This little voice in my head won't go away.

No, I'm not going insane.

It's just there's a voice in the back of my head that's always saying something, something along the lines of "YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH. YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH. YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH."

I STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE THE 7TH.

How is it already 30th December and almost the end of Christmas break? Why has my Christmas break been shortened by a week this year? Why am I going back to uni after next week already? Why have I not enjoyed Christmas at all this year? Why is 3rd year continuously on my mind? Why do I not care about anything else apart from university?

My life feels so sucky this year because of the workload. Not sure how other people in my course are coping but I find this really taxing. The fact that I work at the pace of snail when it comes to coursework - I've grown into the habit of doing very little but often - not sure if that's a bad thing or a good thing but I've spoken about this to my personal advisor and I made it seem like a bad thing because the stress is ongoing. I rarely have a day where I'm like "okay! screw work, I'm going to just sit around and do nothing." In fact if I ever did that, I'd feel so guilty, I'd force myself to do some work even if it means sleeping at 5am.

I just want to graduate already and have a summer full of nothingness apart from sleeping, eating, seeing friends, eating, sleeping. Before another year of studies starts again. GRADUATION NEEDS TO COME FASTER PLS. At this point, I'm not even thinking about next year, or my future for once, I just want to get what needs to be done out of the way so I can actually consider my future (well my future has already been decided actually).

Something not work related. I must have spent at least £200 in the past week. Boxing day sales have got the better of me and I ended up buying so much.

• 3 pairs of heels (yes 3, don't ask why, I don't even wear heels out much unless it's to a party...)
• Jeans, a vest top and a checkered shirt from Superdry (I've become such a sucker for Superdry clothes even though they sell at extortionate prices...) 
• 2 party dresses and a clutch bag from Republic 
• A hoodie (even though I have so many already, stupid stupid stupid me)
• A cardigan I saw yesterday when I went shopping with Sherilyn

I vow to not shop again until the end of exams. 

Although I'm feeling slightly guilty, I'm also feeling quite proud of myself at the moment for 2 reasons - I'm not in overdraft for once in my crappy student life and I've still managed to reach my goal for savings.

NO MORE. NO MORE SHOPPING. EVER AGAIN. 

So how did I spend my Christmas anyway? I played mahjong with my family and totally destroyed all of them, I won around £17. 

Boxing day I went to my uncle's place and saw my baby cousin/nephew or whatever people call their cousin's children. He's the cutest thing ever. He was so hyper when he saw everyone and started dancing Gangnam style and forcing everyone else to dance. HE WAS SO CUTE I ALMOST COULDN'T CONTAIN MYSELF. Then the realisation came to me, I'm no longer the youngest Yu in my family. Huhuhu.

Not much else to update. My room is still incomplete, sadly. Everything else is done except for the cupboards in my room. My bed is here, I have a lovely memory foam mattress now that I can't wait to sleep on. Actually, I can't wait to move back into my room. I'm tired of staying in the same room as my brother. But I've said this many times, the excitement is wearing away a little as I have no idea when my room will be complete which is ultra annoying. 

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I made this entry to run away from doing my work but as I've run out of things to talk about I guess I'll have to start something. I think I'll do my methods write up now since my essay requires thought and I don't really want to open that document up just yet. I'm pretty brain dead today since it's Sunday and the weather is killing me with its gloominess.   

Christmas.

IT'S CHRISTMAS.

Well, nearly the end of Christmas but I thought I'd make this anyway. 

As usual, every year I spend Christmas day with my family.

Because my family are quite... traditional, we don't have Christmas dinner with turkey. Instead we do hot pot. I don't know how many Chinese families celebrate Christmas with hot pot but mine certainly does. Well, the downside to it is that I don't get to have a mega feast with turkey, potatoes and whatever else you have with Christmas dinner... The upside is, I guess I feel a lot healthier because hot pot is mostly boiled food. 

Anyway, we play mahjong as well. I seem to be doing well every time I play mahjong with my family nowadays, I won last time and this time currently I'm winning again. I feel like mahjong is 30% skill and 70% luck. For me, I was incredibly lucky to start with a trashy set of tiles and end up winning. I could just be blind and throwing all sorts of tiles out but I was always picking up good ones back. Mahjong is an awesome game. 

What else have I done today..? Hmm not much, I was watching Lord of The Rings earlier because it was on TV, oh and Shrek. I love Shrek. I was stuffing my face with chocolate as well. 

I'm going to my uncle's place tomorrow for dinner. Mum and Dad are going to be gossiping so much as Chinese adults do and me and my brother will just be there rolling our eyes as we always do. The joys of spending time at relatives' places.

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas!

I'm in for a chocolate paralysis Christmas.

So, my brother went to Brussels for the day with his girlfriend and came home with about £50 worth of Belgian chocolate.

*dies*

Also, Mum bought so much junk food home from god-knows-what crazy offers she's seen. Mum is a sucker for offers, buy one get one free - she buys more than 1. So in the kitchen, there's a sack of truffles/praline (truffles and praline are my FAVOURITE type of chocolate - I have such an awesome brother that knows what good chocolate is *cries tears of joy*), boxes of Ferrero Rocher (sadly, I love these too), huge bags of crisps (about 4 or 5), 2 packs of Maryland cookies (I love these too...) and a pack of chocolate digestives (and these...). You know what, forget Christmas dinner coma, I'm going to be in junk food coma this Christmas.

I'm actually really looking forward to Christmas this year because for once, my brother is taking a full month off his PhD - last year, he worked all the way up until Christmas eve or something and had only a week off. Also, what's even more special is that my parents will be here and not working anymore since they retired recently. Annnnd, I might be spending Christmas over at my uncle's place with their family and I'll get to see my cousin's new baby! The only downside to this year is our house is still a mess, the refurb schedule was all messed up since the carpenter fell ill one weekend so everything was pushed back and now things are still incomplete. Mum is paranoid about them running away (she watches too much Watchdog/Rogue Traders/Cowboy Builders), I feel a little bad because this one time she was close to tears - she has a lack of trust for these kind of traders. I mean, they may be a little slow at doing things but that's no reason to suspect they'll run away with your cash.

And yeah, that also means my room won't be ready by Christmas day :< I'm still shacked up in my brother's room and it's not really nice because he sleeps like a whale and sometimes sounds like one too. My bed is here though, it survived doomsday. Mum wants to build it soon but I don't really mind, I mean, whether I get to sleep in it now or later doesn't make a difference to me. I just want my own room back T___T.

Other than that, I still have a ton of work to do for uni. I'm falling slightly behind schedule because of laziness and my brother being home (yeah, I can't work with him at home because we end up hanging out too much and before I know it, it's already past midnight...) so, I might attempt to do some more work now.

Roll on new years eve! There's no way I'm staying indoors after surviving 21/12/2012.

When can I ever be happy with myself?

Another self-directed rant.

You know those days where you wake up just wondering what the hell is wrong with yourself? No? Okay, well I'm having one of those days, the weather is absolute shitting hell outside (excuse my language), it's affected my mood adversely. I woke up feeling like poo this morning which resulted in me skipping placement for the day (I love how the handbook says "if you're ill just don't come in", I don't even have to email or call up anyone to tell them I'm not coming). Furthermore, my umbrella is non-existant at the moment because it's either broken without me knowing or buried under some pile of mass somewhere in my house - so that makes going out a bit impossible.

I woke up to my parents arguing (I woke up and fell back to sleep a few times I guess you can imagine), yet again. They've argued a lot recently because of the house, the work is stalling, Mum trusts no one, Dad likes to vent, blah. Yeah, Mum still thinks she's being scammed by these blokes because they're working super slow at the moment and the problem is that they already have most of our money. I feel a little helpless because there's nothing I can do really, if I do find out that they've run off with our money, I won't hesitate to call Watchdog on behalf of my Mum haha. No, I'm serious.

Anyway, I'm making some sort of feeble attempt at doing my essay today. I'm still aiming for 1500 words to be done by Saturday so I can focus on other things in the next 2 weeks. Videos should take 2 days to code, methods should take 3 days to write up so that's my next week sorted. Any spare days I should be spending on my essay since almost everything is due the first week back and I know I'll panic if I fall behind. I'm currently on 664 words, I'll aim to do about 750 today and call it a day, maybe do another 400 words tomorrow and then fill in the rest on Saturday. I really would like a day of rest so... I'm giving myself Sundays off plus Christmas Day and NYE (only because I do plan on going out and getting sloshed with Jen).

I'll slink back into my essay now...

/horribleday
/stupidrant
/don'tworryidon'thatemyself

Franichi.

Don't ask what my new URL means, because I have no idea.

It's just a random word I made up in the last hour and I thought it sounded cute.

/weirdo.

But anyway, the new URL for this blog is now http://franichi.blogspot.co.uk/

(So make sure you update your bookmark, favourites, hide your kids, hide your wife etc).

Since it's Christmas break.

I thought I'd go back to regular blogging (even though I'm so busy still, ughhh). I'll probably blog about something that interests me daily (if possible).

