..:*･yuka･*:..: May 2010

thursday finds

[oneinamillion][icanread]

A happy vesak day everyone:)

We had a little pesky passenger earlier this evening as we headed back home from my sister's guitar ensemble concert.

It was our dear friend little johnny (a.k.a a filthy, disgusting, long feeler-ed cockroach) who refused to budge from the side lamp as our car breezed down the highway.

I was the first one to spot him as we were waiting for the traffic light to turn green. The side lamp little johnny decided to camp at was at my side.

The moment i saw him, i started screaming my head off. I went many octaves higher as he started to crawl more daringly towards the window at my side. I think the sound waves coming from my screams must have reverberated through the windows because the people at the car beside us were staring at me.

When we reached home, my dad got down to help me get rid of my worst nightmare. But alas, little johnny was gone before my dad could get hold of him and i have this bad feeling that he might have arrived somewhere at our place as a visitor.

Oh boy.

the sun behind the rain

i usually wake up to the pitter patter sounds of the rain as i look out of my window. The dark clouds that shroud around every space do not look ominously dark, but they give a calming effect especially for someone who has not intentions of crawling out of her bedcovers.

But when it hits 10am in the morning, the sky suddenly brightens up after the morning showers have departed and it kickstarts a new day. The sun is shining brightly and the roads outside our place starts to bustle with life as working people and students start to stream down to the bus stop.

It's a new day everyone:)

remember the tan scale?

Remember the tan scale i was talking about?

My dad made his regular 'checkup' as usual last week so i decided to snap a photo of it and share it on this blog. The russet-coloured nicely tanned arm on the left belongs to my dad whereas the pasty pale miserable arm on the right is mine.

It seems like he has been working out pretty much under the sun judging from his previous 'checkup'.

st andrew's cathedral

My first visit despite having learnt its history in our textbooks.

When i stepped into the cathedral, i was caught surprised by the tranquility of the atmosphere which contrasted starkly with the hustle and bustle of the outside traffic.

I'm not a christian but the sights and the sounds i gathered during this visit brought me a new insight into the history of this holy landmark.

A nice trip back to our local history.

parenting

I was at the post office yesterday waiting for my turn when i noticed an australian mother with her three sons, the smallest four months old while the oldest was at most six years old.

The two older rascals were running around and close to tearing the entire post office apart, whereas the youngest quietly sat in the pram like a little angel. Everyone was staring at them, mostly in a disapproving manner. Despite this, the mother simply bent down and told her sons that if they had to continue running around, she would have to make them leave the place. The sons nodded and immediately proceeded to pulling out greeting cards stacked nicely at the shelves.

At that point of time, i was imagining how my mother would react if i exhibited the exact same behaviour. To say that i would get bonked on the head would probably be the most lenient punishment. But it is pretty interesting and amusing to see how parents from different countries or even cultures have different perspectives in parenting.

On one hand, being brought up in a relatively conservative asian family, we were taught to be on our best behaviour or else we would have to face something unpleasant which often involves a swipe of the cane or a smack on the buttocks. Physical punishment has always been a common element in the way asian parents punish their children, because pain instills fear and the memory will remain etched forever in the child's mind so as to remind him never to commit the same mistake again (as said so by several singaporean parents).

On the other hand, i don't get to see this phenomenon of smacking the kids being common among the caucasian parents. I recalled one parent who said that children need to be told and understand why they cannot stick their boogie onto the new couch, or why they cannot start running like lunatics in the post office. To them, explaining the reasons properly and not resorting to physical punishment will probably be the optimal approach to parenting.

I am not a parenting expert, i am not even ready to be one yet. Yet it is obvious that both groups of parents have one common aim: to convey the message clear to the child on what he/she should or should not do. But the approaches to achieve that aim differ and to say which approach works better, is beyond my capability.

Just food for thought:)

back from the underground

Back from the underground for the past week as i busied myself with stuff that i haven't been able to do for a long long time.

It seemed like the last time i was in school was a million years ago.

So what have i been doing for the past week?

I got down to serious reading and became a full time couch potato. Which explains for my widening girth. Which explains for my chubbier-than-usual face.

