things to study..finals start 19 nov..

okay,i'm gearing towards a more unconventional,dynamic blog.forget the fact that i can't get my photos here which frustrates me..immensely.because i love photos.well,shall work on that.anyways,these other snippets apart from the usual musings i hope will serve to add dimension to my blog and capture more of me in it..

Topics to study(2004/2005-sem 1)

EL1101E (19 nov,9am/60%)
1) Language
2) Linguistics:the language of language
3) Language and languages
4) Words and word parts
5) Wordbuilding
6) Human speech sounds
7) The grammar of sounds
8) The grammar of sentences:slots and phrases
9) The grammar of sentences:slots and functions
10) The grammar of meanings
11) Meanings in action
12) Language and speakers

looks like fun huh?well...should be.but it ain't really "english" its verrry technical and complicating.sigh.the science of linguistics..etc etc


IF1101E(20 nov,1pm/55%)
1) Intro
2) What is the information society
3) A brand new world today
4) Cultural aspects of icts
5) Education and ICTs
6) ICTs,work and business organisations
7) A new/informational.knowledge based economy
8) Globalization
9) Inequalities in the new information age
10) Politics in cyberspace
11) Tensions in the information age
12) Ethics and communications

rubbish!cyberspace nonsense?me?sigh...

EN2101E_1(23 nov,1pm/40%)

1) Pramoedya ananta toer, it’s not an all night fair (psychoanalysis)
2) Eugene ionesco ..rhinoceros (Marxism)
3) Tom Stoppard..the real inspector hound (deconstruction)
4) Doris lessing …the fifth child..(feminism)
5) Thom gunn..the man in night sweats
6) Edwin thumboo…A third map

ahh..more my speed.or so i thought!til the alarming C+.ahh well,keep on keeping on..


HY1101E (27 nov,9am/60%)

1) Intro/worldwide traditions and interactions
2) Emergence of the modern nation state
3) Age of exploration/”old” imperialism in Asia
4) The enlightenment & industrial revolution and “-isms”
5) “New” imperialism in Asia
6) Clothing ,modernity and Identity
7) The world wars
8) Nationalism and the emergence of new nations
9) The Cold war
10) Asia since 1945
11) Globalization(1)
12) Globalization(2)

riight.history.used to be fun.not so much so anymore..


EC1101E (27 nov,1pm/60%)

1) The central ideas of economics
2) The demand and supply model and market equilibrium
3) Consumer choice
4) Production decisions and firms in competitive markets
5) Firms under imperfect competition and strategic behaviors
6) Public goods,externality and government behaviour
7) Intro to macroeconomics
8) Inflation and employment
9) The theory of economic fluctuations
10) The aggregate demand curve and monetary policy
11) The inflation adjustment line and fiscal policy
12) Open economy macroeconomics

okay,im banking on my previous 4 years econs background.which will be useful after i've translated it all=p

ah hah.so,that's my study list.where am i now?well,,im working on my lit essay..so,its kinda taking a backseat for now ...sigh..aargh..sigh..haih..oh well..God give me strength..!

writing to mum

my pen dances
in uncertain circles
upon the parchment

my life in words
could they be heard
in its entirety
by you

what do i hide
why have i to

you who gave me life
led me to my dream
and yet conjure the fear
of inadequacy
of falling short

my life in words
seems sadly lacking
the passion of reality
the true pangs i feel

"who is this girl i see
staring straight back at me"
i am not the me i used to be
and yet i am

strange.

estranged?

refuse to believe so
for u are always close to me
and i am still me
your daughter

my pen dances
in choreographed fluidity
can you see
the me i portray
or is it still a hazy grey?...

today is tomorrow's yesterday...

time flies..i've always thought of the passing of time in phases.and i associate a certain time frame with the phase i go through at that particular time and when i look forward to a particular event i would count ii in reference to the same time frame in the past.for example,when i was looking forward to stpm(or dreading it)i would think..one month more...,exactly one month ago such and such happened...and's that 's how i would measure the length of that time frame.and i would somehow always be looking forward to something or other.these days,im so content living in the present..every day is a new giftbox just waiting to be unwrapped,so much so that i don't longingly await a certain future date but just take it as it comes along.each and every day which God grants me...just waiting to unfold.even with it's disappointments and feelings of inadequacies(which are so haunting me now!)..even with the challenges which rise before me higher than i can see,even with the looming fears of failing to achieve excellence in my studies(the sole reason im here),,even with the imbalance i am sometimes faced with in my life here..with all these elements present in my life...i am yet joyous..i am afraid to attribute this distinct contentment to one particular factor,and am unsure if i should relate it to various factors and if so what these various factors are..all i know is that this is a time of my life where i am truly living.each day brings forth stumbling blocks before which i falter,and grasp for stability again..and it is this regaining of a centre that makes the experience a lesson.

