Must stop eating chunky peanut butter / crema de nocciola as meals. Must get back to AutoCAD hell. But inclement weather is prohibiting me from stepping outdoors.

Thoughts on War:

I'm glad there's still sense left in some of us. I've been really disappointed by the indifference, or worse, pro-war attitude around the MIT campus. How is it possible that the most educated people in this country can be so blind and ignorant??

The American main stream media certainly isn't helping people know about the truth. I may be preaching to the choir here, but this deserves to be heard.

From me mate KK's blog:

Pictures from the last Gulf War published in the Guardian today, not pics of oily avian life or missles in the air or comic-like strategic diagrams, but photos of eg. an Iraqi soldier whose body's been pulverised to a liquidy goo with only the head in tact.... and generally well, of dead people, starving people and people grieving generally. Can't seem to remember seeing much of those around when the thing was actually happening... but then I was very young then and those WERE hong kong newspapers......*sigh* they should publish pictures of these more often, especially in America, but then they'd probably be slammed/ sued for
1) not doing their patriotic duty
2) disturbing the delicate sensibilities of US people whose idea of war is probably v. much like a PSII game.....

The articles accompanying the pics can be found here, but the pics are not on the internet....

Mucho Amor del Tipo [much geek love] from Nerdland on Valentine's Day.
[courtesy of Shortfuse, aka Nerdsphere Superstar]
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A belated birthday shout to my mate Jento!
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I�ve come to the conclusion that I�m highly susceptible to day-long schizophrenic transformations on other ppl�s birthdays, morphing from Hermit Crab in her Shell to Social Crackhead. Can�t decide whether it�s a good thing or not, cos I hardly ever party but I also hardly ever work.
Danced on a platform for the first time last night. Was fun but would hate to see myself dancing if I were anyone else. Must say the tequila shot and the presence of 4 sassy and not-so-sober friends helped dissolve all sense of dignity ;P

Azianz reprazent! at the Oscars, that is.
As cheesy as the Oscars are, I'm very happy that Spirited Away and Hero made the Best Animated Film and Best Foreign Film nominations.

spent the whole afternoon + evening in library / comp lab. Eyeballs are about to drop out of socket from AutoCAD incompetence / overdose. *eww*
But am movtivated today by sheer guilt. My dad had to lie to the parent of a fellow student; he claimed that i was double-majoring to justify my not graduating on schedule. Am v. v. sad that I failed to make my parents proud.
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Virtual Tuck Shop from my childhood :d [via muxway]
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The Ice Man Cometh: Ice Man - new story from Haruki Murakami, one of my fav writers. [via shortfuse]
If i can find time this term, I'd like to read something by Banana Yoshimoto too. [I had a crush on a TA whose username was banana, but that's another insignificant story.]

No normal person would spend a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon on their knees ironing plastic supermarket bags onto bits of 16mm film.

Except me.

The animation class instructor taught us the said "technique" of imprinting dotty coloured ink onto film, which partly explains my strange behaviour. With no lightable, I had to kneel on the floor next to the window to work. I had also inhaled far too much volatile substances. The cocktail of nail polish remover + Xylene [think Sharpie / permanent marker vapour but as a can of liquid] was supposed to strip layers of tint from the film. Neither "techniques" worked half of the time, which only added to my dementedness to try more of the same to get the look I want.

I better become famous. [as an artist / mental experimental filmaker, whatever]

If one day you come across a micro-short film with a man inexplicably lying on the floor, some psychedelic colours and random flashes of �_��, ������, men on ��, �j�k�}�~�|, ���m���p��, etc. etc., you'll know who made that awful thing.

Londinium etc. Part II:

Over �Φ~��, our family met the guardian of my lil' bro's friend, a Malaysian-born Chinese who works for the BBC as a news correspondent. We were also introduced to her friend, who turned out to be TV chef Ken Hom [ok, so he's no Jamie Oliver...but he is a good few notches above Yan from Yan can Cook] The two guests, both dressed in beatnik-chic black turtlenecks, were the best-travelled people I've ever met.
Jenny, the news correspondent, has just about visited every country on this planet. Ken spends most of his time living in France, and he entertained us with his ventures in search of exotic and exquisite cuisine. As the jovial dinner progressed, we got to hear the inside scoop on Jenny's news stories.

When asked which was her most memorial project, Jenny recounted her favourite - covering Russia during the transition period between the collapse of the Communist regime and the rise of the new government. Of her many anecdotes, I thought this was the best:

Previously in the Soviet, consumer choice, being the epitomy of bourgeois capitalist ideas, was a concept simply unheard of and was as alien as can be. The news crew decided to set up and film an experiment to see how a bunch of peasant women would react to a choice of soaps. The spectrum ranged from Chanel No. 5 (being the creme de la creme of course) to the skanky, rough Russian standard-issue, manufactured and distributed by Soviet government units.

