BAG OF ARASHI CON GOODS. GOT 'EM ALL IN 15 MINUTES! <3

I also had a smashing time with Elaine T and Beck (sp??)! :D Thanks for the dinner, and thanks for fangirling with me <3

Less than a month. I cannot wait.

I cannot relate to the people who dread leaving, but applied to leave in the first place. I mean, hello what

I reconfigured my iTunes library to run off Nirvana and now my permissions is pretty screwed up. Oh well. I shall overcome it anyhow. I've learnt that its not advisable to shift my WHOLE iTunes folder to my external hard-disk (because that practically wipes out your entire library =A=;; ) but to just shift the iTunes Music folder over (where all the wtf nonsense is at). I stupidly did the former and have to reimport all my music back in. OH WELL.

I have Murakami as the second backup disc. It's a sleek WD 1TB desktop disk that will hopefully survive the flight to Japan, once I surround it with soft things. Coincidentally, it matches Nirvana, who is a 120GB WD portable exthdd. I should change its name. It's temporarily called Murakami because I lack a firm, sparkle-filled imagination. I might want to call it Nabokov because it's hefty. Maybe not.

I'm leaving in less than a month, and I can't wait to say goodbye!

Today (which really is the day until about 4pm) saw me and Sim studying at Chinatown Point's Coffee Bean. Which has overpriced coffee and food. Not that Starbucks is any cheaper -- but it really is . Starbuck's coffee really is cheaper! At least, from my very bad memory! But oh well. Coffee + Vanilla is tasty tasty. So it was all good in the end.

What was really funny though, was how the counter staff (this hulking Indian man) convinced me to spend $10 on my lunch. 10 fucking dollars! Which I could have spent on MUCH MORE DELICIOUS FOOD. But yeah, I was considering pasta, or a cheapo piece of pie or cake but just looking at the menu had the Indian Man tell me how I should get their gourmet sandwiches instead.

"Um, I wasn't really planning on eating a sandwich for lunch...." I whimpered, because I am Chinese and Chinese people eat nice hearty wholesome carbo-filled meals for lunch (and dinner, not sandwiches -- which are awesome for every other meal).

The Indian Man will not hear anything of it. "These are not just sandwiches! They are gourmet sandwiches!"

"Ummmmm, I really want to get pasta instead."

"Our gourmet sandwiches are really really good! If you don't like them I will refund you your money!"

"Um... Okay..." Because I realized that the sandwich set was like $9.90 and my pasta was like $9.90 too (friggin' expensive, sigh).

"You get a free drink too!"

Hip hip hooray!

So I order a Rosemary Chicken gourmet sandwich (wtf) and get a Swedish (WTF) iced tea. Which was strange. Y'see the Swedish Berry Iced Tea tasted like, water, but everytime I took a sip, I'd get hit by an infusion of berriness. It's like, a smell, a feeling, but no taste. It totally confounded my senses.

Anyway, the rosemary chicken sandwich was good (boohoo cannot get back my money) despite the abundance of evil tomatoes.

( study study study )

Went down to BooksActually after lunch and thought of getting my BBF, Robin, checked out. But since I went there rather unannounced, and it was the lunch hour, Kenny and Karen weren't there (hello! if you're reading this heheheh!) so I hung around with Sim and we tried to choose a present for her friend Prashan. Who I kept calling Prakash. In the end she left with de Botton's The Art of Travel (which I bought for my cousin for christmas); and I grabbed a book on design. Title promptly forgotten because my brother took it out to read. I think I might get Sontag's On Photography next for him to read.

(Yes, it is amazing. My brother, who only touched puzzle omnibuses, now reads! It's really Murakami who did it, because he saw me reading After Dark and was pretty enticed by the cover of a girl's neck [LOL], and asked if he could read it. So I lent it to him -- it, and all my books, come back pretty banged up, pun not intended -- and he liked it! He's now picking up and trying any book I buy, which is a feat in itself, considering how he abhorred books before. It's just encouraging to see him try to read anything, even if he doesn't like it in the end.)

So anyway, embarrassing moment of the day: I discovered a box of little notebooks at the back of the shop (where all the poetry and non-fiction are) and I started rifling through them because they were those first-line little notebooks that I have a few off. Lo and behold there were first-lines from nearly all my favourite books and I started picking them all up - like, 5 or 6 - and then went to the counter to ask how much they were.

The very nice girl there told me that they were not for sale because they weren't ready yet! OMG I THINK I DIED THERE AND THEN. Hahaahaha, I got too carried away with seeing first lines from Lolita (I devour their Lolita items) and Murakami and I can't remember what else I grabbed that I was like "OMG I'M SO SORRY I WILL PUT THEM BACK RIGHT AWAY".