[Anyone who is reading this who is trying to contact me and hasn't got a reply, I'm sorta ignoring messages on my iPhone at the moment just because I want to try and get some work started at least so I can establish some sort of routine/balance between work and play. I can't go out comfortably without at least getting a fair amount done =/ you could say I'm trying to become a study-holic this year - maybe a 70/30 balance between work and play. If you need me urgently or something, give me a call, I'll answer calls (because no one calls me anyway hur hur)].

Dad got caught doing 36mph in a 30mph area which constitutes to "speeding". It might not seem like much but you probably know, it's not arguable, you could be doing 31mph down a 30 road and still be a speeder. Anyway, the standard penalty is a fine and 3 points on his license, the police has offered him either that or pay the fine and do a 4 hour course and get no points added. My initial reaction was "a course? a speeders course? what could that include?" I mean it sounds so ridiculous, the rationale behind such a course is to change people's behaviours so they won't speed again. I don't really believe in classes/interventions that aim to change behaviour - a lot of behaviour is down to personality and an individual's personality is usually stable through life - unless you change personality, behaviour is very hard to change. It's like they're not getting to the root of the problem, if someone is a habitual speeder, it's probably because they're impulsive or some other personality related aspect.

So I read up a bit on the course online and what other people have said about it since Mum considered getting Dad to take the course so he won't get any penalty points on his license. I found that the course is something similar to what you'd do at school, introducing yourself (can you imagine... "hello my name is _______ and I'm a speeder." no duh!), getting together in groups of 2-3 and sticking pictures down on a large piece of paper, watching video clips with kids getting hit by speeding cars or motorcycles getting hit by speeding cars etc etc. Those sort of activities that aim to "change" behaviour, I'd be really interested to see how effective such measures are in actually changing people - in terms of data for how many of these people actually are driving at 30 in rural areas and which are still driving at 40 in a 30 street. I'd probably expect most people just take the course because they can avoid the points hence avoid their insurance shooting sky high (especially if they're young) and of course, the government get money for the price of the course (£95!).

Maybe the government aren't bothered by the amount of behaviour the course can change but rather they want to implement some sort of system where they can feel like they are doing something to prevent tragedies on the road. But of course, with such bogus classes, the speeders get away with being punished with penalty points and the government can get away with the guilt of feeling as if they cannot do anything about the amount of speeders out there.

Increasing the confidence within myself.

I think one of the main aspects of myself that has improved a lot within 2012 is my ability to communicate with other people and my openness to the world in general. 

You see, I used to be this shy little girl afraid of knowing new people. Within a setting where I don't know anyone, I would be the one that sits quietly, not speaking unless spoken to. I didn't know how to initiate conversations with people nor did I know how to get others to talk to me, to like me, to perceive me in a way that I want to be perceived. We're all human, we all want to be liked by others, whether it's popularity within a social group or giving the right impression to someone you just met, we all want to put ourselves across as a likeable person. 

Initiating conversations seems to be a skill I kinda... developed through this year. I never knew where to begin? You're placed with a stranger, you know nothing about each other, how do you start a conversation with this person as well as putting yourself across as a likeable person? There's so many things involved. Interestingly, you might have noticed you exhibit more than one personality in different situations. When I'm here, typing this post, I'm exhibiting a different sort of personality than I would at a club for example. Or you could argue that these are not separate personalities but rather they all make me who I am. It's just, I'm intentionally suppressing certain aspects of my personality (one personality) to fit societal rules and conventions. Or maybe I'm trying to make people like me by typing in a way that is intellectual rather than paragraphs of internet speak. Who knows? I don't really know. 

But to avoid diverging from the topic, the ability to talk to strangers is really something I value now. From the year I spent in the care home, communicating with residents with dementia who might not even know what I'm saying to them, who might forget me after every time they see me, who for every week is their first time meeting me even though I've been visiting for 12 months... You can imagine how scary it is being them. I've learnt way more from my volunteer experience than I do taking a course at university. You could even say, I value the gift of being able to talk full stop - which leads on to why I want to do speech therapy. 

This morning (or afternoon rather), I woke up thinking why I want to career into a profession where I have to talk to clients on a daily basis. This led to me reflecting on the person I used to be, when I was shy and generally unable to initiate conversations with strangers, I would've been satisfied with a simple office job, an admin job, a job where I don't have to directly assess, advise or interact with people. But beyond that, do I want to be stuck behind a desk forever? I'm not belittling anyone's job here, please don't take offence if you are someone who does work behind a desk on a daily basis. But on a personal level, I realised that I'm no longer the little girl I once was, I'm no longer someone who is afraid to talk publicly - this year has changed me, it has changed the way I see the world, the way I see certain people around me, it has led me to re-evaluate my life, what do I want to do? where do I want to be in 10 years? I'm quite happy to talk publicly, give presentations or whatever, talk to strangers. I've made decisions and thankfully I haven't regretted any of them. The things I put first in my life today and the things I used to put first in my life last year - I can really see the difference.

I haven't had the chance to talk about my placement much, I know I said I would but there are certain things I'm sworn to privacy such as what patients talk to me about I'm not really supposed to reveal. But I'll let you guys know that it's amazing to get clinical experience if you want to profession into something medical. Speaking to patients throughout the day when I volunteer is something I really like doing, I'm starting to really like talking to people in general. There was a friend I knew, he's much older than me but when he told me he loves talking to people, inside I wondered why and how - sometimes being surrounded by people is really suffocating for me - you know when you just really need that alone time. But hearing about his life experiences and what he's done made me realise that you can actually learn a lot from talking to different people. I've certainly learnt a lot from the type of people I've met in the stroke unit. There are new patients every week to talk to which makes the placement much more rewarding. It's quite sad when you hear some patients have no relatives to visit them often, when you have nothing to do apart from sitting around and taking medication, it's not really fun. Some of them even talk about the frustration of having to share wards with other people, they deal with not being able to sleep properly because they're not in an environment that they're used to, they have to deal with other patients that snore etc etc. I'm just glad some of them are really talkative, there was this really nice old man who I spoke easily to for half an hour about his life, his hobbies, his family. I mean, at first, I was worried about invading his privacy into his private life but these people seem to be glad to talk about their family especially and their children and grandchildren.

One of my greatest fears was actually communicating with people - ironic isn't it when I want to go into a profession that involves talking to random people. I guess you could say I'm almost there in terms of conquering this fear. I really envy people that can talk to others so easily.  

Suddenly not looking forward to Christmas break as much as I did...

... After seeing the sheer amount of work that needs to be done over Christmas, I don't think I'll get many days of doing nothing anymore.

Sorry I haven't posted anything in like, a week. In all honesty, I've been lazy and had a crazy last week of term (and a rather unhealthy one involving pizzas and alcohol).

Oh well. I'll take things at my own pace. I realised that when you keep thinking about things that need to get done, you just end up feeling more stressed. It seems almost impossible to get everything done when I look at it but I keep forgetting that most of the stuff I need to do have no real deadlines (apart from that horrible 3000 word essay that is due in for the first week back). I've just found it almost impossible to plan what to do. I guess priority goes to the essay because that actually has a due date, the research project would come 2nd since the deadline would probably be the week after I get back. And then finally the dissertation because I choose the deadline (choosing my own deadline, wtf?) so that can be done at any pace.

I had the best sleep yesterday after coming home from the BIGBANG concert, not only was the concert SO amazing but also because I had soldiered through the day, starting Saturday with a mild hangover due to the night before (all I remembered was pre-drinking so much I was already drunk at the door, being forced to take a tequila shot because Lizzie knows how much I hate it and how much it tends to screw me over, having more shots randomly throughout the night - many of them multicoloured that I didn't even know what I was taking...) I guess the concert was the defining moment of my weekend. The night out was fun too, the student union at my university tends to be rubbish 99% of the time but this one was alright.

So it's Sunday and no one wants to hang out with me *sniff sniff* my brother went upstairs for some reason and hasn't come back downstairs for the past 2 hours or something. So I'm all alone. The flooring in the house has been finished though, so finally we have some solid ground to stand on. I never realised how much I miss carpet until now haha, the floor is so cold! Maybe people tend to change their flooring in the summer rather than the winter. My room is still largely incomplete - I find it slightly annoying that I won't have a room to sleep in until January 2013 possibly. From initial plans to redecorate my bedroom has turned into plans to renovate the whole house. Blehhh.

Oh and for those of you interested, this was BIGBANG yesterday (sorry they look like ants, the seats were actually really good seats but all I had was my iPhone camera so... new camera for xmas pls). This was taken at the end of the concert when they had the encore and everything, I thought I'd show this one since all the lights went on and (holy crap, look at the amount of people) all the glitter and stuff went everywhere AND IT WAS SO PRETTY.

Oh and if a certain JESSICA RHAE IN CHINA IS READING THIS, I'M SO SAD WE DIDN'T GO TOGETHER SINCE YOU WERE SHOWING ME YOUR TORCH EVER SINCE JUNE/JULY.

