apples of gold in settings of silver

Ok. It's been a reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaalllly long time since I've blogged. There are quite a few things I wish to say, but either insufficient words to say them, or a sense that it's inappropriate to say. Which means I might have to set up a new blog. Hmm!

 

OK, let's start with happy stuff.

 

I finished my (one and only) exam today!! Yes, I only had one, but as a Master's student, I don't really have the luxury of a one-week Reading week to study for the exam, I spent reading week scanning subjects, and repeat-scanning subjects who were unlucky enough or didn't-follow-instructions-enough to have to come for a repeat, marking term papers (ack) and working on my independent research project (smaller scale run-up to my thesis, which hasn't taken any written form yet). Yikes. To make things worse, I foolishly left the house at 8 for the 9am paper (*slap head*) resulting in my being late by 10 minutes  =(  Never mind. Managed to get most of what I had to say but as I left the venue I was mentally slapping myself for spending too much time flipping notes (it was open book) and thinking than writing down the thoughts I'd already thought. All this combined to form a slightly disturbing sense of heightened physiological function (heart rate, slowed digestion etc) that lasted even by the time my fellow Master's student, YY, and I reached Holland V for lunch. Yikes! But going to Holland V was a great decision. We had yummy Thai curry rice sets at Thai Express (sigh, where else?) and then, even better, we went SHOPPING! You'd be surprised, but there are quite a few very nice shops in Holland Village. One in particular, Closet Treasures at the Windmill, was so nice that I bought 2 items and YY bought 1! Our combined purchases got us 4 chops on a collect-a-chop card - 12 chops would get us 30% of our next purchase. Quickly, we calculated that coming back to the shop once every month for the next 2 months would achieve that goal. Then the shop girl told us that new arrivals come every 2 weeks. Save me!

 

Yes, that was my shallow moment of the day. Even as we were leaving the shop my eye was caught by a gorgeous shade of royal blue belonging to a Victorian-style top near the entrance, and YY had to firmly drag me away. Heh. Well, today I also got started on the next phase of my project! Fine, it didn't involve much effort on my part - a computer script detailing the mouse movements and clicks needed to get BrainVoyager to run statistics on each of the 42 brain regions I had identified to be of interest had already been written by my supervisor and a former research assistant. So all my supervisor had to do was show me how to use it. We troubleshooted a tiny thing, and then the procedure was off and running. Sup said, "OK, that's probably going to take 2 hours, good excuse for you to go home now." At 4pm! Whee, my kind of day.

 

Well now, the bad thing about shopping? With my new outfit I need new shoes. Hmmmm. *Self-control!!!*

 

Updates (in point form, like at the end of the exam when you have no time to form a complete sentence)

- Met a really old friend, and found out that he is moving all the way from Clementi, to the next street from me! Altogether now, SMALL WORLD!

- Have become a bit more organized (any progress is good in my books)

- Realize I am... impatient

- Would like to be more... patient

- And less... snappish at times. PMS and stress do not justify rudeness to my family  =P

- Stuff to do now that exam is over!!

  ->Finish knitting my cropped cardigan. Muaha. Maybe I can finish it before the dang things go out of fashion.

  ->Bake bagels!

  ->Watch MI:3. No I don't like Tom Cruise, but it'll be a good family film.

  ->Go rollerblading, swimming and running

  ->Read

  ->Sleep (so what am I doing now?? Sheesh...)

  ->Finally go to the art museum??

  ->Read up on scuba diving

Right. Meant to make the list short and manageable. Well... OK, I think most of this stuff can be done in a couple of weeks  ;)

 

Resolutions for 2nd quarter:

- Learn to priortize

- Learn to do things faster

- Learn how to motivate myself in healthy (non-ice cream) ways.

 

Hmmmm.