and yet time flies.in spite of everything yes,,.i am stumbling.my literature lecturer has put me in a place where i am questioning my love of literature itself and my believed affinity and proficiency in it.he says "i suggest more than i articulate an d exemplify more than i explain..".and yet after the initial humiliation coupled with indignation,i press on and insist i love literature.i love the art of words coming together in a symphony defined not by the writer but by the reader,as the writer helps suggest ideas by conjuring a certain set of images and evoking a certain string of experiences within the reader.i insist i can be good at it simply because i love it.surely passion can ignite excellence.that has after all been one of my beliefs by which i have come thus far in life.my subjects seem further from my "fingertips" than ever before.at least it seems so,but by faith(hopefully not sheer complacency and stupidity) i shall attempt to put myself back on track and truly feel as if i deserve this scholarship.after all,today is tomorrow's yesterday..

reach
my heart says
even as my hands remain wrapped tightly
behind my back

eyes roving
anywhere but here
where fate calls them

stance wavering
teetering towards an uncertain nothingness
where fulfillment is a void

time ticks on
mind wondering as it wanders
what are u waiting for

reach
my heart says
seize the breath of time
chemical desires
fear snuffed out

reach
my heart says
for the stars beyond the dark abyss
incandescent night after night
today is after all
tomorrow's yesterday..


..................................................................................................................=)

rain at 4am..

there is something inherently magical about a rain glazed scene at 4am in the morning.the cool air invigorates your soul.the sound of raindrops falling rhytmically onto any surface gently reverberates through you.and at the hour,your senses are heightened while losing some of your clasp of consciousness..i remember countless moments enfolding in a setting like this.events you would never imagine urself getting tangled up with..chances you would never take,..things you would never do..except on a rain glazed morning at 4.
i would go on but myroommate is trying to sleep and apparently the light tapping of my fingers over the keyboard breaks the magic of a rainy day in bed.perhaps i should capture that magic too,the warmth of a bed on a rainy early morning..wrapped up in my nice fleece blanket...zzzz

sherry...

when i woke up this morning i planned to go back to sleep then thought heck,i wanna write in my blog.my dear friend sherry has been bugging me to"update ur blog!"ah yes,since we're on the subject...my dear friend sherry..since it was her birthday on the 18th of october i shall devote an entire paragraph or more(i bet i'll overshoot it by a mile) to her.(ooh..i found out how to edit the font)

sherry..

sherry had the longest name in std 6,(i think it was then)..it was sherry amy ooi mei lian.gosh.what's up with that?i mean yeah,when i was in my first year in kindergarten i called myself marilyn j.fox.cos i liked micheal j. fox.sheesh.can't believe i said that.but yeah..i think she was exploring some alternative identity phase or something.whatever.(hehe.hi sherry darling)
for years,in the midst of experimenting with various different "close friends",sherry and i were always drawn to each other by one very potent factor.we both loved to write.and sherry always had a really engaging flair for writing.not that she would ever admit or acknowledge it.(aww,come on sher...then what's with the blog?!)and so we had this bond which let us peruse the wild and crazy frontiers of language and literature,our idiosyncracies in realtion to our literary pursuits and looking back sherry has always been not only one of my biggest supporters in my imagined destiny towards writing, but has also been one of the few whom i really look to for approval .not only in writing but my other artistic endeavors.apart from that,we used to have oodles of fun with our fake americen high school accent,like oh my Gawd!!!i,was like,u know,like,so glad,we,like had those moments..heh.sherry and i could so master the art of being in class yet not be there and look like we're perfect little schoolgirls.(or so we thought...bm teacher was cool,though)
we even did an inventory of our wardrobe together,by describing practically every article of clothing we owned and comparing,hehe.(yes,sher...every humiliating detail)and after all that,she had the nerve to kinda lose touch with me after our secondary school days.so glad we caught up though,huh.oh sher,forgot to tell u how honoured i was that u let me spend ur last day in penang with u and hah,I drove u around.ur a lousy driver.hehe.
to date,i have never met anyone like u,sher.and i doubt i ever will.not only taking into consideration who you are as an individual,who by the way simply dazzles,ppl.be warned!but who you are to me.i have to say we have a truly unique friendship.one i'm proud of and one that i would'nt trade for anything in the world.so,happy birthday sherry.revel in the wonder of knowing that beyond your very limited perception of yourself is the truth that there is no one more sherry than you.and in saying that i don't mean the name but the heart and soul that you have attached to it for us all to be fond of..hugs..

not the triumph but ....