Dean koontz is currently the guy in my mind right now, because i can never get my hands off his books. His thrillers are always keeping me in suspense even though the villain is already made known at the beginning of the story. It's the why and how the villain manages to turn the situation into chaos that grip me. And unlike stephen king's novels, there is always a logical explanation, usually scientific, behind the mysterious happenings. I like stories that have a logical flow to it, that's why i had a very hard time struggling to convince myself to like stephen king's dreamcatchers even though i loved 'pet cemetery'.

bookwormie

Lugged home a bag full of books today from the neighbourhood library.

One of them includes dean koontz's whisperers. I haven't read his books before but i have heard good reviews about his writing so i shall give this book a go. Others include annie proulx's the shipping news and my favourite juliet marillier's heir to sevenwaters.

Normally, when i'm on a book hunt, i usually get a combination of thriller, fantasy, and chick lit (haha), to make my reading time more exciting. If i'm lucky, i will add in some really good books (e.g. pulitzer prize winners) or war novels that are not too crude/technical but moving.

Quite excited to start reading them after a long hiatus. Where should i start?

Any good reads to recommend?

final chapter

My final paper ended last thursday and it closed the final chapter in my life as an undergraduate.

I remembered how reluctant I was in continuing a fourth year in nus because i was hardly interested in research at that point of time. The idea of being shackled to research commitments was hardly enticing and i dreaded having to compete with the remaining cohort which primarily consisted of smart people.

But why forgo something when you have the opportunity to pursue it? So i grabbed it up and went ahead with the fourth year.

I started with the new semester, feeling extremely insecure, because of the intense competition. My research project met a lot of bumps on the way and there were times i was so close to the brink of giving up.

I probably cried the most in this one year, maybe adding up to the number of times i cried in the years before that. It was extremely stressful. And it made me realize how stress could make such a frightening transformation in a person. I became so crabby and cynical about everything, i was sickened by my own attitude and behavior. But fortunately, i managed to turn around and put an end to it with the help of some friends.

Up to here, you'd probably think that year 4 was bad in all ways, but no there were wonderful things that i discovered. One was my interest in research. The search for a solution to my problems during my research spurred me on, and i had many wonderful people around me to guide me along the way. Which brings me to the next point - friends. I made many many friends inside and outside my research lab. Within my research circle, i got along very well with most of the postgraduates whom i initially regarded as pretty unfriendly. But little did i know, with some proactive approach and friendly exchanges at the corridor, they became from ultra-hostile to super approachable people. Guess that's why we shouldn't be so judgemental on the first time:) Outside my research lab, i got acquainted with a bunch of wonderful people who took the same modules as me. One would introduce one's friend and the other and that's how my circle grew. With all my close friends back in my early undergraduate years graduating at the end of our third year, i had no close buddy to hang out with during my final year even though i knew many of the other final year students. So i am extremely thankful for these new friends of mine who stuck with me through my ups and downs over the past year, and hopefully for many years to come.

It was really an enriching experience for me and it helped me develop in many areas that i wouldn't have the chance to if i had decided not to pursue a fourth year. The first three years were nothing compared to the fourth year, to be honest. Everyone in the fourth year would start getting focused on achieving what they want according to their future plans. And this was when i truly felt that this was the proper transition to adult life. Unlike in the third year when most of us would still probably be clueless about what we wanted, we would have been more rooted to the ground with clear directions to move onto by the time we were in our fourth year.

Time transforms people, and i am sure that i will definitely change in the next few years' to come with the new incoming directions to follow and new expectations. It's not going to be an easy path but nevertheless, i am excited to move onto greater challenges in my life.

Very apt quote i feel:)

mr big's to be with you

This is a song close to my heart because i have been crazy over it since the first time i heard it on the radio. I had no idea what the title was, but the chorus stuck to my head like crazy glue. So my little quest for searching that title began ten years ago (when i was thirteen), and i never seemed to be able to catch hold of the deejay's introduction to the song before it got played.

I managed to track down the title and the band's name only recently, thanks to their comeback tour promotion.

It's actually a simple song sang by some rocker-like men in their fifties now, but really the chorus is infectious i tell you.

Hope you guys will enjoy it as much as i do.

..:･yuka･:..