~ hmm. oh dear. food miles. HMMM!

Alligator was a much more fun excursion. I bought 1 kg of muesli, two different kinds, cost me a total of three pounds twenty pence. which. is. about 60% more expensive than my usual Dorset brand favourite..but it is the right price! Also got my weeks stock of biscuits (one pack, oh, I CAN DO IT! one pack a week. no more. no more. I seriously want to abort the biscuit baby which is beginning to be obvious. oh, and to be able to feel ab muscles among others would be so nice, like the Capoeira dancers I saw in town today. I want to try Capoeira!!!), organic chickpeas I can use for my green curry..oh, what else did I get? Organic yoghurt. I like this weeks shopping! AND, i saw jim at the store. He is awesome, he practices what he preaches. What an awesome tutor.

Easter, is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I must’ve known that a long time ago, but lousy lousy lousy memory and just in general lousy general knowledge deleted it from my memory. Apparently creme eggs dont have a lot of religious symbolism at all, its just man’s attraction to sweet treats, quote marianne. The downside to going for christian stuff is that I have to constantly discipline myself to pay attention, and to never unknowingly disrespect the speaker or something. But I do tend to drift away. Like I spotted cute shoes and asian faces while I was listening to the young cute Mancunion pastor (?).

yumyum couscous zzzz

Ive officially been up for 12 hours and more. Ok, not a lot, BUT, Ive spent at least more than half of those hours doing proper report work! Well done. I probably took like the longest of everyone to finish up that report, but I quite liked doing that, taking my time, doing it until I really get it. I feel virtuous. lol.

Anyway, yesterday was a pretty strange day. I let some career services woman step all over me totally. We were supposed to do some inane task (do a project time plan for boiling tea) and I just didnt want to. Because yes, Ive done it before and I dont particularly want to over analyse tea making on a thursday afternoon. Overanalysing is self explanatory.(this is so ironical) So anyway I told her I wasnt going to do it after she’d asked if I could do it with classmate A behind. And she said, (SMILING!), thats not a question! LOL! but talking to a classmate is admittedly better than defacing my organiser. SO. i guess. i had a strong urge to shout you didnt ask a question and neither did I! So we should respect each other!

I am a planner, I need information, I need preparation.

Anyway, youth hostels in Germany sound so exciting! yay yay yay yay.

I havent thought of how to finance the trip yet. Starve from April to July? Would be pretty useful anyway, decrease sugar intake, get healthy, balance debt at the same time. If i ate healthily, I would probably just use like 15 pounds maximum on food a week. How much can vegetable and fruits cost! But no. I eat strange things.

Oh, but one nice yummy thing everyone should eat is couscous. Post-couscous is when I dont mind having food on my breath.

Couscous

Sugar high

Today was such a breakfast and tea day. My two main meals were kinda cereal. and i had SO MUCH CAKE. of course, a norwegian girl’s birthday gathering has got to be a coffee party. except they dont serve coffee, they have cakes, muffins, cup cakes, breadrolls with cinnamon, marble cake, chocolate sponge, applefruit cake.

and they serve nice conversation as well. (although I really reserved some opinions) Great night! Happy Birthday Marianne! Marianne’s house always leaves me with good feelings…

Nights like these, I enjoy being in the UK, talking, listening to what other people say, laughing at their jokes, having nice food, people break out in random song… Really nice.

I HAVE WORK TO DO!! LOTS AND LOTS OF WORK! INVOLVING COMPLICATED STATS, SPSS, SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE, P-VALUE (my past has caught up with me, i still remember the utter anguish I felt at not understanding this almost two years ago, to the extent of literally tears). OK.

time to go to bed for a full morning! and and and. making of easter plans. yes.

Thought shower

Thought shower, thats my favourite phrase of the day. If I need mana; that blue potion for me to cast spells and make magic, I probably get my fill from the steamiest room in all time.

The shower. what steamier room could there possibly be?? I just scowled at the door because someone fell upon it outside, why is my instinctive reaction once of annoyance! Tsk tsk.

This week and the next is exciting exciting exciting! What a way to carry us through the term, genius I say. This week is LGBT week, next is Green Week as well as International Week. international food fest!

Yesterday, I was at a panel debate regarding -Are LGBT rights human rights?- it touched on issues such as the functionality, significance of the UN passing a resolution on it, the possibility of it veering into cultural imperialism by the West, Fundamentalist Islamic nations and LGBT rights.