I wanna go again T^T.

I think scraping the frost off the windshield of my car will be inevitable tomorrow morning.

So far I haven't had to do it.

Tomorrow, I think I'll have to do it.

-2C tonight. 1C tomorrow morning. I'm going to have such a fun drive to uni.

I'm glad this is the last week I have to be in uni, well technically nothing is taught this week because they're revision lectures but I thought I'd still go in anyway since I have end of term meetings as well as analysing interviews on Wednesday.

I have such a packed week starting Wednesday, I most likely won't be home until around 9pm since I'm swinging by a friend's house for pizza and some more revision (we're geeks this year, you see, the pizza is enticing though). Thursday I have my placement, need to go in earlier to get my ID badge or else things might get awkward in the ward with the "who are you?' looks. Friday I have the end of term party which will involve having a few drinks and talks with Jen before partying the night. Then Saturday it's the BIG BANG concert. Highly exciting end of week plans. Then I'll probably be relaxing from Sunday-Wednesday before starting on my mountain of work to be done for after Christmas.

Busy times. I cannot wait to graduate.

23 papers and counting.

Sorry to keep banging on about work work work but I've finished everything and have already started on my Xmas load. Workaholic much? Nah, I'm more like... relaxed enough to sit down and do some work.

Finished everything. That's something I honestly thought I'd never hear the end of it.

The main thing is though, I've submitted my masters application *cries tears of joy* it's been a long 3 months of preparation up to it, drafting and re-drafting my personal statement, going to the open evening in the rain, applying for volunteering/placements to gather experience to write about in my statement. When I finally got around to amending my CV (which, mind you, hasn't been touched for about 3 years), I was surprised by the amount I was able to add to it, every section has been bulked up so much that I didn't realise the reality of how many opportunities I've had these past 3 years.

Stroke placement - now, if you've been following this blog, you'll know how excited I was to be given the opportunity to do voluntary work in the stroke unit at Charing Cross hospital with Imperial College. I started last Thursday and yes, I was nervous, I hadn't met the people in the unit before, the staff, the patients no one. I was nervous because I realised I would be meeting about 10-15 new people including staff and patients. Being thrown into a place where you know no one, you have to make the effort to get to know others. Luckily, the ward is really nice, the staff are really friendly, the ward manager/head nurse is a really kind Filipino dude who let me choose what I wanted to do and kept saying he's glad people are volunteering to help the ward out. The other nurses are lovely too, I met a particular nurse that actually lives near me, I was talking to her through lunchtime feeding. She's from Jamaica and she has the most awesome personality ever.

So basically, the first day pretty much consisted of me running around the ward getting to know people, initiating conversations is something I'm quite bad at, the awkward silences when people are not talkative. I mean, I'm used to it by now because you get a lot of this working in a care home, when people are disinterested or when people are just having a bad day. I really think I'm developing in terms of talking to people, there were about 2 patients who I talked to a lot on that day. One was an old man who was really really talkative and one was a lovely old Italian lady who showed me pictures of her family on her phone. Was so lovely. Though, there were some who just weren't talkative which made things a bit awkward, especially if anyone saw, but you know, you just brush it off, let them be and move on to the next person to talk to. These individuals aren't ordinary individuals, they've suffered from stroke and have been transferred from the hyper stroke unit over to the acute stroke unit (where I'm placed). I think that I need to develop my skills in cheering people up as well haha. Overall, it was a good day, I realised I learnt so much in one day when I went back to my application for masters and wrote a whole paragraph on my experience.

I'm having a rather relaxing weekend actually, I've spent since Friday doing almost nothing (apart from finalising my application and tweaking parts of it, emailing my referees to let them know the deadline, sending them documents to write my reference etc etc). I just looked at the post title and saw that this whole post is irrelevant to it. What I mean by 23 papers is that I've collected 23 papers to read for my dissertation. I was actually in the middle of summarising it but realised how long it is and came onto here since I haven't written anything for a while.

Hope you guys are having a blissful weekend. BLISSFULLLLL.

Progress.

Essay is all done, submitted, checked (almost) thoroughly. It gets increasingly boring as you read the same essay over and over again. Once I've finish writing my essay, I dread having to read over it about 100 times before I submit it. I hate the feeling of going back to an essay and finding out there's more errors and then re-submitting it again. 

But all that matters is that it's done. I am done. So done. 

Today, I need to finalise my application to City. I think I'll have that submitted by the weekend, Courtenay said she'd read it on Friday for me. I had a really interesting talk with her after the meeting yesterday about SLT (I'm so glad she did her PG at City as well!) and I'm even more glad that she's willing to read over my statement. 

I just want to have everything submitted by now. I'm all ready to sit back and do nothing. Oh wait... 

...I have 5 things to do over Xmas break. 

Looks like I won't be having time to do nothing after all :< 

After my meeting yesterday I have to write up my methods section of my project, make a reference list to show to my supervisor after Xmas and analyse videos... That's only for my project.

In addition, I've got to collect 50 papers for my dissertation so I can have my second meeting with my dissertation supervisor. 

And also, my 3000 word essay. 

Oh my god. 

This is what happens when you choose to do TWO 6000-8000 word reports so I have less exams. 

Cannot wait for Christmas break.

TIME TO DO NOTHING.

I'll be free by the 10th. I'm so excited. This term has been the craziest term I've had by far. It actually feels like the moment before summer break starts - I'm excited for the fact that I can finally catch up on the hours of sleep lost through doing coursework, extra reading, driving to uni (I'm still scared to fall asleep driving), waking up early because the builders start work ridiculously early. 

I'm working on my last piece of coursework at the moment as well as the final parts of my application to City. Once I finish my coursework I'll be concentrating 100% on my application which needs to be submitted by the 10th huhuhu. I can't believe the deadline is so near. I was actually worried about additional questions part which asks very abstract questions such as what are the negatives of being an SLT? Describe one example of where you had to deal with someone with communication difficulties... etc etc. Questions which I always have trouble answering, but having spent an hour answering 2 of the questions, it actually wasn't too bad. At this point I'm really grateful for the experience I've had with people with speech and language difficulties as well as having access to video interviews of adolescents with speech and language difficulties and my fabulous supervisor for telling me all about it. I'm actually having a really good time this year doing volunteer work and even learning in uni. 

I'm just really optimistic about my future at the moment which is a first. 

Another one of these stolen from tumblr.

Another chance to learn more about me! Yay! /enthusiam

1. What is your middle name?
- My middle name is 書翹 (shu kiu) which is pronounced 'shu kiw'

2. Are you wearing makeup?
- I am indeed.

3. What colour is your toothbrush?
- Well, I actually have 2 toothbrushes (don't ask why), one is white and blue and the other one is white and pink.

4. Approximately how many posters are hung up in your room?
- There were 3 but since I'm roomless until further notice, none at the moment.

5. What does your hair product smell like?
- Er... I can't describe this, it smells like what shampoo should smell like?

6. Where would you rather be right now?
- Anywhere but home, this house is a mess, my parents are being insanely annoying. I'm just glad I've finished my essay in the library earlier.

7. What is the temperature outside?
- 11 C. Not too bad today but it was about 3C earlier in the weekend.

8. Have you ever dyed your hair? If so what colour?
- Multiple times. I first dyed my hair blonde (HUGE mistake, I was ginger), then I went back to brown, then purple a few times, light brown a few times in the summer then when winter hit, I went back to purple and now my hair is purple. I love purple.

9. What is the funniest word you know?
- Hemidemisemiquaver (yes, it's a real word, I remember when my piano teacher used to use it "hemidemi-wha?"

10. Name your favourite band starting with the letter 'M'
- MBLAQ (they're Korean in case you're wondering, oh).

11. What is your favourite pick up line? And has anyone ever used it on you?
- The only pick up line I can think of off the top of my head is "great legs, what time do they open?" (I know, I know it's so bad), it's not my favourite because I don't actually know many but I hope no one uses it on me EVER because it's one of those pick up lines that deserves a slap in the face or a kick to the groin.

12. Describe your first icon using only verbs
- Skip

13. What is the most expensive thing you have ever bought with your own money?
- A blackberry bold which I regret ever buying because it was the most overrated piece of technology ever.

14. State your favourite letter of the alphabet
- L (for obvious reasons ^___^)

15. What is your favourite accent?
- Northern accents are sexy as eff.

16. How did you celebrate the new year?
- 2012? I think I was at a friend's house party.

17. What do you call a brown fizzy drink that usually comes in a can?
- Coca Colaaaaaaaa.

18. Do you like fish?
- I do.

19. What is your most used tag?
- On tumblr? I rarely tag so this is hard to answer. Skip.

20. Would you rather ask someone out or be asked out?
- Be asked out... Actually I wouldn't mind having the courage to ask someone out. But that's quite unconventional for a conventional person like me.

