its so fun to see it hale and rain outside, and watching the raindrops hitting the hale stones and making them bounce on the ground! like those air vents showing how strong they are.

I just ate my Warburton's seeded batch bread with egg mayo and tomato. Proudly made by... ME. it's simply delicious. if singapore manufactured bread as nice as this, i wouldn't be gagging every morning. ok!! it's not Sunshine/Gardenia/Super's fault.. it's just me. But, warburton's bread is just simply delicious! I wouldn't mind eating bread like this every single day.

Anyone up to be an entrepreneuer? i suggest opening a bread baking company, go around the world to taste the different kinds of bread around, and then find the perfect ingredients and techniques that will make this singapore-made bread the best in the world. Bread is something that's so essential in our daily diet.. most pple eat it for breakfast anyway, the most important meal of the day. No fancy look and name like Roti-boy (which i don't like at all), just simple, healthy, loaves of bread with natural ingredients like sunflower seeds and walnut bites. Original.

Pheew. 2 hours of badminton is really exhausting, but very very enjoyable. No random thoughts, just concentrate on hitting the shuttlecock well, practice my techniques; for2 hours, the racket and shuttlcock are the most important things in the world. :)

Was feeling pretty shitty today.. but the weather helped me cheer up considerably heh. Now i belief that the weather and scenery can do MUCH to influence my mood.

half way into my 1st week of hols. will be gg to cambridge, not once, but TWICE this hols. gg for a forum next week on a day trip, and then over the easter weekend from 14-16. the rest of the time i'll be here in notts.

oki tats all for now.

Its easter holidays! and the clock is winding forward 1 hour tomorrow, so that means the time difference between Uk and Singapore will be back to 7 hours. Which is good news! Days are getting longer and nights shorter.. yay!!

I spent more than three hours shopping in Beeston today.. popping in and out of numerous shops, and got some pretty good offers. Sure am gonna miss living in the vicinity next year. I can't live in two places, can i? weekends in beeston, weekdays in dunkirk. doh...

Ade and i whipped up a semi-hawker centre style dinner tonight, with her wanton 果条汤 and my "orh lua" (oyster omelette) except that it was only a look-alike. heehee. actual ingredients were mushroom and spring onion with egg. Nevertheless, we ate till our hearts' content! I was just thinking, im really proud of our singapore hawkers who individually are all such great chefs! i can't wait for my plate of hokkien mee with a bit of chilli at serangoon gardens... oh oh .. oh.

Saturday night was spent at Beeston Free Church; pam ade and i went to watch the choir perform "Crucifixion" by John Stainer. Really soothing music, and the words did have some impact on me. Some of the verses that they sang and minister preached have been heard many times in the numerous occasions that i went to church; i looked around in the audience and saw so many people decades elder than i, and i suppose they've definitely heard those same verses hundreds of times more than i did. I think the purpose of repetition is to remind the listeners constantly about the important themes in Christianity.. guess it's very easy to just forget somethings, sometimes.

Anyway, ever since coming to Nottingham, I've engaged in a lot more self-reflection than i ever did back home. Think it's the case of being away from family, stepping on foreigners' land, and trying hard to grow up and be independent. At times i feel that i'm in the state of balance, i imagine my yin and yang of equal amounts (is that what it's supposed to be?), and just comfortable with myself. Other times I feel so frantic and lost, insecure about everything, and the child in me screams out for comfort and lots of pats on the back. I don't know if 10, 20 years down the road, I'll still have such struggles, or it'll be a completely different kind of internal affairs. Just gotta wait and see.

Just dropping a short note here since im in the school comp lab and having no mood to do anything. Am going to watch a documentary called "Shooting Dogs" later in uni. I think it's about Hotel Rwanda and genocide.

Oh dear.. feeling "sian" today. I've this terrible tendency to blog whenever im feeling kinda bluey, which is SO unhealthy. in case you all think that im living a sort of down and downer life here.. it's not bad lar. Did have a couple of great times with friends.. went for dinner in town at this italian restaurant last friday, and watched a musical "Pirates of Penzance" put up by uni students. Vj choir performed it when i was in jc too.. but then i couldnt remember much of it.

Dinner at one of my 3rd year psych senior's house last night, and it was scrumptious! But we were all on FIRE.. from the thai green curry that was OH SO HOT!! outside the house temperature was freezing, but internally our blood vessels were dilating and mouths panting.
okay, i dunno how to describe it but yeah you get the idea.

Today might just FINALLY be the turning point of Uk weather! The sun shone so brightly throughout the day, and my scarf was pretty redundant.

oh, a digression. i was quite surprised and perturbed last week, when i went for this globe cafe organised for international students, and a middle-aged british lady, who spoke with a very precise british accent, commented that my english has some american influence in it. i went like... erm, really?