Some thought that yes it was cultural imperialism, but so what since it was positive, and therefore, it should not be a factor to be weighed heavily.  It strikes me that that attitude is exactly how cultural imperialism was born. No one ever disliked and disagreed (at least not right from the start – Im thinking of fast food here, apologies for the really bad example) what they were doing and thought hey, I shall expand energy in spreading this to other peoples and nations. So, the question is the positives and negatives of cultural imperialism, or shall we say sharing of cultures to remain objective and blurring the lines between how you do it for the moment. But then, ah-ha! That is exactly the crux of the question. HOW. Cultural imperialism and sharing of cultures are differentiated by a fine line. But when you are dealing with issues like life and death, every day, minute, second counts. Should the means be disregarded for the ends? It goes without saying that such issues need sensitivity and much much much wisdom indeed. Sometimes, I think it all boils down to a simple random choice, the amount of time spent trying to make decisions sometimes defeat decisions anyway. When you have it all sorted out, perhaps its time for entrance into history books. Do you price the inalienable human rights greater than the cost of cultural imperialism, which has in history resulted deaths aplenty? Is that not also an indirect offence again inalienable human rights? But then, should we tip-toe the issue and wonder if our methods will get the better of us and therefore take a step back and watch the world go by?

I guess it is case-sensitive, and if its worth anything, I think we should all live and let live, so, lgbt rights ARE human rights. The question of whether it is cultural imperialism or not, is not a decided and definite game plan.  Sensitivity and intelligence can right the world. But can we find it?

Somedays, I begin to think, perhaps, the door at the end of the road for anarchism and all the ways in which we try to pursue order in society is really just the same one. The former path is just one without the effort of trying. The difference between a cynical world and a hopeful one. But hope is important. So.

And now I have on my tab, one economics write-up which shouldnt be too bad, one soil pH statistics report, easter holiday research, applefields research. Goodness gracious me, FREE DAY, COME BACK!

Give a girl (like me) a free day and some oaty biscuits, a really illogical equation is formed. The end of the equals sign is no need for dinner, bloated tummy, sleepy self. And afternoon siesta. Inconceivable. For reasons as such, I hope Im unique, than the world can be saved.

Oh, but I cycled to the supermarket today, what an adventure! A little scary when I first got on the road, and I havent dared do a right turn yet since Id be on the wrong side of the road. But cycling in the Unis nice, its like, cycling in a park. The trip’s so so so much shorter with the bike..

Im finding heavy footsteps outside the door every few seconds very irritating.

And I bounce back again because that is what I do

It is 1.46 am, very early on a wednesday morning. I just baked a cake for a friend’s birthday, we didnt manage to surprise her, but well! We did get round to baking the cake! And it was ok for a first cake, so pat on the back called for~  There was a moment just before moving my lazy ass off the bed that I thought, perhaps, I will do it tomorrow. But no, we did it today and Im glad we did. There wasnt any cake cutting or birthday wish making, but ahh, out with the birthday conventions I guess! Just some ceremonial cake cutting by ‘knife man’ (???) and enjoying some cake and conversation. I must admit though, I still struggle to get a bit of the accents, so I tend to zone out. And, I tend not to be able to gauge some people’s conversational pauses well. Interesting….

I like the feel of tapping on the keyboard. Alice today found it amazing that I could type without looking at the keyboard,  ‘you’re not actually looking at the keyboard….! like a secretary!’ she said.Yay, random thing I can say i do kinda well-ish. Along with all other Singaporean teenagers I know. And probably a lot of teenagers and university kids. Alice is funny. ha.

Anyway, I have come to remember to appreciate once again, the power of self-belief and self-actualisation.  Yes, for now this is something I can believe in. I was thinking about how I did Math at O levels and A levels. I did well at O levels, even if I slept through so many classes because my tutor told me that there was not a doubt that I could get As. And I did. And for A lvls, I only kinda half-believed, weakly forced myself to mutter that I could get an A. and of course I didnt. So, if I know for sure that I can do it, then I guess, I will have no choice but to achieve.

Today I had an unbelievable amount of sweet stuff, unbelievable. So unbelievable that Im not even gonna care it sounds scary, its just crazy: 1 vanilla slice, 1 m&m cookie, 2 red-bean paste glutinous riceballs, 1 danish, 1 thorntons ice cream, 1 slice of homemade chocolate birthday cake.

And thats not including the other food I ate. I am seriously killing my body. Oh well, this is once and only! crazy. Im going to start running with jina soon! wheee.