21. What is your favourite Olympic sport to watch?
- 10m Diving.

22. Have you ever dumped anyone?
- Yes.

23. What do you want to be when you grow up?
- Happy.

24. Have you ever been to the United States? If so, where?
- NO, I really really want to go :(

25. What instrument have you always wanted to play?
- Piano, and I do play it. I wanted to learn guitar a while back too but that ambition drifted off somewhere and never came back.

26. Describe your dream partner's eye colour
- Green.

27. What do you order at diners?
- Anything with chicken in it :>

28. Coffee or espressos?
- Ew. I can't tolerate coffee let alone espresso, so... neither.

29. What is the most annoying song on the radio at the moment?
- I haven't listened to the radio in a while but Superbass was annoying in the summer about a year ago and so was Call Me Maybe (but I have them both on my iPod...)

30. How many contacts do you have on your phone?
- 77 contacts.

31. What type of music player do you own?
- 2 iPods, 1 iPhone.

32. Describe your favourite painting
- I don't have one, not really an art fan.

33. What was the best present you have ever received?
- My Macbook Pro this year for my 21st. I'm in love with it *shameless admittance*

34. Spring or Fall? Why?
- Spring, because of the random nice weather some days.

35. What was the last text you received? Who was it from?
- Aanisah telling me she won't be in today's lecture.

36. Would you ever paint your room pink?
- As much as I love the colour pink, an all pink room would just make me sick. I prefer neutral colours like beige and cream when it comes to my bedroom.

37. What colour is your underwear?
- Wouldn't you like to know? ;)

38. Favourite perfume scent?
- Harajuku Lovers Wicked Style is my favourite scent, not overpowering, doesn't make me sick of it after a while. Love it.

39. What celebrity do you think needs to drop off a cliff?
- Kim Kardashian.

40. Do blue eyes turn you on?
- Not particularly.

41. What meat do you prefer in a sandwich?
- Ham or BBQ chicken.

42. Would you ever wear a sweater to school?
- Sure!

43. What is the name of your current ringtone?
- I'm using the first few seconds of Jang Woo Hyuk - Shouting Out to Memories

44. Glasses or contacts?
- Glasses when indoors, contacts when going out. I like contacts more because they're unobtrusive but they can get quite irritating when you have a long day, wearing contacts for more than 8 hours is also bad for you.

45. What shoes do you normally wear to school?
- Converse/UGGs. I reaaaaaally want to wear my heeled boots but I haven't mastered the dangerous art of driving with heels on yet.

46. Where is your nearest television?
- Downstairs.

47. What is your favourite vegetable?
- Broccoli

48. When was the last time you drank milk?
- Oh ages ago, I can't remember when (and why).

49. What was your lowest grade in school?
- A 40 (which is a pass, you need 40 to pass a module), yeah, I suck so much at biological psychology.

50. Are you using Google chrome?
- I am, how did you know!?

Weekend full of eating.

I pretty much spent this weekend eating. I ate so much on the day of my birthday I almost felt physically sick.

I ate a lot today (since there was leftover food from yesterday as well) and I totally demolished my birthday cake - those of you following my twitter or have me as a friend on facebook would've seen it - luckily it was a small-ish one. It was soooooo yummy, I think I could've eaten the whole thing on my own /fatty.

Now all I have left to do besides worrying about the state of my incomplete bedroom, is my last essay of 2012 (so close!!) and my application to City. I'm getting quite nervous in terms of the amount of time left to complete it - deadline is in 9 days but deadline for my essay is in 4 days. So obviously, deadline for the essay comes first, but since that is almost complete (I'm just dreading referencing since ALL my references are everywhere, I did a quick reference count on Friday and I have about 18-20 at the moment but my saved references folder is looking quite empty...) I think I'll aim to have the actual essay completed by Tuesday and spend all of Wednesday referencing.

I.am.so.busy.

I'm also not loving the fact that I have to wake up a whole 30 minutes (yes! A whole THIRTY minutes!) before my alarm goes off because the builders start work at 9:30 :/ I get to uni about an hour earlier than normal so I head to the library. I think I'll be doing that until the end of term at this rate. On a more positive note, 2 more weeks until Christmas break! I cannot wait to spend the first week of it sleeping, eating and repeating. I CANNOT WAIT. Actually, I cannot wait until my bedroom is complete - they're finally doing the wallpaper for my room tomorrow *wipes tear away*, the flooring is all done upstairs and let me tell you, wood flooring is so so pretty. Though, I'm not sure if I like wood flooring in the winter, I miss the fluffiness of my carpet T___T.

Tomorrow begins another week. I hope I won't be scraping frost off the windscreen of my car tomorrow morning *cries*

Have a good week, guys!

Another year older.

I just reached my goal of getting my essay up to 2000 words today. Only 500 more to go (well I see it as 300 words to go since my conclusion tends to be around 200 words and is a piece of cake to write, referencing is another story though. Since I'm a 3rd year, we're expected to have around 15-20+ references for every essay). I'm dreading the essay I have to write over Christmas though, a 3000 word essay plus I need to begin my 6000-8000 word dissertation. Oh the joys of being in your last year of your undergrad degree.

I realised that it's getting increasingly hard for me to sit down and settle straight into work. You know, I found out today that I actually need to procrastinate for about 2-3 hours before I open my essay and get working on it. Once I open my Macbook, I have to do other things on it before I even remember to open the document I was working on. FML. I do other things such as blogging on here, scrolling through Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook (I don't even know why I exist on Facebook anymore, it's just to keep in contact with a few people that I actually talk to properly, but other than that... It's useless and a complete waste of my time. Actually, Facebook is becoming really creepy, since when can you see EVERYONE who has viewed your group message, it says something like "seen by 97" and if you click that, a whole list of people who has read your message but has effectively ignored you comes up /rant/rant/rant). 

So yeah, procrastination is good for you, guys. Don't worry about not getting work done, just do what I do - "start" at around 3pm, procrastinate until 6pm and then start some work. Hopefully you'll be like me and finish around this time despite "starting" 6 hours ago... You can even tell your parents that you've been at it since 3pm and only finished now, they'll think you've been working hard for 6 hours non stop and might reward you with something. Hohoho.

Happy end of November, guys!

My (not-so-homely) Home.

Ok so if you've been reading a few of my old entries you should know that I was having my bedroom refurbished. Not sure if I've mentioned but from having my bedroom refurbished, Mum has decided to have the whole house refurbished whilst we're at it.

Luckily we have some really nice builders who go the extra mile to make our lives easier.

Anyway, I made this post to show you the state of my destroyed house (and the procrastinate some more, this essay really doesn't want to be completed...)

So.. If you were to visit my house, you'd see this stunning staircase...

With no carpet...

This is my living room...

We've basically moved the upstairs downstairs, just imagine the contents of your upstairs (if you have one) being spread around downstairs. We literally have about 5% living space. Our 2nd living room isn't as bad as this, about 70% of the stuff is down here, suitcases full of clothes next door. Bleh. Believe me, finding things in this mess is a headache - Mum packed everything away without considering what we may need so... Take yesterday for example, I needed a hole punch and since it's in one of these 20 bin bags full of stuff... Let's just say I drove to Tesco and bought a new one in my pyjamas instead. Oh yes, I have no clothes. I only managed to dig the suitcases with my clothes out this morning :(

WELCOME TO MY TEMPORARY BEDROOM. Yeah, the small pathetic looking bed in the far side of this picture is mine. So tragic.

This is my landing. Done today, they stripped all the wallpaper off and now the walls in my hall and landing look like victims of a fire attack.

On the plus side, floorboards are being put in tomorrow in my room and everywhere else upstairs. Yay. Progress +30%. 

Not really liking the idea of waking up at 8-9am every morning so far.

How to stop having a bad day.

Talk to someone about it. Seriously.

I find opening up to people the best therapy for having bad days. There's always this someone I can rely on to vent my frustrations to. I wish I had more people in my life like that.

IF YOU'RE HAVING A BAD DAY, GO SPILL EVERYTHING TO SOMEONE! IT WORKS! GO FOR IT.

I'm home now, in a much better mood than when I left and when I made that blog entry earlier. I even helped my Mum write her email. I found spending the whole day at uni and a few hours at my friend's house just away from all the stress at home really works. I was in a really bad mood but being immersed in my essay and managing to add 600 words to it today has actually really heightened my mood.

I was talking to my friend about marriage and a whole bunch of other things as well, we have such similar opinions on life despite leading very different lives. I really respect everything that she's done and the hard work she puts in, I might not know about all her problems in life but based on what she has told me I really respect her. I assume that her family problems are much more complicated than mine because there's more than just the regular arguing with Mum and Dad involved. But after hearing how she has changed through the first 2 years at university has really made me reflect on myself and how much I have changed through these 2 years. University is what you make of it, for some like myself and my friend, it's a life changing opportunity that makes you find yourself and find out who you are. For others, they come out of university still the same person. Maybe my time for maturation was these past 2 years. Talking to my friend today has really cheered me up, she didn't do anything lavish or specific to cheer me up but just being there to chat to and talk about other things (we talked about nerdy stuff like science and how medicine can be bad for you - I honestly never imagined myself to want to talk about academics outside of university time) has really helped.