I told my mama over the phone that i got attacked. She laughed and said, "You must be joking! how can you be attached?!" Nearly fainted.

That's good ol' mummy. She's got the amazing ability to comfort :)

Miss Sunshine.. no more. Not for today anyway. I got attacked on campus little more than an hour ago. A black ford focus drove in the opposite direction when yl and i were walking towards the International Office and the guy on the passenger seat rolled down his window and whacked me hard on my arm with a rolled rubber car mat. My reaction was a wee bit too slow. couldn't have ducked much anyway.. my walking speed versus the car's speed, my state of unguardedness versus their intentions, my FACE.. maybe? versus their rascist habits. I was just. shaken. for awhile. His eyes had an ugly glee to them, and mine was just of pure shock and anger. Even before he hit i think i screamed out.. but i dont think i should repeat what i shouted.

The little good twist was that seconds later i spotted a security van, and we stopped the driver and told him about the incident. the black ford still lingered around some distance away, and we asked the estate manager in the van to follow the ford and see where they would go. He came back awhile later because the bunch of hooligans had driven out of campus, but got their license plate no. That number is now recorded in my phone. We reported it to the international office, and hopefully something could be done. Will be making a police report later. I do hope these villains get caught.

Did i mention the egg incident and water shooting incident? the former, i don't know if it's anything personal.. but the remnants of it are still stained on my window pane. The latter, i was walking home with A and another japanese friend after latin and ballroom class when they again shot us with water from a moving car. What a joke. Good-for-nothings.

I thought to myself just now, so. It's finally happened to me. the first two incidents somehow didn't feel as bad to me as this one. Hm, actually the egg incident really got me worked up the other time. Maybe because this time i feel real, physical pain. My right upper arm is now bruised (aww.) but hey :) don't be too worried or over-concerned, cos it's not too big a blue-black.

I just wonder, what are we Chinese to them? Is Bristish really a tolerant society, or are we still not much better than the time when "no dogs and chinese allowed"?

ai, but no lar. I know of so many other really nice british people. it's just down to how unfortunate one is to meet the minority hooligans.

I've been seized by the urge to stock up food, as in im gonna hibernate for a month. Went to hyperrama yesterday and bought 4 packets of dim sum (siu mai, lotus bun, cha siew, and something else which i can't even remember). When i did groceries the other day, i bought two packets of frozen cod and haddock fillet, one packet of cooked lyon's cooked tiger prawns (not too tiger-ish though). But i had forgotten that i still had like chicken and pork meat waiting to be eaten.

In the fridge, I've 8 apples, 6 packets of fruit yoghurts, 2 pints of milk, 2 muffins and other random stuff.

In my drawer just within my fingers' grasp, I've 2 long bars of milk and dark choc, 2 packets of crisps, dried fruits from home, and few pieces of gum and sweets.

I need to detox.

Where is the mention of vege? Only one brocolli.. i forgot to add.

孔子说道：己所不欲，吾施于人。

Matthew 7:12 "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you..."

But not just one, but TWO lectures today on decision making and strategies for social interactions says NO, this isn't the golden rule to how we should act. A example of a couple who prefer doing different activities was given to illustrate this point.

Bonnie likes to watch musicals, whilst Clyde would anytime watch football. On a saturday night, they each have to decide separately where to go and what to do, given the two choies. If u imagine the scenario, there could be four possibilities: 1st, Bonnie and Clyde could act in their self interest and go to the musical and football respectively but that would mean they wouldnt spend their saturday night together. 2nd, Clyde could be gentlemanly and dutifully opt to go to the musical; he wouldnt enjoy himself very much but at least he'ld made Bonnie happy. 3rd, Bonnie could be the self-sacrificing one (indeed!) and accompany Clyde to the football match. BUT, 4th, if both really do love each other very much and want to make each other happy, and clyde chooses to go to the musical whilst bonnie goes to the football match, the outcome would be only one thing-- terrible! Neither gets to watch what they like, and worst of all, they are stuck there alone.

So tell me, did the two golden rules which have been passed down generations and which is permanently scripted in my memory not so applicable to some aspects of life afterall?

These days i'm adopting a feel-and-detatch attitude towards anything potentially upsetting. It's really much better this way, no need to get disappointed over how things work out, just think "算了". It's about not being affected by negative emotions, going about my own ways, facing the world in a neutral, peaceful attitude.

For such a small physical being, I need an amazingly huge personal space. It's very troublsome, and very troubling, but i dunno how else to decrease it.