wah.. i just spent 3 hours translating 5 yrs of aeronautical engr syllabus for admin purposes.. cant think properly anymore. suddenly, i dunno if aero engr wld be e thing for me afterall. theres so much mechanics involved, and having seen them already and not really liking them this yr, i cant imagine wat it wld be like to be doing it for all 5 yrs, eeek..looks like i had better decide properly.

have u ever been caught in a dilemma, or in such a situation where u have to choose btwn 2 things that u take days or even weeks to decide? wldnt it be great if u were to go to bed, without having it possess ur dreams, and then wake up e next morn knowing wat to do/choose? i really hate being in such a position, whereby my choice cld affect the rest of my life. more accurately, i hate myself for being such a drifter, for not knowing exactly what i really want, and not knowing where my strength lies and what my goals are...

and i miss rice so much!! my gdness, fried rice, steamed rice, glutinous rice, bak chang rice, rice pudding.. etc. i crave for anything that has rice! ive a hand-me-down rice cooker since jan, and it is perched nicely on top of my microwave, collecting dust dutifully for e past 4 months. this is despite my having bought my 1st packet of rice last nov, my gdness.. the 1kg pack has been lying somewhere for e past few months. i cant believe that i could last so long on pasta and noodles, argh.. i think ive tried most types of pasta already, watever shape,length,thickness, colour, except the black one tt ive seen in italy. egg noodles also eat until can puke. i wish i have yellow hokkien mee and kway teow. now, i didnt touch e rice cooker all this while as i thought it wld be troublesome to wash it after that. moreover, cooking pasta/noodles is faster, easier and i can eat straight from the pot without having to transfer it to a bowl or plate. haha, just so i could save time by washing one less plate/bowl. i know its silly; so last wkend, i decided to cook rice for my first time. wah, they say the first time is never what u expect it to be, how true man. i was studying while the rice was merrily cooking in it till the cover rattled like it was alive!! i got a shock and hurriedly took it off, only to see lotsa bubbles and even foam floating to the surface. i didnt noe what to do, so when e foam subsided, i covered it back. this happened for a few times till i got fed up, so i took the rice stirrer, stirred thoroughly, and then left the cover 'ajar'. tadaa, no risk of spilling over now. but the damned cooker just kept cooking and cooking for over 20 mins even tho i just added one cupful, so i had no choice but to switch it to 'keep warm' mode. i didnt want my rice burnt. turned out tt i didnt get rice, i got some horrible porridge thats so pasty and dry even oliver twist wld have turned his nose up at it. at first, i dismissed e whole incident as an oversight of adding to much water. but the 2nd round proved me wrong. I cooked rice again yesterday for the grand total of 2 times. it felt like an culinary adventure, albeit a really pathetic and stupid one where no one has ever failed except me. this time i took care to add e right amount of water.. but to no avail again. its really sickening, the cover rattled like anything and i had porridge yet again. the prob doesnt lie with me does it? shldnt all rice cookers do their job properly, which is to cook the rice without any human interference, and then switch automatically to 'keep warm' mode when its done? why doesnt mine do that?

just 1 hr away to philo and french cls boo hoo. i didnt finish my hmwk on purpose because i think its ridiculous to expect me to summarise 3 freaking story books on philo. think of sophie's world, with less of the fiction component. how to summarise u tell me? on e other hand, i think its amazing how i can go into cls feeling 100% alert, and then the moment ive to take notes/listen to e lecture/solve e prob, my brain slowly comes to a standstill, and this nice feeling of heavy eyelids and drowsiness wld just overcome me. its a pity then that when its time to sleep at nite, my mind's always buzzing with activity, im constantly thinking of stuff and have to turn and toss till i drift off..