No longer the once angsty teen who would flip out and do crazy things when situations were bad (I really regret things I've done in the past), I feel like I've learnt to accept and open up to people more, being honest with other people, being mature, not holding grudges against silly things, taking other people's feelings into consideration.

You live and you learn. Whatever bad things may happen to you, good things are sure to happen somewhere down the line.

Having a really bad day today.

Anyone want to cheer me up?

I got kicked out of my house today at 9am (well technically, I kicked myself out because I couldn't handle the atmosphere anymore).

My day started off really badly, Mum came into my room throwing all my clothes around, she was packing my clothes up because the skip will be here later to throw my wardrobe away. Of course, no one could sleep through that so I got up, trying really hard not to lose it but I just got angrier and angrier in the bathroom.

Just a few things...

She was nagging yesterday about me having all my clothes piled up in my brother's room.
- I don't have a bedroom right now, how am I supposed to put my clothes all in one single neat pile when my brother's room is already a tip. I wish she would just accept that I'm going to be messy especially when I've been put into a room that's already messy.

She was constantly complaining about the amount of clothes I have.
- In case you forgot, I'm a girl. Sorry I don't have 1 pair of jeans and 1 t-shirt to last me forever. Sorry for ever existing.

She's constantly complaining about how much mess there is.
- In case you forgot, YOU have decided to get the whole house re-floored. You could've just done my room and the rest later like you planned but you should've expected there to be mess.

She's complaining about the amount of rubbish that's been kept behind that we don't use.
- Sorry but you're the one that decided to keep it. I mean, she pulled out an old ceiling light that she doesn't want to throw away but she'll never use it again because the original reason for why we changed it was because it doesn't work... But wait wait... If it doesn't work, why are you keeping it? (Yes, this applies to a whole list of things that she's been shouting about - she even kept our first ever game console - some dusty ancient MegaDrive ohohoho).

She yelled at me this morning because I needed to get a jacket out that she had packed away (I knew in trying to get it, she would cause a scene).
- She even said "I should've picked out my clothes earlier", well sorry but if you wake up unexpectedly at 7am and decide to pack ALL my clothes away into the loft whilst I'm ASLEEP. There's nothing I can do about it. I should've just gone out in my jeans and t-shirt and come back with a flu and see how she likes it. I think I'd do a good job in infecting everyone. So unreasonable.

The last one there made me mad as hell, I drove to uni at 9am because I couldn't handle staying in that house with my Mum bouncing off all the walls, slamming cupboards, taking out her angst on everyone and everything. I finished my lecture about 30 minutes ago but I don't really plan on going home until much later today. I know Mum hates mess but can't you just be reasonable and deal with it appropriately?

This was beginning to sound like some melodramatic teenage I-HATE-MY-MOM post but it really isn't. I've even provided logical arguments to defend myself against her crazy unreasonableness and illogical actions.

Someone rent me their house for the next few weeks. I don't want to go home. At all.

Just read this insane article on "tutor kings and queens"

Can you imagine teachers having the same status as movie stars? Thought not.

The article is basically about famous tutors in Hong Kong who are pretty much regarded as celebrities, rolling in millions because they're clever and improve people's grades at school.

If you've been to Hong Kong, you'll have seen it everywhere. Tutors are one of the biggest things in Hong Kong, their faces are literally everywhere, on gigantic billboards, on the sides of buses, in shop windows - you name it. It's ridiculous how much of a cultural difference there is compared to here, teachers here don't (or rarely even) become millionaires. It's the competitiveness of getting a place at university over there that creates so much pressure on the need for good grades and naturally, if school isn't doing it for your kid, you'd employ a tutor to help them improve on top of normal schooling.

But besides being smart, these people are judged for their appearances too. If you're clever and good looking, you're more likely to be employed (or wanted) by students. I think this attractiveness thing is universal when it comes to employment anywhere, studies have shown that you're more likely to be hired if you're attractive (of course, this isn't the right way to do things nor is it fair but hey, we're all human).

I'm just laughing at how these teachers don't dress like teachers. The article says they all wear designer wear and if you saw them in the street you'd think they were rich business men/women not tutors. Teachers being treated like celebrities is quite an amazing thing in my opinion, it's not something I see everywhere. I remember when I heard about making tons of money in Hong Kong and how I should become an English teacher over there (English is really valued in HK, if you speak both fluently, you're really highly valued over there - hint hint to those BBC/ABC/CBCs out there), my initial reaction was that I couldn't believe a teacher could have the potential to earn millions. But after witnessing the pressure of studying, the high demand for tuition on top of schooling and the emphasis and competitiveness of landing a place in a HK based university - I can see why people would be willing to pay so much for some super clever tutor to come and help. Although I don't entirely agree with the celebrity status awarded to such people, I'd rather see these people become rich and famous rather than some other Z-list celebrities these days (or the majority of "celebrities" out there today, in fact).

But at the same time, I really don't like this idea of glamorising teaching, sure they should get paid, but maybe not millions and as for celebrity status - I don't know. Teaching pupils should be a rewarding thing but being able to earn so much money from it might pollute some minds of tutors who might just end up 'doing-it-for-the-money' and forget about the purpose of teaching. I mean, can you imagine sending one of these glamorised, multi-millionaire tutors over to Uganda to teach children in poverty for no pay? The meaning of teaching should be the same worldwide but the purpose and motivation is being corrupted by money.

In the end, tutors being a big thing in HK (and other places in Asia - the article mentions a few places but HK is where I've witnessed it the most) is pretty much no different than plastic surgery being a big thing in South Korea - one emphasises the importance of education, the other emphasises the importance of having double eyelids, higher nose bridges and larger foreheads.

You guys can read this article here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20085558

Roar.

I hate Mondays. With a passion.

The only thing I'm thankful for is that I don't have 9am lectures. At all... FOR THIS WHOLE YEAR.

For you anti-morning people (like myself), do you ever stop and wonder how you managed to get through primary and secondary school waking up at 7am and getting into school for 8:40am. The heck?

Anyway, I felt particularly stressed today, just this morning I got to lectures and my friend was all like "you look knackered". I guess the extent of my stress is finally beginning to show through. With that said, my spirits went down when I opened up the lecture and saw a 40 something slide lecture and I was like "oh my god, nooooo" but it actually ended really quickly. I tuned into the 2nd part of the lecture more because I realised I had just been typing out everything that was on the slides for the first half, oops.

I got home and all hell broke loose. My parents are doing the wallpaper for my room at the moment but Mum is being a complete stresshead about everything. It annoys me because when she gets stressed she takes it out on everyone around her, everyone that's helping her. I was trying to help, constantly telling her she needs to cut more off the wallpaper for it to fit around some awkward corner - of course, she doesn't listen and still insists that everything she said is correct. I'm just like "you need to cut more, you need to cut more, you need to cut more..." and what does she do? She cuts like 0.5mm off. Each time, so she's been doing the same piece of wallpaper for about 2 hours now. Unbelievable. I left the room because she was taking out her stress on me - if you don't want my help then have fun spending the next 3 hours on the same piece of wallpaper. Mum doesn't cooperate with other people -____-.

I need to do my essay now.

ENOUGH.

I just cannot physically concentrate today.

The weather is ugly, my Mum is making a racket cleaning her room, my essay is going nowhere because I've just realised I have no interest in organisational psychology, the easiest part of it so far was writing the introduction, I'm still getting used to my keyboard cover, my brother will be home soon with his girlfriend, I'm having hotpot tonight, I'm going furniture shopping tomorrow, MY ESSAY STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE. I have a project meeting next Wednesday, I'm putting my dissertation on hold until Christmas break, my placement is starting in a week, I STILL HAVE MY ESSAY TO DO.

My birthday is the least exciting thing right now because I'll be slaving away doing my essay on the Saturday I turn 21. Sob sob sob.

Life just got 2% harder.

On the up side, I still have money *gasp*, normally by this time of the year I would be broke as hell but maybe because I've been doing close to nothing because of all my deadlines, my money is just sitting in my account waiting to be spent but is not being spent. I actually forgot I had money at one point, I used to be so obsessed with checking my account to make sure I'm not overspending (since my Mum was reaaaaally concerned about me being a spendaholic during the first year of uni where my loan was spent on things I didn't even know about). I'm getting more money in a few weeks time, but since I don't spend much anymore, I'll be moving half of it to my ISA funds. I'm so proud of myself, I've gotten out of the vicious cycle of spending-too-much-when-you-are-a-university-student. Actually I've been spending my money on technology more than clothes and food. I never spend on food - WHO NEEDS FOOD RIGHT? IF YOU DON'T EAT, YOU LOSE WEIGHT AND YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR MONEY - DOUBLE WIN. Nah, I'm kidding, I just don't like spending money on food when you have no one to eat out with. Meaning, I'd never go and intentionally buy lunch when I'm on my own (unless I have those long lab hours where I'm sitting at a desk coding *cries*).