Sorry, book nerdiness is not cool. :(

Anyway, 'twas a fun-filled afternooooon. Have to study now. I like cakes and pies. Nom nom nom.

Oh yes! Parting gift!



Sim's friend thinks that I am like this guy. LOL ORZ.


EDIT:

Aforementioned Penguin book on design is this! Design as Art! By Bruno Manari.

Ow. My shoulder and back are in pain from lugging my bag around today. Note to self, never ever attempt to carry Auden, 2 binders, Paradise Lost, one pencil box, waterbottle, wallet, planner and files in my bag along with the huge monster of a sociology textbook. I think it was easily 7 or 8kg - it felt more than a sackful of rice - and I don't really know how I survived the whole day.

So in a last bid attempt to give my poor shoulders some respite, I took a cab back from Armenian Street (more on that later) which cost me a hefty $18.60. Good God. The surcharge was crazy. Now I'm left wondering if that was worth the money. I don't think I could have handled public transport for the rest of the day though, what with the peak hour office crowds. I nearly died on the bus from NUS to Buona Vista MRT. Oh well. I'm going to try and redeem the $18.60 from my parents. I usually don't take the cab and technically my allowance is er, $10 a day so I definitely overspent. Hurhur.

Renaissance Lit was, well. It got a little interesting when everyone started debating about why Milton's God is such a horribly twisted fellow - I say irresponsible for refusing to claim any ounce of responsibility- to create mankind with the sufficiency to make choices. It got fairly... okay really bad in the end with people psychologizing the Archangels and one girl said something along the lines of "But Angels are good! They won't be so selfish to not sacrifice themselves for Adam and Eve! They're merely being modest!"

....Yes. I was much too WTF-ed and bemused to make any comments. (Note: Yet to speak up in Prof Lim's class. Darn. And Dr Roy's classes - which are frankly, impossible.)

Sociology was.... I don't know. There was a lot of forced sociologizing on very random things that I got a bit fed up in the end and just went "ROAR ROAR ROAR" at the class. I also said some rather blasphemous things about his Excellency LKY so maybe you'll see me in jail soon.

For reasons still unknown to myself, I decided to spend the rest o the day in Chatterbox studying and oh man, while I managed to study it was a rather traumatizing experience. But I have a feeling that it's rather quiet most of the time (most) so I'll still go there to study. I still have various pockets of quiet around the campus so it's not that bad. Coming home just makes me want to sleep amongst my nice fluffy blankets so that isn't very good.

Oh yes, Armenian Street! I will be honest, I have never set foot there and now I am just slightly sad that NUS isn't a city-campus like SMU and we don't have funky places to pop by between or after classes. I passed by a few nice looking cafes and lamented about how NUS should have more nicely decorated cafes for R&R. I'd love to have a bookstore there, or a little office.

Anyway, I went all the way down to grab a ticket for Dinner with Murakami. I was pretty worried that they might be sold out (I mean, it's Murakami!) so I called up the Substation box office at around 3pm to ask if I could reserve tickets. The guy on the line nearly burst out laughing when I was like "Um, it's for Dinner with Murakami..." and replied that I didn't have to worry at all because they only started selling the tickets today. How embarrassing. But still! It's alright being kiasu for Murakami! I would have thrown a hissy fit if the tickets were sold out and I couldn't get any. So er, yeah. I'll be watching yet another film by myself. lonelygal88@hotmail.com LOL

I still have not bought Tristam Shandy or Olaquah Equiano and have yet to finish Betsy. Sobs.

Anyway, I shall go and sell my soul to the devil right now and finish watching the remain episodes of Gossip Girl before I eat my dinner and collapse into bed.

:D:D:D:D HOMZ.

TYPING ON MY NEW MACBOOK.

<3<3<3

Okay, I need to sleep. Driving test tomorrow morning....

I miss the 90s!

IT IS MUSIC TO MY EARS.

I WILL BE GETTING ONE!!!!!!!

My beautiful Mac! Come to me!

Awesome Remix is Awesome!

Do want! Shall get it.

More RA3 (lulz) goodness:



Hell, I'm getting this game after my exams.

I don't have a wii so I'm very obviously much more interested in the DS games (but omg Rune Factory for the wii looks beautiful) --



Very very nice line-up. I can't wait for 2009 already! And what's more, the new DSi is looking sweet. I've had my DS lite for about a year or so now, and it's starting to wear down. Maybe I'll get the new one and give the lite to my brother. ^^;;