and next wkend im gg to disneyland yay! but theres a catch: ive 4 papers on monday to sit for, great. things always crop up in the end to spoil the nice rosy picture. nvm, id see how it goes. anyway, thankfully they should be fairly easy papers save for 2 of them. and ive finally booked my air hooray! if all goes well, i shld be back in spore by mid-jun! im praying really hard that all dossier-transferring, shifting, and admin procedures go smoothly. *keeps fingers crossed*

just a few more days before i head back to sch. sigh, how exciting. after just two weeks of idling around and not speaking much french, i think i have degenerated in most senses of e word.

isnt it amazing how time flies when ure having fun, or rather, when ure on hols? i hate the fact that all too soon, i wld have to get back to studying. argh, its just loathsome beyond words. and to make things worse, i cant seem to find e discipline to mug as hard as i ought to.

i thought that i cld put e hols to gd use, during which i planned to cram and mull over stuff tt require attention; but i ended up having more activities than expected. when e 3rd grp of sporeans left early last week, i cleared up some work and studied a little. thankfully so, as after that , i didnt touch my notes for 1 whole week. i had a blast of a time tho, so theres no regret. it was sybaritic to watch a french play and final dest 3 ( 10 euros down e drain wth), club, shop, booze and eat well for 7 days straight. but now, as i feel the need to tighten the purse strings, and the need to loosen the jeans, its all i cld do to counter the hollow empty feeling and the woeful realisation that its time to plummet back to earth again.

it was just 4 months ago when i pined away for e comforts of home,family and friends. and by divine intervention, i must say that ive settled down so much better now that i begin to appreciate studying here. sure, the lazy bastards of the french can annoy e hell out of me with their retarded penchant for strikes, and of coz, the lack of constant (sporean) company can really drain me emotionally at times. but when push comes to a shove, u wld just kick and keep ur head above the water, unless ure made of tofu or smth. i recall commenting months ago that no matter what, sporeans wld always be e ppl to fall back on when ure overseas, or smth to that effect. of course, its comforting to know tat they wld always be there when u need to speak singlish, and wat can beat the tacit understanding that all sporeans love, and are willing to go in search of gd food? i dunno if im any closer to eating my words now, but having gone out a lot more with a french/dutch friend recently and another norwegian/danish friend the past few days, i realise that e foreigners/caucasians are not that bad after all. ive not had much serious heart-to-heart talk over here, and thus i was very surprised and gratified that i cld engage in intellectual stimulation till e wee hours of e morn when e danish guy stayed over. it felt surreal to chat about everything, ranging from issues in the spiritual and social arena to mental, emotional and personal spheres. somehow, it makes me relook at circumstances from a different angle, and i appreciate at times, the advantages of taking the road less travelled. i think id be more willing to hang out more with the american/italian/mexican bunch now, instead of coming up with excuses not to go out with them. sadly, all these ppl wld not be staying here as long as i do.

ive actually meant for this post to be a mild one, but just chatting with this asshole at the same time on msn has managed to draw my ire and made me so fucking mad rite now. and so im gunning for a no-holds-barred diatribe rite here. simmer in heat silently? forget it.

bloody pharquer, you have quite some cheek i must say. firstly, i think im doing u a favour by putting u up when u wanna come to paris. but dun think i do not notice that tts e only reason why u sent ur 1st virginal msg to me. message me only when u want me to help u eh? balls to u understand. now, im not one who wld reject u outright, no matter how inconvenienced i wld be. but, bearing in mind the fact that ure one huge lumbering jackass who's asking to impose upon me, you shld jolly well have the decency to play e niceties game at least, even tho i can see thru your pathetic efforts at making small talk and enquiring about my well-being here. fuck u understand. i wasnt born yesterday, and u, cheapskate of a cuntface, shld have known better than to run me down with talk of your superior london education. so you think that that all tt ive mentioned was just a rehash of being sour-fruits at not being able to study in e uk? fine by me, u dickhead of an anglophile. if u wanna be so blindly loyal, go ahead. and if france is so pathetic in ur eyes, why bother to come visit? just stay in ur london,with ur eyesore of a big ben, ur krispy kremes and harrods, ur picadilly circus, westminster abbey, leicester square and oxford street and bond street and watever fuck shit u have. go fuckternise with ur whole gang of red-haired freckled british yobs with that fugly pallor and just stuff urself silly with ur high tea and scones,fish and chips and pork pies. and oh, dun forget the stiff upper lip alrite? while ure at it, enrobe urself in burberry's and gambol around ur oh-so-high-and-mighty fuckingham palace. perhaps u might be knighted by queenie eliz herself!! oooh, isnt it exciting to be among the ranks of sir elton john and mick jagger?? but pls, do remember to switch ur sporean accent to that phony british one tt positively reminds me of poseurs of yesteryears.