Off topic but I love every one of you that reads my crazy blogs. Even if you're all stalkers that don't know me/know me but are still interested in what goes on in my boring life.

I LOVE YOU ALL. ALL OF YOU. YOU ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE INSIDE AND OUT, REMEMBER THAT.

I think I've gone a bit crazy sitting here trying to do some work...

People making assumptions about me.

Not going to name who but there's always people who will say you're this and that based on what they think and what they feel. People let their feelings get in the way of how they see you. Something bad happens and they don't feel good so they say you're this and that.

I stopped caring long about what people thought about me. Growing up in a family where the importance of appearances was emphasised, it wasn't easy to figure out who I was. During my teenage days, I was in constant confusion about who I am, what I want to be in the future. Heavy expectations of parents due to my culture, being constantly compared to my brother - there were times where I felt like I had to be a doctor or a lawyer in the future to be recognised by my parents. But I won't go into that...

I actually decided to study Psychology at degree level to learn about myself rather than become a psychologist by the end of it. I know very little psychology students actually become psychologists at the end but I just wanted to use it to find out who I am. I feel that university has changed me in more ways than one - I began to see the world in a different perspective. The purpose of going to university wasn't for the partying, university itself became like a learning curve for me. I started off not knowing anyone again, making new friends - the friends I made at university changed me in some way too. The different perspectives on life that they have, the different lives that they live. In the short space of 2 years, I feel like I've really matured in many ways.

There will always be people there that judge you along the way, even ones that you call friends, but the ones that really love you will stand by you no matter what happens and no matter what choices you make.

I CAN'T WORK IN SUCH ENVIRONMENTS.

I've been sat at this desk in my parent's bedroom for about 3 hours now. I've read one chapter of my textbook with 3 papers to read still.

It's because there's been so much noise around the house, my Mum painting, asking me to help her with her iPhone and now she's ironing clothes and sighing heavily as if the world is ending tomorrow. 

Oh someone help me increase my attention span, just for an hour or something. Someone silence this world for a moment so I can be productive for a while, please? PLEASE?

Note to self: NEVER EVER GET YOUR ROOM REFURBISHED AT THE TIME WHERE YOU'RE MOST BUSY WITH STUDIES EVER AGAIN.

Friendship.

Losing friends is hard. 

Not a loss as in they passed away but a loss as in them exiting your life because of some circumstances. When you stop talking to someone that you used to be close with and you do nothing about it, the distance between you will just grow larger and the next time you meet, perhaps you'll be more like strangers.

We grow busy in life, but true friends will always find a way to keep in contact. There are those that matter and those that don't, friendships are easy to make when you're young, in school and see each other everyday of the week. But once your paths start to differ in life, you're wondering when the next time you see each other will be. 

How has it come to something like this? Where you thought keeping in touch would be easy. The choices in life are yours to make but don't forget those that will always be there for you. We could not talk for months but the closeness would still be the same - I wonder if it will be like that the next time we meet? I don't even know why we stopped talking, are you embarrassed because of the choice you made? Are you angry because of what I said to others? Have you actually let this guy come between a lifelong friendship? 

You say you feel alone but you know true friends will always stick by no matter what choice you make in life. I'm not here to judge you on your actions, I'm here to support you as a friend. 

Rant rant rant.

My eyes are so dry from referencing.

I still need to proof read my essay before submitting - 2717 words is a lot to read.

My body is physically not cooperating with me today...

I left my tea upstairs for about 3 hours and now it's a cup of cold tea-water now.

...That last sentence made no sense, I know.

Today = big pile of fail.

I didn't know I had such confidence

Long day but presenting wasn't actually too bad today! I didn't know I had so much confidence in speaking publically. I guess I've probably changed in that aspect too, when you don't really care about what others think about you, it's much easier to speak.

Compared to some of other people's presentations, mine was actually really basic but I also felt like mine was most simplistic - other people had a lot of variables and things to test but I was basically just coding videos haha. I guess that made presenting a whole lot easier too? 

When I got out, it was like a typhoon was approaching. The wind was horrible and the rain was even more horrible. The short 5 minute walk back to my car felt almost like 15 minutes. When I got to my car, my car was covered in leaves because I parked in a bush since the car park I normally park in had so spaces (oh the awkward driving into the carpark with a car following you and then realising you have to make them reverse so you can get out since there are no spaces...). I was driving home with my car looking like it had been dragged backwards through a bush. Lovely. 

I hate finishing my day at 3pm because children are out everywhere from school. Just thought I'd mention that too.

I'm having a late lunch at the moment and trying to figure out how to transfer over 300GB of stuff over from my laptop to my macbook... I have an external HD but it's full of crap. 300GB worth of crap. So at the moment, I'm transferring all of that over to the PC which luckily has 1TB of space. Hopefully I'll have my essay submitted by the end of today as well as all my stuff transferred over to my macbook. This is such a long process. I wish my macbook didn't arrive yesterday... 

(Little voice in my head saying "no one told you to open it and play on it!") 

THIS WEEK? WHAT IS THIS WEEK?

A week of intense work on my essay, meetings followed by more meetings, followed by giving a presentation tomorrow on my project facilitated by extreme ugly weather:

See? Ugly.
(Ugh, this picture makes it seem as if I live on a farm...)

Well, actually Monday was relatively nice, today is disgusting. So yesterday, it was a straightforward lecture -> home day. But then it became home -> coursework (which ended up taking a ridiculous amount of time because I fell asleep) and then I suddenly remembered I had a dissertation meeting today so I had to prepare for that at around 9pm. I tend to never let myself work for crazy hours because that's actually bad for my health. So if I do start work when I get home, it tends to finish around dinner time then the rest of the evening is mine (see? I'm not abusing my health... much).

My MacBook came today, woohoooo. Early birthday present from my Mumma and Dadda. I love them both for spoiling me with anything and everything. I feel so blessed to have them in my life, providing me with necessities AND luxuries even though we're not a rich family. I can never thank them enough for letting me live a comfortable life and giving me things they never had. I hope that I can earn a lot in the future so I can give back to them *wipes tear from eye*.

Anyway, since I'm home, I bet you're wondering if I've had the chance to use the MBP yet. Actually, no, I'm still really busy since coming home. I'm actually still on my craptop, since everything is on here it would be easier (and I'll probably be more productive on a crappy laptop, MBP would just distract me) for me to finish my presentation on here. Sigh... If I didn't have my presentation tomorrow, believe me when I say I would've opened my MBP by now and be playing around on it. Not sure how much you guys know about computer specs but since I'm a closet geek when it comes to technology, I'm excited to be using i7 processor with 8gb RAM. I can already tell the MBP will be a monster to use (at least I know it won't be heating up to 90 degrees anymore...)

Since I've come home, I've done nothing but eat pandan cake, drink water and check everything but do my presentation. So I'll end this here, the sooner I finish this darn presentation the sooner I get to play. I hope everyone has a good day!

When stress hits you like you've just been uppercut by a giant kangaroo that knows how to box.

Not really but okay. Ranting entry.

Firstly, yes Mum, I'm aware that there's a huge, unsightly spot growing on my chin. You don't need to keep reminding me every minute of the day. Next thing you know, she'll be giving it a name like it's a new addition to the family.

I've got so much going on right now, today was heavily stressful because I went out to have dim sum with my uncle (of course, I can't even use work as an excuse because this is my uncle who I haven't seen in ages and you know how traditional parents are all about appearances...). But going to have dim sum with my uncle also means sitting there listening to these over 50 folks talk about the same thing 100 times before you're allowed to leave. They spoke about iPhones for about 2 hours, and why my uncle should get one. Dad even called my other uncle in Hong Kong using Viber just to demonstrate how awesome the iPhone is (to these old people, any phone that can go online are pretty amazing things). They were pretty much like "OMG FREE CALLS TO HONG KONG" "OMG FACETIME" "OMG FREE TEXTS" "OMG GPS" "OMG WEB BROWSING" "OMG EMAILS" "OMG VIDEOS". Slightly exaggerated account of what happened but I think you get the idea.

So it was about 4pm until I got home (we were there since 12:30pm, fml...) and so I sat down got a slice of cake and some tea and attempted to get started on some extra reading for developmental. I didn't actually get any physical notes written down on my sheet until around 6pm - why? Because I got an email from my supervisor about presentation dates and it clashed with my dissertation meeting date so I had to make a lengthy reply to my dissertation supervisor (since she had sent me quite a detailed one) to reschedule, as well as replying to everything else in the email - it was about topic choice so I had to read up on some of the stuff so I could write back. That took about an hour since I came up with yet another dissertation idea and put that into the email too. Too many ideas floating around, I just don't know which to choose yet - hence, I need the meeting to discuss.