Producer: "Which soap would you buy at a shop?"
The women were all at a loss. No one knew what to answer and all were baffled. When forced to give an answer, all the women chose the Russian soap.
Producer: "Wouldn't you choose the Chanel No. 5 one?"
Women: "Why?"
Producer: "Well...just smell it!"
So the women all did as they were told. Oh the revelation!!

-CIA = Central Idiocy Agency / Community of Inefficient Agents?-

[By now I'm truly ashamed to be American (even under normal circumstances I won't admit it, but damn my passport)]

As a grad student at Harvard, Jenny studied Management in Govt. Agencies, where she analysed the Iraq-Iran conflict as a case study. Guess what she found?
The American ground communication reports revealed that NONE of the CIA field agents posted in Iran could speak Farsi, the spoken language of Iran!!!
Makes you wonder about CIA's credibility, huh?

I've always been prone to believe in conspiracy theories. After hearing this, it only added to my distrust of American officials' spins on whatever "peace-keeping" they claim to be doing...

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Word on War

Take this with a pinch of salt.
The ex-Gurka chauffeur whom my parents hire whenever they are going to / fro to Heathrow, got word from his buddies who are still serving in the Army, that the date for war against Iraq will be 27th Feb.
Rumour has it that the old deadline was suppose to be 27th Jan, but it got postponed with new inspections etc.
I'm anti-war, but let's wait and see.....

oh the dread of Reg Day...am sadly back in Nerdsylvania, already drowning in the sea of geekdom

londinium etc:

-gossip-

B-list Cantopop starspotting: Miriam Yeung ���d�_ shopping at Harvey Nic's Foodmarket. She seemed to be on holiday with her family. The girl was actually not bad-looking in real life, prolly because she was fully made up, but hell she was short and skinny. I'm not a fan of hers so I didn't really look, but my mum was being rather unsubtle about the whole 8ing and almost made us miss the elevator.

-unfashionably late...-

1. Arrival caused by slippery runway at Heathrow. God I thought the English are used to snow showers. Apparently not, as the Tube and local train services were stopped, leaving the masses stranded in the Capital.
2. Departure [flight scheduled at 6:55 am] caused by:
i) 5:45 my oversleeping
ii) 6:00 Heathrow Express getting cancelled in event of heavy rain (?!!!! now this is getting ridiculous)
iii) 6:07 the need to stop by an ATM as I did not have enough cash on me to "fly taxi" ['scuse the Chinglish]
iv) 6:10 my panic as time was running out, and where I promptly forgot the PIN number for my credit card
v) 6:15 the need to beg the very very nice taxi driver to take me to Heathrow in spite of my lack of $$$
vi) 7:00 the gate for the flight was still not open
vii) 8:00 the pilot took forever to announce that the emergency door was faulty and needed to be replaced
viii) 11:00 the flight finally took off

-anti-wrinkle cream overdose?-

got carded when purchasing the 24 hour Party People DVD, rated 18 and over. The sales asked for my ID in all seriousness. He must have been really stoned, or severely short-sighted (without realising so), for the last time I got IDed, I was 15. I sincerely hope my DIY pixie coif wasn't making me look spastic. Or should I cut back on the seemingly ineffective anti-aging cream?

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

and to the fab gals in London: hope to see you this weekend. Sorry for the late notice, I've just decided yesterday that I should go, after my boss happily decided to end the internship earlier than expected. Yay nice, generous bosses :D

Big shout to Jenn: HAPPY 21st!!
That was some crazy partying last night. Mucho dodgy drunken dancing + giggling involved.
Jen, Mike, Joyce + Soohyun: mercy buckets for being such brilliant partners in crime. The plan to get Jenn hammered was executed seamlessly ;)
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I should stop watching Sex and the City so often. Is very very bad influence for it brought out the shameless side of me last night, after a mere 2 drinks. My usual self, the shy Princess of Decorum, was nowhere to be seen. I can't tell if the thick-skinned audacity was substance-induced, or if I'm getting older quicker than I realised and had lost all sense of humility. For the first time ever, I asked for a bloke's number.

The minute I walked up I realised I was making a mistake. From a distance, the blurred vision (from my contacts and drinks) made the guy look much better . Oh god. He saw me. Was too late to turn back.
"Excuse me, do you think I can have your number?" Oh god oh god what on earth was I doing.
"Erm..." Long ever-lasting silence. "That's very forward. I prefer to have a conversation first." Someone please bury me.
After an eternity and a half of awkwardness, Random Bloke reluctantly gave me his name and number, but I was too nervous and regretful to remember much of anything (for he is no looker upon closer inspection). My wimpy self decided to make a quick escape with some lame excuse about getting a pen.