the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.the struggle of finding who you are and who you want to be and then redefining that everytime you reach a point that calls for it or rather allowing yourself to be redefined in the image you were designed to be..the struggle lies in that limbo between the separate planes of belief and in striving to make sense of it all and being happy in the midst of it and knowing the contentment you seek...sigh.what gibberish.after venturing into someone else's blog,i feel so unabashedly humiliated and humbled at the same time.i mean,here i am,the"aspiring writer" and really the substance and structure is not much different from the cute hello kitty diary i wrote in since i got it for my 7th birthday.(stopped sumtime in form 3 i think.but anyways,this someone else's blog had sweat,blood and tears smeared all over it,it rang of heart and passion and soul all dusted with an impeccable flair for writing and amazing compositional skills.he sure as heck doesn't belong in the engineering faculty when he could probably paint rainbows or strike lightning with the way he frames words.anyways,that's not the theme of the day.

but i dun have the strength to get to that right now.maybe later.when my wilted self regains some breathe of hope in the perpetual goodness of things and the way things are meant to turn out...

birthdays,soccer and history

today is my dear friend francis's birthday.thursday was kuan nee's and yesterday was roy's.ah yes,thursday was oso sheau xian's birthday.i have always made a big deal out of my dear friend's birthdays because i believe birthdays are indeed a very special occasion.celebrating one's existence and herald into this world where they live in and in living somehow add to the colour of my own existence.yupz,birthdays are special.i have however lostt the art of making my own birthday cards.firstly,no time.secondly,...dunno.made so many lovely(ahem) cards before, dunno if i can top them.i went out to celebrate francis's birthday yesterday.gosh,fish & co. again.the seafood platter was heavenly but if i had to describe it in one word....FUN!!!i was stuffed!anyways,i'm still awaiting assurance from my parents that they still want me to be their daughter despite my submission of a way too graphic account of my accounts.yup.i am guilty of spending wayyy too much money and i feel so terrible...sigh...sniff...sob...

ah well,this morning i went for my first soccer training with the raffles hall girls' soccer team.ooh,we had training on the SRC field and we all wore our soccer boots,shinguards and all for the first time..so pro.hehe.it was great fun despite the sudden strikes of fatigue under the blazing sun due to lack of sleep.the phrase of the day was..."that's the way!"....(to be yelled out in a loud enthusiastic way whenever any fellow teammate attempts her turn at ANY drill no matter what the outcome...)hehe.after the vigorous workout,i collapsed in my lovely bed for a few hours.haha.3 i think.

after a long snooze(i was recuperating!),i took a while to snap out of my stupor and started research on my history essay(due this coming tues...yes.never a dull moment).sigh.finally decided on the treaty of nanking..opium war nonsense etc.gosh,hate doing research on the internet.guarantees a major headache and a trip round the world and back just to get a few measly useful articles.sigh.

well,saturday nights at raffles hall.quiet.the nights fall earlier this time of year.i think its kinda depressing.u look out of the window at 7.15pm and its dark.saturday nites, usually some troop or other will come yelling outside ur window..."dinner!"i think its fun actually.but leaving ur work and other obligations behind sumtimes results in guilt and then you'll fester and fester and....well.anyways..ok.now that the troop has gone on without me..(they must think im an anti social bug)..as opposed to social butterfly..ah well.sum of my dear frens(ok ,one) are in fact currently slogging over some complicated final year project or other.poor thing...ok.on to look for food.gastric on the brink of devouring me...=)

literature

i'm working on my lit project like i have been for so long and it still makes me feel so inadequate in this field.am i really cut out for literature?or even english?it's just never so hard before.literature has always been my pet subject and in form 6 with the challenging essay questions after a while of thinking i could still let my pen flow rhythmically across my foolscap paper and come up with sumthing quite okay.but now...?sigh..
anyways,deadline is tomorrow.and english test on friday..sigh...
oh,i had this lovely testimonial written for me in friendster by my friend benny.gosh.it was so sweet i nearly cried.anywasy,okay,im gonna get back to my lit.escapism just ain't gonna help im sure..

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

phases

well.,,,,the much awaited "poppy" is over and thankfully we pulled it off well.concert is behind us and it's time to get focused on the main reason i'm here....to STUDY!yipes.anyways,my desk is uncluttered once again and my room is neat again,so i'm feeling more organized as well.as a whole,it was truly a magical experience.each person putting their heart into their individual dept and each individual department's heart of passion being threaded together to weave a tapestry...the grand design of what is our raffles hall concert 04/05..."POPPY".

now,all that's left is the spirit of what was which i have no doubt will flame once more come concert season next year.anyways,the journey of being my own person here in raffles hall,in nus ,in singapore continues to unleash countless new experiences,mistakes and lessons learnt..memory-making moments and sheer minutes of fun,excitement and pleasure.

gosh,the people...so many new friendships forged and even more minor bonds of camaraderie seem to imbue the whole experience..well,enough gibberish.i'm off to continue the painstaking task of completing my literature project.the one that leaves me feeling like a complete fool and my mind whirring in dazed confusion.15%!sigh.God give me strength;)