When I was out, I also got an email from my personal advisor who wanted to have a meeting on Tuesday - inside my head I was like "are you effing kidding me?" I have so much going on next week I won't be able to make it to everything. As you can imagine, everything ended up as a mess since I was supposed to have the presentation on Tuesday but since no one wants to do Tuesday, I've had to sort of conform to the majority and go for Wednesday and reschedule the disso meeting to Tuesday and reject my personal advisor at the same time. I don't really like rejecting my personal advisor because there was once she didn't take lightly to me not attending things because "I thought they were useless" - actually, thinking back, I didn't know why I went into that individual meeting full of attitude haha.

(There's this stupid dog outside smashing himself against his cage and whining - why my neighbour decides to keep their dog in a giant monkey cage is beyond me... Just thought I'd make this entry as true-to-the-moment as possible).

Anyway, all that emailing and researching took a long time. So I started work at 6 and thank god, the workload was small-ish because about 2 of the papers to read weren't accessible and the other 3 that were were actually really short journals. I think my head would explode if I had to read another 2 x 45 page articles again like yesterday.

Progress on my room is slow. We've had 2 carpenters round to survey my room - the first one was really... weird. He didn't seem like he knew what we were talking about - I showed him pictures I took from Ikea and he was still kinda like "derp". The second one came today and he was awesome, I told him exactly what I wanted and he measured everything and scribbled notes down on this crumpled up piece of paper which I found quite hilarious for some reason. The first guy had some organised clipboard of paper whereas this guy had some scrap piece of paper he probably found in his van haha. Although the first one seemed more professional I think this second guy seems better - he was literally like a carpenter - can build anything. The first guy had limits to what size he could build things. Anyway, enough reviewing on the carpenters. The ceiling was plastered this morning - the guy came at like 7am so obviously, I slept through everything. I woke up when he left haha.

The ceiling is drying at the moment. Hopefully it'll be painted by early next week =/ progress is so slow, carpenters are so busy around Christmas time - I probably won't have a room until 2013...

*sob sob*

Another procrastination blog entry.

Yup, better get used to reading these.

I find that when I'm doing an essay, coming on here and just talking about random nonsense is quite therapeutic. It's always good to think about other things when you take a quick break from writing, it allows me to clear my head and think about things from other perspectives which I may have missed due to thinking too hard about things.

I was thinking too hard about an hour ago, it took me almost 30 minutes to try and structure this one sentence so that it doesn't contradict everything I had written (I have a bad habit of contradicting myself when I try to write too quickly *self confession*).

Anyway, progress on my coursework is surprisingly smooth. After this essay, I no longer want to read another paper or textbook chapter on how infants learn that objects still exist when you hide them. It's interesting, most of psychology is, but there's just so much evidence out there that it's overwhelming and headache inducing. After this one, I have another due on the 6th December about how organisations employ people. As you can see, psychology is very broad - I can be studying about child development to how businesses operate. Exciting stuff.

What's even more exciting is coding videos. I coded a 10 minute video yesterday in the lab and it took me almost 3 hours. I'm not improving at all since it took me 2 hours to code 7 minutes first time round. Not impressive, I had my sandwich and green tea in the lab just sitting there coding all their behaviours yesterday. Someone save me when I come to do 12 x 10 minute videos when analysis starts. Buhuhuhuuuu. What's more is that some of the people are really hard to understand, since usually individuals with speech disorders have some sort of slurring with their speech. Some sentences I have to play back about 10 times until I figure out what he is saying and add it to the transcript.

Uh yeah, so this has pretty much been about my studies. I feel a little more passionate about what I study this year because it's the last year before I say goodbye to psychology. Other aspects of my life have been dull-ish. My room is on standstill until I get the ceiling plastered on Friday, carpenter is coming tomorrow to have a look and see what he can do about my tiny room. I'm also being taken to Ikea tomorrow for some random reason which I don't know. It's probably just an excuse for Dad to get out of the house. I have no idea what these two retired people do these days - Mum wakes up crazily early (she stood on me when I was still sleeping in bed this morning - NOT IMPRESSED). Because my Mum wakes up crazily early she drags my Dad up to go to the gym. They invited me to go along as well but NO THANKS. Um, hello? I would not be caught dead working out with my parents at the gym. Oh lord.    

Creativity has run dry.

I'm no longer motivated to finish my essay (an extra 500 words done today is good enough right!?) So I'm going to do this instead.

I stole this off my friend Jen's tumblr, huhuhuhu.

1. This gets majorly personal, you ready?
 - I think so.

2. Who was the last boy you texted?
- My brother.

3. Does he mean anything to you?
 - Uh, well, he's my one and only brother so... OF COURSE HE MEANS SOMETHING TO ME <3.

4. Does anything on your body hurt right now?
- Nope.

5. Do you believe love can last forever?
- Oooh, tough question. But yes, I'd like to believe it can last forever but my mind is too plagued with fairy tales that I can't make a coherent judgement on something that like right now.

6. Do you have siblings?
- Yes, one brother.

7. Do you think someone’s thinking about you?
- Yep. You, who's reading this right now. If you're reading my blog, you're most likely to be thinking about me at the same time right? ;D

8. What’s the closest purple thing near you?
 - Biscuit tin.

9. Is there anyone in particular that you’re missing right now?
- Yes. I miss many people, I miss the closeness I used to have with my best friend, I miss my friend who shipped herself off to Beijing for 9 months and I miss all my other friends who I haven't been in contact with for a long time.

10. What is your hair looking like right now?
- Unusual ponytail. Lazy Sunday - don't ask.

11. Is there someone on your mind who shouldn’t be?
 - Not right now. But I often dream of people I shouldn't be dreaming about...

12. Say you were given an alcohol test right now, would you pass?
- Of course. Drinking on a Sunday? I'D NEVER.

13. Do you swallow gum when you’re done with it?
- Eww, no, who does that? The thought of a piece of gum stuck in my intestines for years terrifies me.

14. Is anything bothering you?
- Many things. Deadlines, room refurbishment, my car (hnnng my car is dying, I'll make a separate entry about this).

15. If you could go back in time and change things, would you?
- No. I've decided to live my life with no regrets. I want to believe that everything I decide to do is meant to be in some way, shape or form. This is actually bad according to psychology because I'm assuming I don't have control over what I do but it's giving me less stress so... WHY NOT :D

16. Has any one of your friends ever seen you cry?
- Yes.

17. Have you ever peed while on the phone?
- Of course, who hasn't?

18. This time last year, can you remember who you liked?
- Yup.

19. You never know what you got until you lose it? True or false?
- In some cases yeah, but then I think those people who realise it's too late only have themselves to blame. Of course, you can't predict the future but foreseeing the impact of your actions and the consequences that follow is something that people should do all the time /personalopinion.

20. Can you read other people’s expressions?
- I would say I'm pretty attuned to people's expressions, I have ideas of what their expressions show but probably I wouldn't say that I can read them 100% of the time.

21. Is there anyone that you would do absolutely anything for?
- Nope.

22. Who was the last person you talked to in person?
- Dad.

23. Doesn’t intentionally bad grammar annoy you?
- Nope, I like writing in good grammar but I love reading intentionally bad grammar even more. I know, I make a lot of sense right? :D

24. If your parents didn’t like the person you were dating, would you lose them?
- Depends how much the dislike is and the reasons behind it. I don't believe religion should be a reason why you can't date someone, but obviously people that have grown up practising the religion will think otherwise because that's what they have been taught from an early age. But in short, if my parents reaaaally didn't like the person I was dating and the reasons for it are logical, then I'd start questioning my choice as well. In the case of stupid reasons such as their background then no, I wouldn't lose them.  

25. Purple or green grapes?
- Purple all the way.

26. Do you open up to people easily?
- Yes, can't you see how much detail I'm putting in this blog?

27. Where did you sleep last night?
- In some horrible bed next to my brother's comfy double bed. Huuuu, I want my room ;____;

28. Have you ever had a best friend who was of the opposite gender?
- Yep.

29. Do you honestly believe that good things come to those who wait?
- No, sometimes if you wait too long, the opportunity will be gone LOL.

30. Do you currently have a hickey?
- Yes, I gave it to myself.

31. Do you think a lot of people think/talk bad about you?
- Not particularly, I'm pretty introverted so I don't really come in contact with enough people for gossip to spread haha.

32. Do you think tomorrow will be good?
- No, tomorrow will be hell because it's Monday and I have to wake up early T^T.

33. Could things possibly get any better?
- Yes, definitely. Get yourself out of that hole of depression.

34. Are you the type of person who likes to be out or home?
- I like a balance of both. If I've been out too much during the week then I would prefer quiet days/nights in for the rest of the week.

35. Do you wish someone would turn up at your front door right now?
- No. I don't react well to surprises...

36. Will you be in a relationship in the next couple months?
- Yes. With my textbooks.

I HAVE NO TIME FOR MEN.

37. Do you believe once a cheater always a cheater?
- So far, from what I've seen - yes.

38. Excited for anything?
- Stroke unit placement stroke unit placement STROKE UNIT PLACEMENT. I know, it sounds sad but I can't wait to get hospital experience. Oh and Christmas of course - hot pot nights and my birthday.  