and yes, u do think the world of IC and UOLs. sure, go ahead and think that, no one's stopping u.but i draw the line when u keep comparing the french and english system. sure, the uk's education system is reknown and 'cool' by ur own words, but while e french counterpart might pale in comparison in the popularity charts, it doesnt translate into a lack of academic rigour. getting into IC doesnt mean ure so smart or anything ok? its not difficult to gain entry into top uk unis save for oxbridge. going by statistics, in e history of psc and other scholars studyin in france since e 1970s, only abt 5 managed to gain entry into the top grandes ecoles. compare that to the truckloads of sporeans gaining entry into IC and other UOLs, surely that says smth? u may say that the french system is old and too difficult, fine by me, but bring a uk-trained engineer and french one to the test, wld e latter necessarily lose out? and if spore weren't formerly a britsh colony, and if we hadnt adopt the british education system, we might be talking abt another playing field entirely. that english is increasingly becoming the lingua franca is just an opportune wave that comes along now, and one that english-speaking countries have the luck to ride on... know ur limits, asshole, if not u can start looking around for cheap accom. i do not owe u anything..

yesterday marked the fifth day of country-wide protests over the CPE, talk about indomitable spirit... sorta participated for a short 15 mins as an onlooker on the 3rd day of protests abt 3-4 weeks ago; and i tot it was quite fun and happening at first, since the people had balloons and colourful hats. they had their faces painted, and with music playing and them marching along while singing a catchy chant, it could almost pass off as a carnival. things, however, turned ugly that nite, with cars overturned and set on fire, and clashes with the police force. i guess i could never understand why the french feel so strongly about this new employment contract, nor wld i ever grasp the significance of going on strike. nonetheless, its a shame that the fifth biggest economy in the world has lost imagination to instill hope in its youth. this new bill, the CPE, has triggered social unrest thru'out the country. this law allows employers to fire young workers (people under 26) anytime within two years without having to state a reason, and its all in a bid to lower the umemployment rate of youths which currently stands at 23%. without going into lengthy detail of both sides of the argument, suffice to say that the earlier the general assembly reaches an agreement with the unions, the better. however, one stark fact stands out: the mindset of the french, and particularly the youths, needs to be radically changed in order for reforms to be easily made by the govt. in all a herculean task lies ahead esp in e face of tough competition from rising economies like tt of china and india...

more grouses about philo. its just like a mental cold shower. all the blood seems to stop flowing to my brain and it goes on screen-saver mode. thankfully spring break is up next week, which signals a gd time to take a breather and chill out on novels, movies and gg out. and yea, thank god my elect paper wasnt such a fiasco afterall, phew..

e london ppl came over last week to visit, and they were 'timely enough' to get affected by the strike haha. a grp cld only see the castles of versailles from the outside as they were closed that day, and another had their transfer train to another city canceled (which indirectly led to fortunate me having to walk 45 mins at 1am in e morn to go pick them up at the station, before trudging back for slightly more than an hr, in all sleeping at 4 am and not having my revision done for e mecanics test e next day, not tt i really cared tho lol). but i do hope that they enjoyed themselves immensely, since they ate very very well when they were here, went to disneyland, did some shopping, and managed to cover most of the essential touristy sites. on my part, i burned a large hole in entertaining them, and picked up a man jiang hong as well, but i think its worth it since i had lotsa lotsa fun hehe..

haiz, its late, ought to hit the books now, or should i hit the sack instead?