Shameless behaviour ensued. After arriving at the club still engulfed in the crappy mood of "what was I thinking", I wanted to hit the dancefloor with my mates. Too bad everyone else was busy drinking. Out of nowhere, a studly white man asked me to dance. With "oh what the fuck", off I went. Is it the feature-enhancing darkness? the vast improvement over the last blunder? my low self esteem?
Good Looking Man was unfortunately also dodgy and too touchy-feely for comfort. To my aghast, the slimey man was an MBA student from my school. Aaaah! Somebody save my soul. What if I run into him at school? With that horrific thought I broke off in search of my friends.

I couldn't stop thinking about my gran's words of caution on saying no to men: "Don't be a soft-shell crab." Am I an over-aggressive alpha female crab? a soft-shell crab? �j�h��? �*o��? Aaaaaah. I'll shut up and stop boring you to bits.

Senior ball blues:

If only finding a man for the occasion is as easy as finding the perfect dress. The idiosyncrasies of American expectations make it look like feminism never existed. A girl can have the perfect frock that makes her feel a million bucks, (a white Sophie Sitbon number in my case: a reworked, too-good-to-be-true hand-me-down from my skinny, former-social-butterfly aunt) and still be socially inadequate / inept because she brings no male company to the party [read: Norma No Date] :(
In the eyes of peers, graduating from CLC sans Prom meant that I had a deprived high school experience. No men in tux, no limos, no hotel ballrooms, no cheesy pictures of couples.
Not that I missed out on partying: I had more than my share of Christmas Eve balls, when having polystyrene snow fights with my bros and cousins was enough to entertain me well into the wee hours of Christmas Day.

the road home from work is an obstacle course. Literally.
the "shortcut" involves climbing over / under multiple locked gates, trains on railtracks and more fences next to the ROTC building. It's my only workout after my daily 8-hour prison term in the suburban office, 1 hour away by bus.

Hence, the "brue-brack" knees, in the words of my dad.

when you need to shop, you need to shop:

even if it's -14'C outside and takes a 4 hour busride to get there.

Being the impulsive nut that I am, "I aint seen the Bright Lights on this side of the Atlantic for two years!" seemed like a good enough reason for a day trip to the Big Apple.
Armed with subway + street map and memories from a past life, I thought I'd be all set, orientation-wise. Duh. The streets of Soho looked familiar like a deja-vu, but I had no idea where I was heading and ended up circling around the same few blocks. (I was trying so hard to look like I belonged there. Maybe too hard for me own good.)
In the end, i did less damage to my wallet than I had expected. Which leaves me an excuse to make a second visit...

I did however make my second goal of the trip: the latest show of John Maeda, renowned computer graphic artist / MIT Media Lab professor, in Chelsea. It left me totally baffled, but upon reading the brochure, it all made sense - in that quirky sweet Maeda way.

ps/ When you walk into the Prada flagship thinking it must be the latest fashion / art museum, you know you're no longer in the league of trendy urbanites :P

3 silly things I've done this week:

1. Cut my hair rediculously short when it's -9'C outside.
2. Erased my existence from a digital photo - freaky how easy it is to remove your physical presence.
3. Cut, pasted, scribbled and doodled with the enthusiasm of a 3 year old in kindergarden, all in the name of a "collage animation" class @ the School of Museum of Fine Arts

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am back in hell (ie. school) *sigh*
and American Airlines has yet again lost my luggage *x$%y@!!!*
is the third consecutive time airlines lose my bags coming in from HK. Hate this country for its monumental inefficiency in public transportation alone.

Successfully revived my broadband connection and can blog again! [HK is getting so boring / depressing that I'm staying home to blog]
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10 most memorable things in Cambodia:

10. Alternative crustaceans for gourmet: grasshoppers + beetles the size of your thumb
09. Inversely sized flora + fauna : wasps the size of your thumb, 1cm long red ants, frogs the size of a fingernail
08. A high Modernist, Swiss funded + designed charity maternity ward in the middle of Siem Reap, buffalo + paddy country [i really want to know who designed it. It was pure cheap chic: bare bricks & concrete + bamboo louvres for shade]
07. Crowds of 3-year-olds selling postcards and souvenirs everywhere, "One dalla, you buy?"
06. Amputees of all ages begging
05. Giangantic buttress roots huggable by 7 people, silently crushing ancient temples beneath them into rubble
04. Granny-aged Western backpackers getting around on motorcycles
03. Tomb Raider was partly filmed in Angkor: they built the village set on top of a pond.
02. Pot-smoking, badge-selling police at Angkor
01. The stunning temples, needless to say.

Plus the sunny hot weather [35+'C everyday], the cutest baby boy I've ever met, the fresh fruits, the yummy cuisine [think Thai food, more fragrant, more fresh herbs + fruits, less spicy]....Pineapple fish soup, lobster lemon soup, banana flower soup.....yum :d