Orchids are amazing. They are kinda like battery-operated toys, for want of a better analogy. If you dont insert the batteries (water them), they dont move, they just stay. My flower has remain unchanged for at least three weeks. But once you do, there are movements, it springs back to life. I have a new flower blooming. Bless those orchids. They are very patient with owner tantrums.

many thanks to the lovely people who cheer me on, love y’all!

Blues

“Never thought I could be so sad, it seems only yesterday…”

Sounds like a soppy love song? It is. Not totally applicable to my thoughts right now, but just this line. Just this line. It seems only a while ago that I was very boppity, but of late it seems a little bit difficult to get my kite flying. It is exactly that feeling.

You fling the kite into the sky, start jogging. But without even turning back to look, you know its not working. and you try again. You fling, you let it fly for a bit,you tug the line in, you yank this way, that way. It seems to be working, but then, it swoops down again. The wind’s there, but it seems to resolutely not work with your kite.

Strange times.

On the upside, some parts of the econs for environment module has started picking up, yep. Thats not bad..

The window is cold

This blog is not abandoned.

I need some singapore-style efficiency anyway! My time seems to perenially melt into nothing…STRANGE. Its February already! I can’t get that into my head! It seemed to be December, then, its February. January was all the transition and boring stuff…there was starting term, getting my gears going again, looking for a house but yes, Febulous is here. FAB.

We fed some duck/geese/water fowl of all sorts this morning with MingSee’s cake remnants (Happy Birthday Mingsee! Tho’ I dont think she will be reading this~ oh well, its mingsees birthday everybody!). Size matters. The orange-beak nursery-tale ducks beat the green headed ones. The swans then trumped my favourinte orange-beak nursery-tale ones. And aggression aggression! They didnt think anything of chewing some fellow fowl’s neck if the cake crumble lande there, no hesitation at all! Single-mindedness there! And we all know how important -even if ruthless- single-mindedness is. Yes, single-mindedness..

jump in!

i havent heard the birds in a while

The birds are singing outside again. Well, they do that everyday, but today, Im hearing them again because I happen to be up at 3am.  Ive just put together a group coursework assignment. I am not proud of it.

But then, I feel quite defeated of late, so who am I to say anything?

What is it that I am searching for? What is that I really want to feel and see and hear? For now, the next term seems to stretch endlessly on, tiresome and long.

Id like to assure myself it is not, and to soldier on! I am in a land, a place full of opportunities and chances. Not a small room. Reading brings me out of this room. Reading reading reading.

What am I best placed to do?  I shall look for that.

After a long long long while!

As everybody already who is anybody (to me) already heard, Poland was AWESOME…its one big can of energy drink! Met so many incredible people, had fun with an easy going crew, learnt so much, experienced so much. Thought so many thoughts that its almost not possible for just 12 days…My self belief was really challenged (in a good way) and I found so many answers, even to questions I hadnt fully articulated to myself..

I want to contribute!

Tho’ sometimes I will still choose lazing in bed and a novel over something like ‘ecological debt’ (tho its pretty damn interesting), deep down, Im really glad I found out that I want to contribute so much.  I think I clarified my purpose in life.  Its not an incredible world-changing purpose and role, but its something that makes my life worthy I hope, in my own small way..

When I was sitting at Liverpool rail station waiting for my train. I was so moved just thinking about people on the other side of the world that I think I could’ve cried if I had allowed myself to.  We dream of delicious food whil in sleep but some are kept awake at night!

Im on a mission to buy only fairtrade, go vegetarian (really struggling with that…seafood is difficult to give up..and im still consuming that), read more and not over eat.  If there was anytime to give me encouragement, now is the time!! heh.

Im becoming so pedantic that I can no longer type “How come?” without a few seconds of deliberation. It eventually became “How is that so?” But no, no accent. Hopefully just clearer enunciation. yes!

My room and materials are getting more organised bit by bit! yes Im pleased with myself

And I exercised today. Nothing big, but its all about sustainability! heh.

The hall is so quiet now, and Im slightly afraid! but i guess i will get used to it in a few days…then…Glasgow! whooppy.

My akbars is still in the refrigerator. Please dont go bad! and i have so many eggs. omg.

‘The Virgin Suicides’ has been a good read so far

shifted (for the next 10 days)

hello friends!

please visit me at http://unfcccecosingapore.wordpress.com !

Poland is awesome:) and so are you!