39. Did you kiss/hug anyone in the last 72 hours?
- I hugged my brother and creeped him out :<

40. What were you doing at 12 last night?
- Tumbling.

41. Has anybody ever told you that “you could do so much better” about a person you liked?
- No. I don't think so anyway.

42. Anything going on this week?
- Lectures, essay doing, project training, 2nd essay planning, room refurbishing *dies*

43. Do you like someone?
- I like many people.

44. How has 2012 been for you?
- Interesting. I found out many things about myself.

45. When was the last time you really laughed and why?
- Yesterday, with my brother. We laugh over stupid things and I love it.

46. Who did you last hug?
- My brother (hasn't this question already been asked!?!?)

47. Do you have a picture of yourself kissing someone?
- Yes, many people.

48. How’s your heart?
- SHATTERED INTO A MILLION PIECES BECAUSE THIS ESSAY WON'T COOPERATE WITH ME.

49. Can a boy and girl be friends without having feelings for each other?
- Of course.

50. If you could seek revenge on someone would you?
- No, I don't have time to hold meaningless grudges against people.

51. Are you happier now or three months ago?
- Now.

52. Do you think you’ll be married in ten years?
- I hope so.

53. Did you straighten your hair this morning?
- Nope, I've stopped doing that for the sake of pretty, shiny hair.

54. Are you going to get hurt anytime soon?
- Nope, I don't think so.

55. Is your hair long enough to put in a ponytail?
- Yes.

56. Do you say sorry first?
- Depends if it was my fault. Funnily enough, I find it harder to say sorry when I did do wrong, but sometimes I find myself saying sorry for the wrong reasons too.

57. Is there a girl you can’t stand?
- Not really can't stand but there's a girl that drives me crazy with her biased opinions on life that by saying out loud in public could make people really angry.

58. Why aren’t you and your ex together?
- Because my expectations of people are generally too high and well, I have no time for a relationship at the moment.

59. What’s your relationship with the last person you texted?
- Siblingness.

60. Do you go to the tanning bed on a regular basis?
- Never been, never will go. I like rocking the pale geisha look.

61. Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?
- Yes. Speech therapist.

62. Have you ever been suspended?
- Nope.

63. Do you have strange dreams?
- Very strange ones.

64. When was the last time you did the dishes?
- I loaded a dish into the dishwasher a few hours ago - does that constitute to "doing the dishes"?? Hmmm...

65. Are you happy?
- Yes, marginally.

66. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
- Nope, I stopped caring about what other people think of me a long time ago. If you've read all my entries in this blog, you'll find that to be the case.

67. Are you in a good mood right now?
- Yes, I'm only 700 words away from completing my first essay that's due in 2 weeks. I'M AHEAD OF THE GAME, BABY.

68. Has anyone told you that you have pretty eyes?
- Yes, there was a friend I had that said she would swap her nose for my eyes LOLOL (I hate my nose, uguuuu).

69. Is there something that you want to tell someone but can’t?
- Nope, I've said all I've wanted to say to the people that matter.

70. What’s the last song you sang?
- I was singing along to Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing when it someone sang it on X Factor USA  because it reminded me of my best friend's 18th birthday where in the practice for the dance to that song, I heard it over 100 times.

71. Which is harder, telling someone you love them or that you don’t? 
- Good question. I think for some people, it's easy to throw the word "love" around but to some other people the word "love" has a really deep meaning for them. I think the latter is easier, telling someone that you don't love them doesn't mean that you don't like them right? I wouldn't consider myself a cold, heartless bitch if I told someone I didn't love them. But it's a different story if you're telling someone you don't love them anymore - now THAT is a difficult thing to do. Ouch. 

Supervisor is so sweet.

So I got the next load of work to do for my final year project and so obviously me being me, I wanted to do it as soon as possible so I can concentrate on coursework. The project hasn't actually started yet, though, we recently got ethical approval for 5 months to go ahead with the testing *woohoo* I'm still being trained by my supervisor with the software and coding and all that. It's actually the coding that I'm crapping myself about because it took me 2 hours to code 7 minutes of an interview. Each clip is around 10 minutes long and I'll have to code 12 of them. I wonder if I should just bring my sleeping bag along to the lab. 

Anyway, back on topic, I asked if I could get started straight away after my lecture on Tuesday. But she said I should get some lunch rather than darting straight over to the lab to code. N'aww she's so sweet. I would get lunch but I always feel like time is moving too fast for me. If I waste any of it, I could be in trouble. Yeah, I know, my logic is flawed when it comes to sitting down and having some lunch getting work done - but that's my workaholic side. 

I really consider myself a workaholic sometimes. Sometimes, because I'm also really lazy most times. But it actually doesn't take a lot of motivation for me to get down and do some work. I feel like I've wasted a day if I just sit around doing nothing so even typing 100 words out for my essay is still considered as something productive to me. I just have major issues taking breaks and stopping to eat, I'm actually afraid that I'll lose concentration if I break away from doing work to get some food in me. I can imagine myself wasting away when it comes to exam time, or even wasting away when I become fully employed in the future. Too tied up to eat hnnnngggg. Actually, I kinda contradict myself there because by typing this entry, I've broken away from doing work. 

So in conclusion, I can break away from work to procrastinate but I can't break away from work to eat. 

In other news about the progress of my room, the sockets have been added today. There was so much drilling and crap that I was awake since 9am, not really happy but I managed to fall asleep whilst checking my phone and making pointless half-awake tweets on Twitter and woke up at around 1pm. Nothing seems to stop me waking up after noon, I could sleep through an earthquake and wake up wondering what happened. 

Erm, so, my room... Still have one wall to strip, wallpaper stripping is actually quite fun. I need to get someone over to sort out the mould problem. I have bad ventilation in my room so it's causing nasty black stuff to grow on wallpapers FML.   

Anyway, I hope you're all having a great day wherever you might be reading this. It's cold here, I have no bedroom (still, and will not have for the next month or so *cries*), my desk is a window sill, 

Stop it.

Just because I don't say, doesn't mean I don't care. Stop looking at things from your own selfish perspective. 

Some people are so narrow minded sometimes it annoys me. Being incapable of seeing things from other people's point of view. There's usually a reason behind why people do things so before you jump to stupid conclusions, take a step back and think about why they did it. 

I'm doing this because I care, seriously.

 

Somewhat excited.

I HAVE NO BEDROOM NAO.

Woke up to start destroying my room. Not a good way to wake up I guess. I had a headache looking at all the crap that's accumulated throughout the 21 years. There were boxes after boxes after boxes after bags and bags and bags of things, I just didn't know where to start. Actually it was more like, I didn't know how so much stuff could fit into such a tiny room. There were things piled underneath my bed, things slipped into the gaps beside my bed, things slipped into gaps beside my wardrobe. Holy cow, I wish I took a picture of the mess. It filled the landing as well as my parents' and brother's room.

Anyhow, it took me 3 hours to sift through everything and decide what was to be thrown away and what was to be kept. Of course, I kept all my cuddly toys because I'm a cuddly toy hoarder - they're all my babies. But I think I must've thrown about 70% of my belongings away - I used to be really bad when it comes to throwing things away because I think about the value of it, sentimentally most of the time. But you know, gradually things lose meaning to me so they end up just sitting there collecting dust. Nowadays, I'm much better at deciding what to throw away and what to keep - I think to myself, will I use it again? how much value it has to me and where will I store it. If I can't answer those 3 questions then it goes in the bin and most of it does go in the bin. I really wonder why I kept some of the stuff I had, I mean, I still had my 16th birthday cards - I can't believe I've been hoarding birthday cards for 4-5 years! There were a lot of things I had in excess too, like boxes - I had so many boxes, stupid ones that had nothing in them but I just thought they looked "pretty" so I kept it. And guess what? Yup, I never used it again. Bin. I WAS EVEN HOARDING CLOTHES TAGS - WHY? Yeah, those ones you remove off new clothes when you come to wear it. Please don't ask. I was hoarding plastic bags too, I bet you're laughing at me right now. One would think I'm actually preparing for judgement day or something.

So now, I'm holed up in my brother's bedroom, he has a spare bed in this room so this will be my new "home" for the next couple of weeks. I've got big plans for my bedroom which will take a few weeks, maybe even months before I can finally move back in. Firstly, the wallpaper has to go, I felt sad ripping Tae Yang off my wall - he won't be going back on because posters damage wallpapers orz. I'll be wallpaper stripping tomorrow. I want to get new sockets fitted into the wall of my room as well, I only have 2 working ones right now and 1 broken one which needs to be removed. I have someone coming over tomorrow to check it out.  My ceiling needs to be re-plastered as well, there are cracks and pits in it. Then the floor needs to go, I'll be getting wood flooring for my room. I need to get a carpenter to design some cupboards and a wardrobe for me. And then finally, I'll need a new bed. Sigh, looks like I'll be roomless until Christmas.